Koh Lanta

After a great nights sleep (no jungle noises and excellent air con) we woke to the sun streaming in the through the curtains. If you prefer not to be woken up in this way, you can actually request extra curtians! Our backpacking days are well and truly behind us! I am holidaying with Sergeant Major though so we dont have time for lie ins 😂

Breakfast is included here so we headed up to the resturant where we got to choose what we wanted from a menu and they cook it freshly for us. The waiters are very sweet although one looks very much like Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder as Simon rightly pointed out.

Apparently the best way to explore the island is by scooter so after breakfast we spoke to reception about hiring one for the day. Turns out the hotel have a selection of bikes that you can pick from so we settled for a yamaha qbix. I was a bit nervous when they said the bike didnt come with insurance and we had sign to say we would pay £1,000 if the bike was stolen. It didn't mention anything about damage to the bike though and the odds of it getting stolen when everyone on the island owns one were slim. At only £7.50 a day to hire it what could go wrong!

I didnt feel comfortable driving and Simon is a terrible back seat driver at the best of times so I happily left him in charge of the wheel (or handlebars) but imposed a very strict speed limit. After Si had a quick wizz around to get to grips with the bike before I hopped on the back we headed towards Old Town on the East side of the island. It was a lot more touristy than I was expecting with lots of souvenir shops but we did manage to pick up a couple of magnets. It kind of reminded me of an old town from a old western movie crossed with a Cornish seaside town selling tourist tat.

For lunch we stopped at a restaurant right on the water called Caoutchouc. It was a cute little place run by a sweet French man who also lived there as we could see into his bedroom. It was a very simple receipe of either a wrap, salad or spaghetti so Si went for the chicken wrap and I opted for a feta salad, both of which were quite tasty.

After lunch we headed back over to the other side of the island to check out the many beaches lining the West Coast and stopped when we found a nice looking beach for a bit of a lie down and dip in the sea. This was very short lived as it turned out to be ridicuously windy and within minutes of getting out of the water we were covered head to toe in sand! It was very similar to when we were on the beach in Byron Bay with Maddy. We therefore jumped back on the bike in search of a less windy beach which turned out was like looking for the holy grail. After another pitstop on another windy beach I was ready to go back to the hotel and lie on a sunlounger next to the pool!

For dinner we headed to a vegetarian restaurant I found with amazing reviews and only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. It was so scrummy even Si enjoyed it. For starter we shared a mixed Thai appetizer which consisted of spring rolls, samosas and grilled tofu with some scrummy dips! Then for main we shared pineapple fried rice and massaman curry. Feeling very full we headed back to the hotel for some cocktails in the hotel bar.Read more