THAILAND: Beaches, Tuk Tuks, Pad Thai

After Beijing, we spent the next 8 days exploring a few of the islands in Thailand. We spent 5 nights in Koh Lanta, one of the less touristy islands on the west side, as well as 3 nights in Ao Nang Beach, which is right outside the main city of Krabi. Much of our time in both areas was spent either at the beach or eating some version of pad thai. We were really looking forward to our time in Thailand, and I’m not going to lie, it isn’t a bad thing when your biggest stress at the time is “what beach should we go to today?”.

KOH LANTA

We had to wake up at 3:45AM to leave Beijing and make it to the airport on time for our flight that morning to Thailand. Luckily we made it through check-in pretty easily, so we grabbed a quick breakfast before boarding the 5 hour flight to Bangkok. However, our final destination was Koh Lanta. So after a 2 hour layover, we hopped on another flight, this one only 1 hour, to Krabi. From Krabi it was a 2 hour drive to our hotel in Koh Lanta, but the exhaustion seem to disappear for a bit as we approached the island and witnessed all of the greenery and beauty. Since Koh Lanta is an island, the car we were in boarded a ferry to travel across the water and get to the island.

On the ferry

Upon arriving to our hotel, Chaw Ka Cher, we received some delicious beverages and appreciated the stylish decor in the reception area before checking into our room.

Welcome Beverage at Chaw Ka Cher & View of Swimming Pool from our room

Reception Area

After checking in, we ended up grabbing dinner at the hotel restaurant and then took a short walk down to one of the beaches nearby. Both Andrew and I knew we had made the right decision on coming to Thailand as it already felt very remote and relaxing. We enjoyed a couple of drinks on the beach as we watched a distant thunderstorm light up the night’s sky, which was already pretty bright with the full moon. Needless to say it was an extremely long travel day and the exhaustion caught up with us by this time, so we were looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

When we woke up we decided it would be a good idea to go for a run – however we immediately regretted our decision, as we didn’t take into consideration the humidity and the heat that already existed at 8 in the morning. It was a brutal run – we were both struggling. After we finally made it back to our hotel, we grabbed breakfast at the hotel before heading out to explore one of the nearby beaches. However, this was not before my daily morning ritual in Thailand, which consisted of putting bug spray over my entire body, and then sunscreen on top of that. Most people know that I’m extremely susceptible to mosquito bites, so I didn’t want to take any chances. Fortunately I only ended up getting about 4 bites during our entire time in Thailand!

There are 2 main beaches in Koh Lanta – Long Beach and Khlong Khong Beach. However, there are also numerous private beaches along the island, so we decided to check out one of these. We stumbled upon this beach that was a short 5-10 minute walk from our hotel and it was absolutely beautiful. The best part about it was that there were hardly any people there, so we basically had the entire beach to ourselves. The water was so blue, the sand was soft, and it made for a very relaxing beach day. In regards to the weather, we didn’t really know what to expect since the forecast showed thunderstorms and about 88 degrees every single day. However, we were lucky and had beautiful, sunny weather for a majority of the time we were there and only experienced a bit of rain.

The deserted path as we walked down to the private beach

After some prime beach time, we headed back to the hotel and rented a scooter. It seemed that this was one of the main ways to get around the island, as we witnessed both locals and tourists maneuvering around the island on scooters. The other major way to get around was on these vehicles known as “tuk tuks”, which we took plenty of. Not the safest vehicles, but a common way to get around on the islands.

Tuk Tuk

We decided to take the scooter down to Long Beach, one of the main beaches in Koh Lanta, and grab some lunch. One of the main things to note about food in Thailand, at least in the islands, is that when you sit down for your meal, you need to ask yourself if you’re in the mood for Thai food or Western food. Western food included things like club sandwiches, pasta, pizza, etc… Almost every single restaurant we ate at had menus with numerous items on the menu, as well as pictures showcasing what each item was. It’s interesting because in Europe we were told to not eat at any restaurant where the menu had a “long list of items”, as well as pictures on the menus, because those were considered tourist traps. However in Asia, multiple items and pictures on the menu seemed to be a normality in both China and Thailand. We opted for Thai food, as we felt inclined to eat as the locals do on our first full day in Thailand.

Another thing you see EVERYWHERE in Thailand is massage places, especially right on the beaches. They’re extremely cheap, compared to back home (around $10 for a 1 hour massage), so I was looking forward to taking advantage of this at some point.

View from our lunch restaurant

Long Beach

Andrew & I on the scooter

After a relaxing day spent at 2 different beaches, we decided to check out Saladan, the northern part of the island. Saladan had numerous restaurants, massage places, and night markets with a variety of items. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant we ate at, but it had OK Thai food. The real treat was the magnificent view we had of the full moon from the restaurant’s pier. It was beautiful and lit up the water. After dinner we checked out a few of the markets, where I worked on my negotiation skills. We had been told that you should try negotiating for anything you want to buy in Thailand and never consider the first price they give you the “final price”.

After checking out one of the local gyms the next morning, we went to explore the other main beach in Koh Lanta, Khlong Khong. The beach was OK – it was extremely rocky, so it was hard to find a good place to lay out. Although still beautiful, Andrew and I both agreed that we preferred Long Beach better. We enjoyed another beachfront lunch and then decided to take the scooter for a ride around the southern part of the island. We got lost as we tried to find a beach Andrew had found earlier on his map, but it was a good thing as we stumbled across some of the beauty of the island we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. There was so much greenery everywhere and magnificent views of the water from some of the higher elevations.

Khlong Khong Beach

Riding along on the scooter

After going back to the hotel and booking a few other items for the latter part of this trip, we decided we were in the mood for something other than Thai food. We decided to check out this Irish pub called The Irish Embassy for dinner before hitting up a few of the local bars. We checked out a place called The Funky Monkey, where I tried convincing Andrew to get up on the stage and partake in the karaoke, but unfortunately he didn’t want to unleash his beautiful voice on the people of Koh Lanta.  We ended the night at a bar on the beach where we enjoyed another beautiful night.

We went to a place called Lym’s Bar & Restaurant the next day for lunch and we both agreed it was the best Thai food we had thus far. The pad thai was delicious, and we had a yellow crab curry dish, which was full of flavor.

View from Lym’s Bar & Restaurant

After lunch we headed back to our hotel to get ready for a cooking class we had booked! After some online research, we had found a cooking class with a company called Time For Lime. One of the main reasons we went with this company was that a major portion of the cooking class fee goes to support Lanta Animal Welfare, which gives vital help both to stray and owned animals on the island, so we figured it was a win win for both us and the animals. The beachfront cooking class lasted about 6 hours, and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this interactive class. The Thai cooking teacher, Mai, was hilarious and spent the first hour teaching us the basics of Thai cuisine, including the different sauces and spices considered “staples” in Thai dishes.

Our cooking stations

Pre-cooking snack including a few of the main ingredients seen in many Thai dishes

Our teacher Mai instructing us on the basics of Thai cooking

After Mai’s introduction to Thai cooking, we each settled into our cooking stations in the kitchen. The first dish we all worked on was a Green Curry Paste, but unfortunately we were just making it for the next day’s class. However, it was interesting to learn how to make fresh curry, as opposed to using the pre-packaged ones in the stores.

Andrew chopping up his Green Curry paste ingredients

Afterwards, we began to prepare our first 2 (of 4) dishes for the evening. The first 2 dishes were Papaya Salad and Pad Thai, 2 of the most popular Thai dishes.

Papaya Salad ingredients

Cooking the Pad Thai

The final results – Shrimp Pad Thai and Papaya Salad

After enjoying both the Pad Thai and Papaya salad in the upstairs dining area, we went back into the kitchen to finish our final 2 dishes – Chicken(or Fish) with Sauce, as well as Stir-fried Morning Glory (also known as water spinach). Mai kept the entire class fun and interesting, while including a bit of insight into her life growing up in Thailand and the love and passion that goes into each dish.

The final results – Stir-Fried Morning Glory and Chicken w/ Sauce

Overall we had a great experience learning all about Thai cuisine and are looking forward to making a few of the dishes when we get back home!

The next morning we got ready to head out for the day trip we booked to the islands of Koh Phi Phi, a more populated and touristy area than Koh Lanta. We were picked up from our hotel in an open-air shuttle truck, a vehicle that would definitely not pass safety regulations in the US. Once on board, we met a couple from England, Megan and Jamie. We learned they were on holiday and spending some time in Thailand before moving to Melbourne, Australia. We enjoyed getting to know them and found out they were heading to Ao Nang Beach the very next day, which is where our next stop in Thailand was as well.

We boarded a high-speed ferry and set out for the first stop on our day trip to Koh Phi Phi, which was Maya Bay. For those not aware, Maya Bay was where The Beach was filmed, a popular movie starring Leonardo Di Caprio. While the area surrounding Maya Bay was beautiful, we were saddened to see how polluted the water had become with the constant boats going in and out of the bay. There were also hundreds of people on the beach, so it was extremely congested and not as relaxing as we might have hoped. However, we still managed to get some great shots of the beautiful scenery.

Maya Bay

Our next stop was Monkey Beach, where we were able to snorkel a bit and, of course, see some monkeys! There were so many monkeys on the beach and it was so fun to watch them interacting with each other. There were adult monkeys, as well as baby monkeys.

Monkey Beach

So many monkeys!

After leaving Monkey Beach, we headed to Bamboo Island. We learned the only reason this island is called Bamboo Island is due to this one stick of bamboo that exists in the middle of the island.

Bamboo Island

One stick of bamboo on Bamboo Island

We had lunch and relaxed on the beach for a bit before heading to our final stop on our day trip, Phi Phi Don. Phi Phi Don is where a majority of the actual hotels exist on Koh Phi Phi, as well as numerous restaurants, bars, and tourist shops. We were a bit “beached out”, so we decided to go to one of the beachfront bars with Megan and Jamie and grab a drink before heading back to Koh Lanta.

Phi Phi Don

The ferry dropped us back off on the beach in Koh Lanta and I decided I wanted to try one of the beach massages. We went back to where we had lunch the day before (Lym’s) and I was able to get a massage in a treehouse (only $10.50 USD for an hour!), while Andrew relaxed with a couple of beers and watched the sunset. We grabbed some delicious pizza at a local pizzeria (Bajen Pizzeria) before heading back to the hotel to pack up and leave for Ao Nang Beach the next day. It was a nice and relaxing way to end a long day.

My treehouse massage on the beach

Beautiful Sunset (Captured by Andrew)

We woke up early and decided to head back to our private beach one last time before leaving Koh Lanta that afternoon. We lucked out because we arrived early enough that there was not a single person on the beach with us.

We went into town down the road to grab a quick lunch before we left and we noticed that the tuk tuk had a Chelsea banner!

After lunch we headed down to the ferry, which would take us to our next destination in Thailand – Ao Nang Beach.

AO NANG BEACH

The ferry from Koh Lanta to Ao Nang Beach was just under 2 hours, and luckily it had AC since it was fairly hot and humid outside. We ran into our friends Megan and Jamie on the ferry, whom we had met during our day trip to Koh Phi Phi, and decided we would meet up with them later that night for a drink in Ao Nang.

Ferry Ride to Ao Nang

Upon arriving to Ao Nang Beach, we immediately noticed a major difference between this beach town and Koh Lanta. There were a lot more people in Ao Nang and it seemed to be built up a bit more, especially after we saw a McDonald’s and Starbucks. We arrived at our hotel, The L, and were excited to see it was directly across the street from the beach and right in the middle of the main part of town. We’ve noticed when booking places online, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re booking a good area, but we definitely lucked out with this place.

Honeymoon Love

Andrew right outside of our hotel

We unpacked a few of our things and took a look around before heading to dinner at a place we found called Jenna’s Bistro & Wine. Needless to say, we were craving something that wasn’t Thai food. This restaurant actually ended up being really good and they even had a meat & cheese platter, which was delicious!

During dinner it started to rain pretty heavily, so we were happy we had our hotel umbrella. It seems that the rain can come out of nowhere, as we experienced random outbursts of rain a couple more times during our time here. After dinner we headed to Boogie Bar, a local bar that is very popular and has a live band play every night. We met up with our friends Megan and Jamie and spent a few hours listening to some good music and enjoying some delicious beverages.

Boogie Bar – Acoustic singer before the band came on

Megan, Jamie, Andrew & myself with our server in the middle 

The next day we grabbed some Thai food for lunch and explored the city a bit. We noticed that like Koh Lanta, there were *numerous* massage places, as well as tourist shops with things like T-shirts and magnets. We checked out the actual Ao Nang beach, since it was a nice day, but decided to hang out by our hotel pool instead for the latter part of the afternoon.

We had decided to meet up with Megan and Jamie again that night and have dinner with them at one of the beachfront restaurants called The Last Fisherman. I finally got to to try the famous mangos with sticky rice – I enjoyed it, Andrew didn’t care for it.

After dinner we all headed back to Boogie Bar, as Andrew had found out they were going to be showing the Chelsea game that night. Fortunately Chelsea won, so the night ended well and Andrew was a happy camper.

The next day was our last full day in Ao Nang, so we decided to take a long tail boat to one of the nearby beaches known as Railay Beach. As we took the 15 minute ride over in the boat, we realized it was going to be a beautiful day and were thankful for the nice weather. Railay Beach is an absolutely beautiful beach, and we highly recommend you check it out if you’re in the Krabi/Ao Nang area. It’s a small beach, only accessible by boat, so there isn’t a ton of restaurants or shops, but it’s definitely a good day trip.

Railay Beach

 

Long tail boats that take you to Railay Beach

We enjoyed some delicious fruit smoothies, relaxed both on the sand and in the water, and enjoyed a nice Thai lunch during our day at Railay Beach. After we felt our bodies had enough sun for the day, we hopped on another long tail boat to head back to Ao Nang. We were fortunate enough to catch a beautiful sunset right outside of our hotel.

We grabbed dinner at a local Italian restaurant, which actually ended up being really good, before heading back to the hotel to pack up and leave the next morning.

Fortunately the hotel provided transportation to the Krabi airport, which was about 45 minutes from our hotel in Ao Nang. Once arriving there, we took a 1 hour flight back to Bangkok, where we had a 12 hour layover until our midnight flight out to our next destination. We took advantage of the time we had and planned to spend the day checking out the city of Bangkok.

One of the first things anyone visiting Thailand would notice is the numerous memorials and tributes that are placed around the cities in memory of their King who had recently passed. He was incredibly beloved by all of the Thai people and you could see the effect his presence had on the people of Thailand. We went to check out The Grand Palace in Bangkok, and there were hundreds of Thai people dressed in black, waiting in line to pay their respects to the late King.

We both had to borrow clothes to wear since my leggings weren’t allowed, and neither were Andrew’s shorts.

Royal Chapel of the Emerald Buddha

The Grand Palace

We also checked out Wat Po, a famous Buddhist temple right next to The Grand Palace.

Wat Po

Reclining Buddha

My friend Katie had let us know about a place called Thip Samai, which apparently was where pad thai originated, so we decided to check it out. The pad thai did not disappoint and we were lucky to get there before the line started to form outside.

On the left: Pad Thai wrapped in egg – Delicious

We decided to head back to the airport early so we could hang out in an air conditioned building until our flight. As we went to board the metro we had taken into the city from the airport, we were overwhelmed by the amount of people getting on the train. You would think it was completely full, yet a couple of people would walk by one of the door entrances and squeeze themselves inside so they didn’t have to wait for the next one. We were literally sardined next to each other in this metro train. Fortunately we got on and found a spot under the A/C, so it was nice and cool in a very small, crowded space.

Andrew and I really enjoyed Thailand and wished we had spent more time in the islands. We’ll definitely be back to explore more of the islands in the future. However, now we’re off to our final country to explore – Australia!