Two English Bangers Sizzling With Danish Rashers
Trip Start
Nov 08, 2003
1
21
74
Trip End
Oct 22, 2004
Ko Lanta,
Thailand
Saturday, March 20, 2004
20/02/04
At noon the Spa van took us back to the thatched hut that is Koh Samui airport, and after a couple of coconut waters we boarded a 1.30pm flight
Me and Billy Connolly having a paddle
. 50 minutes later and we were in Krabi on the west coast of Thailand where we had reserved a room at the imaginatively titled 'Thai Hotel'.Krabi Town can only be described as a one-night stopover town for tourists killing time while waiting for vans and ferries to take them to Railay or Ao Nang beaches or the islands of Phuket, Phi Phi and our next stop, Ko Lanta. Our room was the type of room that gives the word 'basic' a bad name, but at £6.50, complaints weren't permitted, and we didn't.
The town didn't have any attractions of note so we did only what needed to be done, that is, book our return ferry ticket to Lanta and a van ride to the ferry at Satun for our next destination after Lanta. All this was done with ease at a helpful ticket office on the seafront called PP Family Tours.
After lunch at the swishest café we could find, we needed our regular fix of staring at a monitor for a couple of hours, with Soph clicking straight into hellomagazine.com and the entertainment section of the BBC website, while I had to check who Chelsea had spent millions on recently.
Nancy Delollio makes a surprise appearance
Our internet-fest took us nicely up to dinner time, but on wandering around town for half an hour it wasn't going to be easy to find an atmospheric little bistro to fill our freshly purified colons with junk, but we finally found a quirky little place called 'The Gecko House' where we shovelled down a couple of Thai curries.
That night we caught about three hours sleep in a sauna of a room with a tiny gyrating fan that dropped the room temperature to about eight degrees. Aaah, the joys of backpacking on a budget.
21/2
A transfer van picked us up from the steps of the Thai Hotel at 10am and we squeezed into the back with eight other travellers of varying backpackiness, and a half hour journey took us to the ferry terminal.
On arrival we boarded our boat to Lanta and grabbed a couple of seats. The sea looked calm today, so Soph seemed quite confident she could withhold the contents of her stomach this morning even after our full English breakfasts two hours earlier, and her abstinence from alcohol the night before reinforced her optimism
Our favourite sala at Baan Phu Lae
.The ferry left half an hour late with a more mature worldly bunch of holidaymakers as opposed to the ferry to Phangan three weeks earlier which was full of tax-dodging, funny-haired, flip-flopped, workshy, smelly, socialist beatniks (fair description?)
An hour and three-quarters later we arrived at Saladan Pier on the north of the island with Soph's belly-contents thankfully still a secret to our fellow travellers. The brunette did good.
Saladan, the main town on Lanta, looked very villagey as we docked, with restaurants and dive centres propped on stilts along the harbour, and the morning clouds in Krabi town had been left behind leaving us with our first clear blue sky for weeks.
After nervously zigzagging down a wobbly gangplank onto terra-firma we were confronted with the usual scrum of reps and drivers from the various resorts on the island. We had a week booked at 'Bamboo Bay' on the southernmost beach and on first perusal our pickup was nowhere to be seen, but as we ran the gauntlet, forearm smashing our way through the throng we spotted a shady looking customer holding a hastily scribbled bit of paper with our resort name on it
Soph on the way to the beach
.We were led to his pickup truck, and after offloading our rucsacs into the back, we sat in the backseat waiting for any others heading our way. Ten minutes later a Danish couple hopped into the back with a couple more joining us just outside town, also Danish. The resort was co-owned by a Danish couple, should've guessed really.
The mother-daughter combo who joined us in the pickup's cabin were characters, to put it nicely. With a combined age of a century and a half, they were Denmark's answer to Hinge and Bracket. They'd spent a nice day in town sampling the delights of Saladan's pharmacies and came away with lotions and potions to cure all their tropical diseases, then proceeded to prattle on about the state of the roads and the lack of our driver's communication skills.
They were right about the roads though, and as we headed south the roads were a mixture of temporary tarmac and gravel that created fogs of dust.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" our not-so-Great Dane shrieked from the front seat, and she wasn't wrong, a kilometre from our resort the road turned into an off-road rollercoaster nearly tipping the other two Danes out the back of the truck as they struggled to stay upright and onboard while sitting on their rucsacs
The sign to watch for
.We finally arrived at Bamboo Bay, Ko Lanta's last beach and third last resort. A nice restaurant area sat perched over a rocky beach with twenty or so bungalows scattered over the hillside above it. After the trials and tribulations of 'The Hill' at Spa Samui we were ready for a nice sea-level abode. No such luck, they saw us coming a mile off (probably due to the cloud of dust). While our rucsacs were driven up, we followed a tiny Thai girl who informed us that it would be good exercise for us staying at this bungalow. Just what we needed, not.
In truth, the climb was Ben Nevis compared to the Everest that was Spa Samui, and, although the interior left a lot to be desired, our little secluded bungalow had a large verandah with a stunning view of the bay, and all for £14 a night.
On inspection, the half-mile long beach, although rocky, had some clear channels out to the calmest, warmest, clearest sea yet that was on a par with Koh Phangan. The population of sun-worshipping bodies numbered no more than 20 and just three resorts lined the shore. We were impressed by what we'd seen of Lanta so far, and even the rough and ready roads gave the place a desert island feel.
On eavesdropping the conversations of other tourists it was clear we'd come across 'Little Scandinavia' which was no bad thing as their ancient ways of raping and pillaging their way through Europe were but a distant memory as the peace-loving beautiful blonde people of Denmark and Sweden lay sprawled out on loungers gaily chatting about the joys of Ikea pre-packed kitchen units and the practical boxy virtues of the Volvo estate.
22/2
It was 9am and as we ate breakfast it was clear this could be a record-breakingly hot day that would even have got one of Michael Fish's garish ties into a statistical twist.
The sky was as blue as a . . . a really, really blue thing and already the sand had a coating of shimmering heat haze, and our usual cool, calm and collected walk along the beach turned into a tip-toeing, camp prance with 'ooh' and 'aah' sound effects.
By 10am what there were of the overhanging palm tree shades were taken at the back of the beach so we had to settle for a mid-beach position in full view of a sun that wasn't taking any prisoners today, so we laid there like, well like two rashers of sizzling Danish bacon funny enough. It was enough to make me walk into the sea neck-deep to stand reading my book for an hour or so. Soph meanwhile went for the burn, hard or what? It was as if God had got out his heavenly magnifying glass and was having fun burning little human beings.
Lunch didn't come soon enough and we headed for the aptly titled 'Last Beach Resort' for lunch and a game of Connect 4, and after wiping the floor with Soph I was challenged to a game by the resident pro who duly wiped my floor. God I hate losing. He then offered us some weed which we declined for fear of him being undercover police, but it was nice to know we were still young enough to warrant the offer.
Later that evening we had dinner at the other resort on the beach, 'Baan Phu Lae', where we soon realised we wished we were staying as the bungalows were right on the beach and half the price we were paying, the food and ambience were superb and the service was friendly, quick and attentive compared to our resorts forgetful, hit-and-miss service the previous evening. If we hadn't paid in advance for our week at Bamboo Bay we'd be packing the next morning, but safe to say, Baan Phu Lae would be our main eatery for the rest of the week.
23/2, 24/2, 25/2 & 26/2
Our next four days at Bamboo Bay began to take pattern, not your usual Monday to Friday pattern mind you. Like Spa Samui, it was a full diary and we told our imaginary secretary to cancel all other meetings, it read:
10am Wake up
10.30am Breakfast at Baan Phu Lae
11am Top up tan
2pm Lunch at Baan Phu Lae
3pm Top up tan even more
6pm Sunset drinks at Baan Phu Lae
8pm Dinner at Baan Phu Lae
11pm Beddy byes
The diary was full and we were rushed off our feet, well, off our feet anyway.
Our dinners at Baan Phu Lae were something to be savoured. One evening we'd eat spicy chicken and prawn tempura (for dessert as well), another evening we'd lay on cushions under their sala on the beach eating green curries and chocolate pancakes.
The intense heat lasted all week so our mornings began to start earlier as we staked claim to any droopy palm trees providing shade towards the back of the beach.
The temperatures remained high during the nights (no double-entendres please) and occasionally the early hours would be spent in front of the laptop watching DVDs like Finding Nemo (for the fifth time) and the cringingly epic 'Last Samurai' which did the trick of sending us to sleep.
It was the laziest week we'd had yet, probably due to the fact we were 'stranded' on the last beach. The next two weeks on Ko Lanta would prove more eventful. To be continued...
Happy Mummy's Day to all the mummies out in cyberspace, with special love, hugs and slobbery kisses to our mummies. Wish you were here!
The Full English & The Continental
xx
