Weather – Like an oven with the door open.
Started the day with what is becoming a bit routine in Koh Lanta, back at the pool, how boring!
All this clean air, sunshine and blue skies are starting to get us down, we don't know if we can take much more of this. And to make things worse the tide was out, far too far to walk for a paddle.
Well seriously, it would take quite a while, months or years, for us to find the slightest need for a change. We were loving every minute and were already thinking about when are we coming back. After the speed of city life, the rate here is much much more more slower, even the Thai taxis seem to get to their destinations at a leisurely pace.
Sun was shining brightly, so taking a sun lounger under the tree for a bit of shade, we relaxed. The occasional cool off in the pool was needed and still, mostly, all to ourselves. This is supposed to be the off-season but apart from the few downpours of rain the weather has been fantastic. We are still amazed at how deserted the beaches and resorts were.
The local fishermen were out in the bay just off Kaw Kwang beach, I have no idea what they were doing, couldn't see any nets. Maybe they were just waiting for the right moment.
We were running out of local currency and the weekend had just finished, so a trip into town was needed. The problem with Thai Baht, for us and probably other currencies is the conversion rate. At around 33 THB for a US$ and about 50 THB for the UKPound. Having a thousand THB seems like a lot of money and then spending 300 THB on a meal for two seems very expensive. But in reality it’s just the big numbers fooling us. A thousand is just around US$30 and actually can go a long long way in Thailand.
We were thinking of walking to Saladan but an excuse showed up in the form of a taxi sitting in the shade just outside our resort. Naturally the driver tried to offer his services and oh so reluctantly we accepted. From Kaw Kwang the cost was 40THB each. Speeding along the coast road at about 15 miles per hour was just enough to create a cooling breeze and a short conversation was started. A bit of confusion may have arose here, we were exchanging names and I passed mine and he said “mine is same”. Luckily I played safe and never said “bye same” just in case.
So off to the bank in Saladan and up to the money exchanger. We handed over a few notes and the cashier did quite a bit of typing, rubbing, looking, hoping for help from his colleagues – I guess they don’t see much of our currency on the island. With wads of cash now stuffed in our pockets we were going to hit the town.
Despite the smallness of Saladan we never got really too far, the heat was really too much for walking about. Refuge was sought in a restaurant complete with a good helping of food and 1 beer, large, 2 glasses just to get a bit of liquid back into our bodies.
It was going to be a really lazy day, had a nice slow long long lunch. In keeping with the theme of the day, we hailed over a taxi to take us back to the hotel. Not much more was going to happen today and we took up our spot under the trees beside the pool and let the day go by. We would probably die if we tried to exert ourselves. The heat was a bit much and tomorrow would show that even the locals found it too much to handle.
During our treks along the beach we stopped by a few of the resorts and restaurants hoping they would be open. Most were still closed, others were gearing up and be open in a week. Some were open but too far along the beach from us. Sanuk Bar was our regular place, not just because it was the closest ( or we didn`t want to walk any further), but also the hosts were nice and friendly. The food was also pretty good too. That was our destination for tonight.
The sun had gone and although it was still very warm, there was no burning sun bearing down on us and a refreshing cooling breeze from the sea.
Tom Yum Koong along with a chicken curry was sampled here. We asked for spicy and sure enough it was. Very tasty and completely addictive, we were both nearly licking the bowl clean.
While we were proud of on our ability to handle chilli (or silly) our nice hosts let slip that they have two versions of “extremely spicy”. One flaming spicy for born and bred native Thais and a baby spicy for the rest of us. We immediately lost all sense of achievement and ordered another large bottle of beer.
The day ended quietly.
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