Reasons for never coming back to Thai beach resorts:
• The loudspeaker cars with aggressive, repetitive propaganda for Thai
boxing.
• Sikh tailors ramming their fists into your soft parts, barking "MY
FRIEND, I REMEMBER YOU FROM LAST TIME" with an asphalt smile.
• The disgusting treatment tourists get from many taxi drivers and hotel
clerks.
• The disgusting treatment taxi drivers and hotel clerks get from many
tourists.
But then: after Phuket and Ao Nang, things can only get better.
-- AO NANG TOUR SHOP --
To book a room on Ko Lanta, I have to pick one of Ao Nang's 500 tour
shops? This one here? No, I see the man on duty and instantly don't like
him. From his face and from my knowledge of human nature I can see he
has bad English and will not listen to my special needs, especially
regarding mosquito protected windows.
So I enter the next shop. He looks clever. He turns out to be stupid and
unable to find something about Ko Lanta. Finally he gets up, steps onto
the road and says "Please follow me, sir". He takes me to the
neighboring tour shop with the man I ruled out before. "He will find you
room on Ko Lanta, sir."
The man I had tried to avoid has perfect English and listens carefully
to all my extra woes. From his catalogue I choose Lanta Long Beach
resort. But I tell the tour shop manager I need windows with good
mosquito screens, so that I can sleep semi al fresco, with a breeze in
the bungalow. He calls Lanta Long Beach, makes sure they have mosquito
screens, books my nights and writes a voucher. All in a few minutes.
As I've said, I would always come back to this guy.
-- KO LANTA, LANTA LONG BEACH BUNGALOWS --
And yes, my bungalow windows on Lanta have mosquito screens indeed. It's
just that they are completely useless: The thatched roof sits on thick
bamboo poles which lie loosely on the wooden walls. This creates a gap of
about 6 centimeters between walls and roof. They obviously tried to
close that gap with polythene sheet, but the plastic is completely
broken. A young buzzard could enter there. So in your room you have to
wrap the provided mosquito tent around your bed, just what I wanted to
avoid.
Mozzies who don't make it up to the wall/roof gap simply sneak in by the
bathroom door. The bathroom is semi-open air without any mosquito screen:
They let some "bamboo grass" grow right into your bathroom through huge
gaps. Looks nice and tropical, and gets you nice and tropical creatures
into your wellness compartment: geckos, spiders and other multi-legged
things you'd rather see fried at the Mukdahan night market.
Gangs of Ko Lanta's interested mosquito population drop by as well.
As I use the bathroom facilities, I quickly find out that local mozzies
are impressively big, thoroughly black and - lightning fast. In your
private moments in the Lanta Long Beach bathroom, blood-hungry gnats
feast on your private parts. Chez Hans, local mozzies are having a ball.
Or two.
-- KO LANTA, KHLONG DAO --
I stop moto-sai at the next-best tourist agency on the main road and
introduce the young lady to my difficult travel plans full of ifs and
whens. She listens concernedly, and we even get into a private chat.
Then she says: "Give me one hour, then I call you back and say what I
can do for you."
Just when I enjoy sunset on vast Khlong Dao beach, she rings my
cellphone and says all my wishes are doable. I ask her to book
everything now, I would come to her office after sunset and dinner on
the beach, but before 9 p.m., her closing hour.
On the beach, of course I dine not at "Nong" or "Picasso", but at
"HANS", where I get the worst pizza I ever had in SE Asia (also worse
than Mr. "Wee"'s and "Nick's" on Lanta). At 8.45 p.m. I am back at my
ticket shop. The young lady prepared everything, I only have to pay.
The lady is now in after-work mood and gets even more communicative. I
believe my tiny bits of phasa Thai make her feel more at ease, even
though mostly we talk English. She has a witty smile and pats my arm
several times while we talk about Thailand and her home town of Hat Yai.
Still there is something a tad different about her, her face and her
demeanour, and I'd like to find out more.
"You close soon, don't you?"
"Yes!"
"Would you like to go to the beach with me for a cocktail?"
"No - cannot!"
"Why not?"
"I Muslim! Cannot drink alcohol!"
"What - you are a muslima? But you don't wear a headscarf?"
"It's too hot!! But see, there it is." A silky white scarf lies on the
board. "I wear it when I go out."
"OK, put on your headscarf, and we go to the beach, drink mango juice!"
"No - cannot!"
She is still her smiling, lively, entertaining self.
"Why not?"
"My father waiting for me already, over there." She nods conspiratively
to a wooden door.
Hans off.
-- KO LANTA, SALA DAN --
In part 2, in Ao Nang's "Swedish package tour hell", as it has been
described by fellow travelers, I had tried in vain to get the Rough
Guide on Southern Thailand. In Ko Lanta’s harbor village of Sala Dan, I
find a second hand copy of that book within minutes. Just look in the
Catfish restaurant, and you have guidebooks and quality novels to get
you all through cool season. Even books-wise, low-key Ko Lanta is so
much better than overdeveloped Ao Nang two boating hours further north.
-- KO LANTA, AO MAI PHAI
After Lanta's busy Long Beach, I have a three night intermezzo on the
more remote Ao Mai Phai (Bamboo Bay), in the very simply Baan Phu Lae
bungalows. Later, back in my Long Beach accommodation, I discover that my
mobile phone is gone - it is still in Baan Phu Lae bungalows. I call
from an agency, and they found my thing and even bring it to Sala Dan
town on their next regular shopping tour. I get my handphone back on the
Sunday market.
-- PHI PHI ISLANDS BOAT TRIP
A speedboat daytrip takes me to Ko Phi Phi island. After going ashore on
touristy Tonsai bay, I ask the captain for the way to the viewpoint. "I
take you there", he says! Surprise: I'd thought he would spend the
one-hour shore leave in a hammock. But no - he stamps off and I have to
hurry to follow him through the maze of the farang bazaar up to where
the stairs to the top begin. Even there the captain continues to stay
with me, and now I understand why he volunteers as a guide: Many trees
here have fruit, and he jumps after every single fruit he can get all
the way to the top.
Later, on the open sea, the speedboat suddenly does a sharp turn and
races towards a longtail fishing boat that's not in our direction
towards Maya Bay. The captain zooms towards the longtail as if he wants
to overrun them, but stops in the very last moment. He jumps onto the
dinghy, and now I understand his manoeuver: Out of a bucket, he fishes
huge squid and shoves them into a black plastic bag that the boat
operators use to collect their trash. He shouts something, and then the
handyman on the speedboat throws a palette of I believe 24 coke cans
over to the fishing dinghy. These ice-cold coke cans were meant for the
speedboat customers, but now they pay a few sizable squids. With his
heavy black sack, the captain jumps back to the speedboat.
Our hungry captain even dons flippers and snorkel gear on a snorkeling
stop off rocky Phi Phi Leh island. I don't understand why he paddles in
the waters, but he must surely be after edible. Sea cucumber?
-- KO LANTA, MARINE NATIONAL PARK
400 baht.
This is what the sign says: farang adults pay 400 baht (11 USD) to enter
Ko Lanta Marine National Park. (Adult Thais pay 40 baht.) It's on Lanta's southernmost tip, and I've bounced here over an abysmal dirt
road on my energetic rental Suzuki Smash 110 ccm. Ko Lanta Marine
National Park seems to have a lovely viewpoint cum lighthouse with
panorama east and west. I'd like to look around for half an hour and
tell you more.
But, 400 baht!
I approach the entry gate with two rangers on duty, shuffling ticket
pads.
"Sawasdee khrap", I smile.
"Sawasdee khrap!"
"I would like to look around for 30 minutes...", I smile in clear Thai.
"Oh, 30 minutes..." they reply with an unhappy face.
"Yes, just 30 minutes."
They make an unhappy face and start to look somewhere else. Suddenly
they don't seem to see me any more.
"30 minutes, ok", I say and walk towards the entry gate.
The forgot me already, look into the trees.
I'm in.
-- KO LANTA, PHRA AE (LONG BEACH) 1 --
On my morning beach walk, I am joined by a young, playful, black,
labrador-like dog.
I like labradors.
After a bit of frolicking, the dog takes to the water and searches
intensely. For crabs? Fish? Now Fido found a good place. The dog cramps
and shits into the gently slapping Andaman Sea.
-- KO LANTA, PHRA AE (LONG BEACH) 2 --
Second Home, a cozy Thai restaurant in the sand of Long Beach, becomes
my default dinner venue. My default service person there has this gentle
demeanor that I like about Thai women; a caring, yet flirtish smile;
attentive and personal, but then discreet to boot; always with a wai;
floating barefeet around the tables like a cat; long hair, shy, stylish
and feminine in a way you rarely meet in the west.
Makes your heart beat.
And a voice like Johnny Cash.
-- KO LANTA, PHRA AE (LONG BEACH) 3 --
10 p.m., after dinner at Second Home, I walk along the sand and step
into the tour/internet shop that opens onto the Long Beach sand strip.
It's late, but the lady on duty still has a smile that turns your heart
into a piece of butter under the Krabi sun. Online, between five other
surfing tourists, I find a good hotel for my onward travel and instantly
call with my mobile phone.
10.15 p.m., under showers of smiles I step back into the sand and walk
ten minutes under the stars, along fancifully lit beach bars, to my
bungalow. I prepare the mosquito tent around my bed. Then I remember to
charge the cellphone - but the mobye is not there. I forgot it in the
tour/internet shop.
10.30 p.m., barefeet I walk back through the sand to the tour/internet
shop.
10.40 p.m., even before I step into the tour/internet shop, I am waved
at with my handphone - and another cascade of smiles!
And as I walk back, under the Lanta Moon, barefeet in the sand towards
my Lanta bungalow, I think, no, Thai beach resorts this winter can be
delightful indeed. And there stands this deckchair in my way, right in
the middle of the beach, just one lone bamboo deckchair standing there
without 20,000 other deckchairs around, just one individual only,
inviting me, and yes, polite me I succumb, I sit down, I lie down, I
greet the Lanta moon again, sabai-dee laeow, turn cellphone off, just
centimeters from the gently slapping sea, which brings in a cool breeze,
inhale I the moon and all the starry starry stars over me in my midnight
deckchair on Ao Phra Ae, yes, no, there are actually reasons to *return*
to Thai beach resorts next cool season.
At least to certain places.
