Thailand and Vietnam 2009: Koh Lanta, Thailand

1st line of business: To give you a little idea of where we are at:

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2nd line of business: To tell/show you what we have been up to!

This part of our trip is pretty much devoted to laying by the beach, swimming, reading, motorbiking around, and ordering fresh coconut shakes inside a fresh coconut. It doesn't seem like much, but if you saw this place you would be quite happy by just that. This is no Elm Creek Park Reserve Public Beach in Maple Grove, although I will always love it there too, it really is a great man made beach to sit at and get hot dogs and ice cream pops, but regardless this beach does not compare. And there is no chlorine pumps you have to worry about running into, just sharp rigid rocks and maybe the occasional fish.
It was a nice transition to Lanta Castaway Resort from Time for Lime which is where we stayed for 5 days. we basically just hopped on a tuk tuk and 2 kilometers later, we were there! I am thinking in milliliters, kilometers, and meters now. But I will by recapping our stay at Time for Lime on Klong Dao Beach.

The pet monkey had a very nice set up right out side our bungalow. He would climb, jump, and eat things with his hands like monkeys do, but I think he felt left out with all the cats and dogs who got to just roam freely, he was a little too wild for that freedom but he did get let out on a walk once while we were there and got pretty close to us. He actually ripped our seven eleven bag (yes they are everywhere) right in half just looking for snacks I suppose.. Monkey encounters are usually not a normal part of our day, we really enjoyed him.

Our quaint and comfortable bungalow, the best part was the hammock outside to lay on, read in, or just relax in, it was also a great place to watch the rain. This place has had the most rain we have had so far which has been the equivalent of about 3 days the whole trip. Some creepy bugs would pass occasionally and lizards of course which we are used to by now. Another thing that was new about this place were the Thai style toilets. The only unusual thing we have noticed prior to coming here was a sprayer for your behind after doing your business. But on top of that here, you had to use a big bowl of water to manually flush the water and keep filling up the large water basin next to he toilet each time...oddly enough it was kind of fun.

View from main sitting area/restaurant at Time for Lime. This is what we got to look out at every morning when we ate our breakfast :). It was a self serve breakfast which was interesting, and man you better get there early or the hot water is out and the bread is gone and no one is really around to replace it! Us budget travelers knew to get up early before the rush and get a big breakfast in our tummies, but we sure witnessed some angry people who got up to no hot water for their coffee, no bread, and their juice was out. Not a pretty sight.

Time for Lime had a few neat twists to it, no pun intended. For one, it was a very popular and well renowned Thai Fusion Cooking school run by a Norwegian lady named Junie who has been featured in cooking magazines and has published her own cook book. Thai Fusion we found out is a cooking practice that combines various foods and cooking techniques from all over the world which has Thai spices or techniques intertwined with it. It sounds confusing, but the end product is phenomenal. We ate two nights in a row at this place and have had some of the best food we have eaten this whole trip including mussels with a lemon dipping sauce and the classic Pad Thai which we have tried everywhere, but hands down is the best here.

The second twist is that it is also an animal rescue shelter, which explains all the beautiful animals running around. We made friends with a couple cats and dogs whom were very fun to wake up to and hang with on the beach each day. There were people bringing in mainly injured or wild dogs in all the time which needed to be domesticated or nursed back to health. Right when we left we saw a pup who looked like its hip was skinned quite badly, it was reassuring to see that there was a place for these animals to go. This place was definitely geared towards its cooking class crowd, which I considered doing but didn't quite fit the age group/genre which involved an after lesson wine session that I was not ready for. Some crowds are easier to mix with than others, so I just watched, it was just as fun. The kitchen set up was amazing with at least twenty different cooking stations.

This dog was definitely our favorite, he was the most mellow and would just follow you around and lay by your side all day. Some of the others were really rambunctious and would bark a lot.

I collected lots of shells to bring home and show everybody. I want to try and make necklaces out of some of them too!

The tiny crabs would climb in their holes and create a very cool patterned barricades on the outside of them. At night they would cover their little hole with dirt, they have busy lives these crabs along with the day to day hassle of avoiding getting stepped on by daily beach goers. We saw a few medium size crabs roaming around but all the big ones are out at sea.

Joe cruising through one of his 3 books he brought with him. Reading material has become a problem for him, he is now waiting for me to finish my book Middlesex so he can read it. The books they have at the resort are either in French, Thai, or German and the two books he found in English were very bazaar.