Highlights
- - Massaman Curry!!!!!! Man the king has good taste!
- - Snorkeling was fun, but discovering Morakot cave inside the heart of an island was icing on the cake!
- - If you’re looking for crazy backpacker fun, head somewhere else (i.e. Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Pha Ngan). This place has luckily evaded that doom.
The Nothing Else To Do While Tania Gets Another Massage Version
Let’s start by saying that Koh Lanta was our favorite of the Thai islands, but as you can tell from the video of our overnight ferry from Koh Tao, getting there was the antithesis of our love for Lanta. Along with the ferry, we had to battle our way through a taxi ride from the ferry terminal in Surat Thani, a bus from Surat Thani to Krabi, then a packed mini-bus drive to Lanta. Yet all of that chaos was forgotten when we arrived onto Lanta.
Eight years ago when I was traveling through Europe, I randomly met a Brit named Emma in a sandwich shop, and we spent a day touring Valencia, Spain, before she left town. Somehow through the magic of email, blogging, and Facebook, we’ve stayed in touch through the years. When we learned that she was now living on Lanta teaching scuba diving, Tania and I decided to skip over the touristy Phuket and Koh Phi Phi and spend our time on the west coast on Lanta. And boy are we glad we did.
Emma was kind enough to find a hotel for us to stay at, the NT Lanta Resort, which had just opened a few months prior, meaning our bungalow was brand new with all of the amenities a weary traveler could desire; AC, hot water, satellite TV, fridge, and most importantly, new and clean furnishings.
Emma also introduced us to the best restaurants in Long Beach, the nicest stretch of beaches that hadn’t already been trampled by tourists. We fell in love with the king’s favorite dish, Massaman curry. It’s a peanuty curry served with potatoes and onions, and basically the greatest thing your pallet can swim in. We also ate delicious seafood and rice dishes over meals with her friends Claire (don’t call her a life coach), Magnus (www.tapper.com), and the rest of her scuba friends. We even got to partake in trivia night with all of the expats at Bar Racuda (get the play on words?). We got third place, out of about 10 teams, basically because Tania doesn’t know as much about Lord of the Rings as she thought she did. She let all of her D&D friends down on that one.
Aside from eating the delicious food, Tania obviously got a beach-side oil massage (I think she is in the midst of setting the world record for most massages in a month’s time), we scootered around the island, down to Old town, walked along the picturesque beach, and boated around to 4 islands for an incredible day of snorkeling. Our new gear came in handy to see stunning coral swarming with schools of brightly colored fish. Getting to wade in the water as the fish swim around you as if you’re part of their clan has quickly become one of our favorite things to do, which we’ll greatly miss once we head up north to Chiang Mai.
The highlight of the snorkeling trip was when we visited Morakot cave inside of Koh Muk, which requires a 10 minute swim through a pitch black tunnel that eventually leads to a hidden beach in the heart of the island. Once inside the cave on and standing on the beach, you can spend an hour notching your head back and gazing the perimeter of the walls that stand around you, reaching hundreds of feet above with a lining of lush shrubbery and plant life. Stunning, absolutely stunning.
We were sad to leave Koh Lanta because after the resort feel of Kohs Samui, Pha Ngan, and Tao, we really started to get into the groove of quieter island life that Lanta provided over the others. Yet, we had a flight to catch out of Phuket, so we hopped a high class ferry through Koh Phi Phi so we could stay the night in Phuket before our early morning flight on Friday. 
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