Julie & Christian: Phuket, Phi Phi, and Ko Lanta

Ko Lanta was my favorite place to visit in Thailand. It was the perfect beach getaway. There were long stretches of soft sandy beaches and it was very quiet and isolated.

The food was fantastic and the sunsets were unbeatable. Plus we got to rent a motor scooter and drive around the island on the left side of the road which was tons of fun. In one afternoon of driving we had to stop or swerve for stray dogs, a few horses, a rooster, and several giant potholes.

watch out world

But first we had to get there. It was quite a journey. First we flew into Phuket which was beautiful and had the best fried chicken I've ever tasted.

We had an amazing hotel where we spent hours watching the night life from the rooftop balcony.

giant illuminated gold Buddha

Then we hopped on to a boat that took us to Ko Phi Phi. Ko Phi Phi is where they filmed the movie The Beach. From our boat we could see the cove where the movie was filmed.

Im sure that at one time it was beautiful, however when we got off the boat we were not entirely impressed. There was trash strewn all about the beaches despite the fee tourists are asked to pay upon walking off the pier. We had thought about staying on Ko Phi Phi for a night but noticed after a few minutes that this was not our kind of scene. It seemed to have a spring break frat party feel to it with loud parties and drunken shenanigans. We hopped onto another boat which took us to Krabi and then we hired a minivan to drive us to Ko Lanta where we had to cross two ferries to finally reach our beachfront hotel room. It was gorgeous and we were not tempted to leave anytime soon.

Christian on the boat

our mini van driver had tons of these bobble head bunnies which were SUPER creepy

view from the ferry

celebrating the beach

relaxing on the beach

view from our bungalow

outside of our beautiful bungalow

after we hit the ATM

the scooter

some roads were paved others were not

we drove the scooter to old town which is the local fishing village

the 100+ year old houses and restaurants are built over the water on stilts

the pier

view from the pier of the coastline

fishing boat

sporting a super awesome helmet - safety first!

Our elephant Jan (means moon) and the elephant trainer

It was hot and Jan was not psyched to haul our chubby butts up the jungle path so I tried to bribe her with a pineapple.

the jungle was really pretty and we saw a lot of cool things

I preferred to ride up front

Jan seemed to like this better too because I'm pretty sure she had fleas and liked to be scratched on her head. Her elephant hair was very thick and itchy and not really at all like I expected elephant skin to feel like.

Me giving Jan hugs. She loved me.

After our elephant trek through the jungle we drove the scooter to the southern end of Ko Lanta to see the lighthouse and take a quick dip in the ocean.

It had some pretty spectacular views of the coast.

The lighthouse was cool too.

There were lots of monkeys at the beach

some were well behaved monkeys and very cute

others were kinda goofy looking

This monkey tried to steal my crackers so I hissed at him and yelled "bad monkey"!

He backed away.

cool tree being strangled by another tree

Bad Monkey who stole someones lunch

The other reason I loved Ko Lanta so much was the food. It was AMAZING!

There was a delightful mix of Thai and Indian cuisine to choose from

including these little delights called Thai pancakes

you ask the nice lady that drives this scooter with the attached grill on it for a pancake and you pick from several delicious ingredients and she whips it up right in front of your eyes. Super yummy!