Goodbye Koh Phi Phi, Hello Lanta

Since the last update, I went deep sea fishing and then had a night out. The night before last I slept an amazing 12 hours. I will note that when sleeping 12 hours, I feel much more sluggish than say 5-6 hours with the odd nap during the day. I passed out at 10:30, was awoken at 4am with what sounded like a herd of elephants coming through the guesthouse, it was people coming back from the beach.

Went deep sea fishing, which was cool. After that a bunch of my friends were leaving so we went out for some drinks. Koh Phi Phi is beautiful but I was getting terribly sick of the vibe though. The vibe in the core of Koh Phi Phi was similar to when I was in Panama City, Florida during Spring Break in 2003. That should explain it all for you.

After some socializing I retired to my place and when I woke up, I made the executive decision of “if it’s not 10am yet, I’m getting outta here”. Sure enough it was 9:50 or so and I quicky packed my bags and checked out. I gathered my stuff and bounced. Before I had the opportunity to leave I came back into the room and saw a cockroach crawling over my bed, at this point I was sure I made the right decision.

The gentleman working at my guesthouse is from Phuket, he told me he never wants to go back and loves Koh Phi Phi, that made my decision easy, I was off to Koh Lanta.

I went to the pier and bought a ticket, sure enough the ferry was leaving in 20 minutes, perfect. I am a believer that life is easy, and it should be easy for everyone. When you are doing what you should be doing, “things work out”. When you’re not on the path you should be “everything is a struggle”.

Koh Lanta is really nice and I’m really impressed with it. I was paying 400 baht a night (which was a good deal for double bed, fan, private bathroom, safety box during high season in the heart of Phi Phi) for the last room on Koh Phi Phi. This new place, I’m paying 500 and it’s got air con, supposedly a hot shower and the room is well, you can’t compare.This room is sweet and if they had free wifi and my visa wasn’t running out, I could live here a while. My room is typically for couples and is 800 baht a night, I told them 500 was my limit as I’m traveling alone. They agreed to the deal with almost no hessitation. Only bad thing is that wifi is 160 baht an hour ~$5.50 an hour. I like 2-3 hours a day online or more… This isn’t soo cool. If you do the math, spending 4 hours a day online will cost you ~$600 a month for internet! I was paying $60 back home.

I plan on staying here, who knows but my visa expires soon, then back to Krabi so I can hit up a Tesco Lotus and buy a whole new aresenal of white t’s and some other necessities before heading to Malaysia. My days will consist of swimming, sleeping and eating, nothing more, nothing less. If you want to relax and live well, this is the best place I’ve found so far on my travels.

This place has a totally different vibe. It’s families, cool “with it” couples, interesting people and no “I’m going to get ripped off” feel to it. Oh Phi Phi, I never left anything unattended, here I left my camera by the pool, wandered around and didn’t even once feel slightly concerned, sure enough the camera was there next to this older french couple. This place is the type of place I’m used to going and associate with ocean side fun. It’s got swimming pools, massage parlours, places to eat, a bar, everything. Think a nice classly all inclusive resort, only a fraction of the cost. This place is paradise for those willing to make the trek. I’m like 40 hours from home. This isn’t a “let’s go for a week type place” from most of Canada. That said, this is just one resort, with more time I’d love to see what the other places are like.

I’m telling you now I will come back here for an extended stay sometime, if you’ve done an extended stay here, please let me know where abouts on the island and how the wifi was, if you were into that sorta thing.

P.S I have ~120gigs of travel videos which I’ll eventually edit, upload and make write ups on. I have so much video of the places I’ve been it’s ridiculous.

Update: The more I discover about this place, the more I’m starting to think I’ve actually found paradise, renting a motorbike tomorrow.