Beach Bums

by Gem | Thailand | Phuket and Ko Lanta

From Chiang Mai we flew down to Phuket with the intention of having a few relaxing days beachside.  And that’s pretty much what happened!

Fortunately for us, Mums’ friends Lynn and Bob happened to be staying in Phuket for a fortnight’s holiday.  They had a 2 bedroom apartment in a fabulous resort so we crashed their party for a couple of nights – thanks again for having us guys!  Phuket has some stunning beaches, and after our first night at the luxurious resort we headed over to the beach to spend the day sunning ourselves!  Phuket is very hot and humid, 30+ every day, so we were very happy not to be bothering with any sight-seeing and instead just lounging on the beach, occasionally venturing into the sea when the heat became too much!

We stayed on the beach that evening for dinner, and got to watch another beautiful sunset.  After a delicious meal and a few too many glasses of wine, we headed back to the resort courtesy of Mr Lucky, Lynn and Bob’s favourite taxi driver!

Mr Lucky was also on hand the next morning when we said a sad farewell to the Masons and their amazing apartment and drove to Krabi where we were getting a boat over to Ko Lanta.  Thailand is famous for it’s beautiful islands so we felt our trip wouldn’t be complete unless we visited one.  Deciding that Ko Pha-Ngan and it’s infamous Full Moon Party might be a bit much for Mum we opted for Lanta, slightly more low-key but equally as stunning.  The boat trip over took about 3 hours, and while the journey was relatively smooth the boat was very hot and pretty full so we were relieved to get onto solid ground.  We’d booked into the the Royal Lanta hotel, which sounds very grand, and it was rather nice actually.  We had a lovely bungalow with an amazing bathroom – indoor and outdoor shower and a Jacuzzi bath!  The only complaint Mum had was the bad lighting in the room, so she had  to resort tousing a head torch for bedtime reading!

We stayed on the island for 3 nights.  Surprisingly, there weren’t many Brits; for some reason Ko Lanta is very popular with the Scandinavians so we picked up a bit of Swedish and managed to resist the Swedish meatballs on offer at a lot of the restaurants.  For the rest of the time we did not a lot; swimming in the pool and the sea, reading books, sipping cocktails at sunset.  Hard life, I know!