Over the past few weeks...
Over the past 2 weeks we have had several days with rain during the afternoon. It’s been very humid and sunny most mornings but eventually a thundershower breaks out and the sky opens. The downside is an increase in mosquitos that can carry dengue fever, also the risk of washing the sweat and sand off in a refreshing downpour. We are more worried about mosquito bites than covid-19 although there is some of that around here too, same as at home.
We eventually had a stretch of very hot weather. Almost too hot. If we didn’t have a pool, an ocean and an air conditioned bungalow it would definitely be too hot. It seems some of the rain events are happening later at night. One day at supper when we walked down the beach with umbrellas and got soaked going to the restaurant. Our shorts got soaked, in fact everything south of shoulder height got wet. Other nights we may get threatening clouds, lightning and only a few drops, or it rains overnight. Whatever the weather, the humidity is between 60% and 90%. This is tropical heat and humidity. The weather that gives you ear aches because your ears never dry out. We rinse our ears out with a mixture 50/50 of rubbing alcohol and white vinegar. It kills germs and drys the ear canal.
Thankfully, the last 3 days have been very hot and sunny with no rain. The humidity and heat can drive you to drink beer before noon if you aren’t careful. Most days we lube up with Banana Boat SPF 30 Sport from a 314 ml bottle which cost us about $10 CAD back home. We only use the Shiseido SPF 42 made especially for faces on our faces. We are on our 4th bottle of Shiseido which is about $40 CAD per bottle and holds 30ml. 30 ml is 1 fluid ounce. That’s works out to about $200,000 CAD per barrel. Compare that to Western Canadian Select crude oil at $100/BBL, Shiseido is a bargain. Yes BBL is the official abbreviation for barrel. The key point is we need to get to the beach by 10 am or it gets too hot. We walk about 2 hours and swim about 2 or 3 times, mostly depending on how we feel. Lately the ocean has been so warm we wonder if someone left the heater on. Seriously it is amazing how warm the ocean is, and how clear the water is. We haven’t seen the dreaded jelly fish for over 3 weeks. What’s even more amazing is how warm the Oasis swimming pool gets from the sun. The pool is not artificially heated. It’s definitely warmer than the ocean too.
Lately we have managed about 6 km of beach walking daily. It is about 200 steps to the beach from Oasis Bungalows. The walkway comes out onto the beach around the centre of this huge flat crescent shaped beach. We leave our flip flops and Linda’s sarong high up on the beach and head out for our walk. We walk one way to the end, walk back the other way to the other end, then back to the starting point, pick up the sarong and go back down the beach about 400 metres to the Easy Bar Restaurant. They already know what we are going to order, 2 passion fruit smoothies, no sugar and no milk. ฿140 about $5.35 CAD. They are so good!
When we first started walking the beach we carried our flip flops. That soon got old. We decided if someone was going to swipe them, we would deal with it. After over 60 walks, our stuff is always there when we come back. We also leave our little waterproof bag on the beach when we swim. It has Gary’s phone, GoPro and a small amount of money. While we do keep an eye out for it while swimming, it has always been safe. Basically there are very few people on the beach. Thais are honest, and so it seems are most tourists.
The last several days we have been trying to shoot video of this tiny bird building a nest in the Bougainvillea bush next door. It’s not easy with a GoPro because it doesn’t have a telephoto lens. The GoPro camera gets hot because of the outdoor temperature and shuts off automatically. We did manage to get a few good shots of video but we really needed a tripod to get the perfect position. We managed to borrow a tripod and haven’t seen the bird since. It seems the 2 birds are hiding. When they finally showed up, we had no luck getting video. Sunscreen or greasy fingers on the lens one day and no birds the next. The video below is the best we can do!
We’ve been here 2 months and when we come into our bungalow with the air conditioning set at 30ºC it actually feels cold. One day the high was 35ºC but cooled off in the evening by 9 pm to 27ºC but felt like 32ºC with 92% humidity. The next day’s forecast was 34ºC and the next day 36ºC. Apparently, so we have been told by locals that it becomes unbearably hot here in April and May. Meanwhile back home it is colder than one would expect with global warming.
There are many resorts here that have no guests or even worse only 1 or 2 guests. With no guests you can at least turn off the lights. There are 2 places here in Koh Lanta that are fully booked. At least for now. The place we are staying, “Oasis Yoga Bungalows” and the other place Swedes also flock to “Slow Down”. It’s truly amazing how these 2 places have managed to keep their resorts nearly full. Part of the success is pricing, but it’s also the facilities they provide. We have a yoga studio here that draws in people to both stay and come just for yoga. We also have a beautiful swimming pool, and beautifully manicured grounds including 2 shade areas near the pool with matts to lay on and chill. There are hammocks too! While this is the first time we have stayed at “Oasis Yoga Bungalows”, there are many guests here for the second, third, fourth or even fifth time. All this while 90% of resorts on Koh Lanta are empty. Go figure! The restaurant here at Oasis has quality food too. The perfect menu for health conscious and hungry people, they sure know how to keep the guests happy. Lunch time is usually packed in the restaurant. Oasis Yoga Bungalows are pretty much fully booked for the next winter season already! Thankfully, we have our name on the list!
March 24
This week several long-stay Swedes left for home. We have slowly got to know some of them pretty well. Our turn to leave Koh Lanta is Monday March 28. We have a ride booked to Krabi (town), not to be confused with Krabi province, which Koh Lanta and Krabi the town also reside. From Krabi airport we fly to Bangkok’s second airport, Don Mueang International Airport, airport code DMK. Before Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport opened in 2006, Don Mueang was previously known as Bangkok International Airport. So we fly into DMK on Monday and fly out of Suvarnabhumi airport (code BKK) on Friday April 1, just after midnight. Yes 00:25 which means no bed Thursday night. We’ll fly to Japan Narita airport in Tokyo where we will wait for 8 hours. This is not quite what we signed up for when we bought our ticket in November. Our original flight was to depart Bangkok at 7:25 am and have a quick layover of 1 hour and 5 minutes in Tokyo. Seemed too good to be true. The new flight time is also on a different airline, so we really don’t know what the reason could be, but it may have something to do with very few passengers. In case you are wondering how do you pronounce Suvarnabhumi , that’s easy, its pronounced “soo·waan·aa·poom”. Don’t try to understand Thai words written in the English alphabet.
We are still getting thunderstorms many evenings, with or without rain. Rest assured the humidity has not gone away. Tonight at supper, 7:30pm it was 28º with 87% humidity, feeling like 31º. Currently at 11:30 pm it’s 25º and 94% humidity. We had thunder and lightning for at least 4 hours. We’re just getting ready for bed and there’s still thunder. It did rain, but nothing like you would expect from a 4 hour thunderstorm. We ate at SoGood Restaurant on the beach, we worried we might get wet with the amount of lightning we could see. There was a beautiful breeze off the ocean but it never did rain during our meal. Once back at our bungalow, we changed into our swim suits and jumped in the pool. We just stood in the pool and watched the lightning show to the north, it eventually got to the point that we cooled off enough to get out, or maybe it was the lightning that chased us out of the pool, but it never rained until we were inside. Our air conditioner is set to 28ºC for the night, it’s time for bed.
