Travelling to Ko Lanta

Today we had our usual breakfast at the Maneetel and then we made phone calls to home. We checked out of our hotel at 11:15 am and waited in the open air cafe downstairs until to shuttle came to pick us up at noon.

Off to Ko Lanta in a Toyota 4 runner with 450,000 km on it and it looked like new. The temp outside was 34º, inside was 23.5º. It seemed cold for a while. Most of our trip was south on a 4 lane road until we turned west onto a 2 lane road for a short distance. Shortly after we arrived at the ferry. The ferry crossing took about 25 minutes including the wait. There are 5 ferries continually crossing to the Island.

We arrived at our hotel and things went downhill from there. We checked in,  got into the room and the air conditioning didn’t work. We waited a few minutes, then we knew for sure. We went to the front desk and asked for help. No one speaks any English here. We did get a guy looking at the air conditioning, playing with the remote but the air was still hot. We were both looking green behind the gills because it was 34 outside and much warmer in the bungalow style sweat house. Gary used google translate to convey the message “we are staying here 22 nights and this is unacceptable”. Finally Gary phoned Agoda, the company we booked with. Things started happening soon after. Agoda lit the fire and we soon had a different room where the a/c works. Things were looking up.

We cooled off the room, did some unpacking but not too much. We read an email from Agoda in which they said they had tried calling and there was no answer. Gary’s phone was on mute, like it usually is on holidays. We were offered the chance to cancel because of the problem. Only thing is we needed a place to stay and everything else is booked in the area. We decided to stay put since our room was getting cool.

We walked to the Walmart of Ko Lanta (similar to a cattle shelter with a tin roof) and bought a beach umbrella for 390 baht about $17 CAD. We calculated $17 worked out to 81 cents a day. We then walked to the meat and produce market and bought a watermelon, a dozen passion fruit and a mango. We were so hot by then that we forgot how much we paid, but the fresh and juicy passion fruit were a few dollars which is a steal when considering the price at home.

Back to the room again to rest and cool off. We waited until just before sunset to head down to the beach and find a spot to eat. The reason we returned here this year is the amazing Khlong Dao beach. We ate at the Royal Lanta hotel restaurant on the beach. It was the first one and we liked their menu.