Ko Lanta is known for its calm long beaches and we stayed at a small 8-roomed resort mid way along the west coast on Klong Nin beach with about 2km of perfect sand and magnificent views of the sunset every day. By contrast to the rest of Thailand, which is Buddhist, the island has a predominantly Muslim population which we were reminded of at 5am every morning! The rather loud call to prayer close to our room was less than tuneful but soon became only a brief disturbance in our rejuvenating time here.
We had several Thai massages in the small massage sala in our resort which consisted of the vigorous use of feet, knees, elbows and fists to remove knotted tension from muscles, and extreme body flexes to aid our flexibility. These "passive yoga" hour long massages resulted in a definite feeling of improved mobility but quite sore muscles for a day or two!
In the first week we took two trips off the island. On our first trip, we were collected from the beach outside our resort in a speedboat for snorkelling in the clear waters around Koh Rok. We were given three 40 minute sessions and it did not take long to find Nemo (False Clown Fish) in amongst the sea anemones on the coral as well as many other colourful species.
We were served a great Thai lunch on the finest white sandy beach imaginable before a bumpy return in the speedboat- travel sickness pills were essential that day!
Our second trip, which involved a visit to some mangroves, feeding monkeys and kayaking, was less organised. We had the slowest, most dilapidated long-tail that we had seen anywhere which took us from the mangroves out to another island. The advertised kayaking lasted no more than about 15 minutes to an unremarkable cave and small beach. Lunch was then at a beach where swimming was hazardous due to sea urchins! Long tailed macaques in the mangroves were being given fruit and, in spite of avoidance tactics, Nick ended up with one on his lap and was relieved that it was not the same animal that later did a poo in the boat!
Our only other venture away from our own Klong Nin beach was by a Lanta style tuk-tuk (which look like ice cream sellers) to Lanta Old Town. The unusually wooden built stilt town on the East side of the island was a quiet place to have an excellent seafood lunch on a small pier and for Nick to have a hair cut while Sue went shopping.
The tuk-tuk consisted of an underpowered motor scooter with a covered side-car attachment. The steep hill on our return journey proved to be too much for the engine and resulted in a short walk up the hill!
There was plenty to see along Klong Nin beach and we started to get used to the daily routines of beach life.
When walking along the beach at night we could see blue/green bright glows in the sand where the waves had just been. These are from bioluminescent plankton, and you can see more by splashing in the water. They can best be seen from underwater so we snorkelled when it was dark and were able to swim amongst the bioluminescence - amazing!
Neither of us are professional sunbathers so we had a struggle following the pattern of almost everyone else on the island which seem to consist of brief dips in the sea between prolonged roasting in the 32 degree heat of the sun for the entire day. It would seem that the island is mostly visited by the Swedish and French who are highly proficient at maintaining their winter tans, seem to smoke a lot and like body art. There are also a surprising number of families with children, from young couples with their first, in nappies, through to the outnumbered but really well behaved.
And so we lapsed into our routine because, apart from the occasional foray to our local shops to buy fruit and get cash, there was simply no reason to go anywhere else. The sea was 30 metres from our room, breakfast and massage about half that distance and the beachside Yoga Sala about a 15 minutes walk along the beach.
We disciplined ourselves to do a daily Yoga session, and were lucky to have our first lesson with just the 2 of us, so we were helpfully taught how to do all the different poses! The morning 7.30 - 9.00am sessions we more peaceful, with lots of stretching and contemplation of the sea and our inner being! The afternoon 4.30 - 6.00pm sessions were extremely hot, tended to be quite strenuous and resulted in us pouring with sweat! They did however end with a cross legged contemplation of sunset over the sea, and us rehydrating with cocktails on the way back to our room!
The benefit of our yoga sessions was evident by the end of our two weeks, we now found it possible to reach our cocktails from the reclined position of a deck chair by engaging our core body muscles - job done!
We left Koh Lanta with lots of New Year resolutions to continue to do yoga and do more exercise - let's hope we can be self disciplined when we return to the UK!
