Ko Lanta, Thailand

The final decent into Phuket airport is the best one of my life--forested rock formations ringed by misty blue waters. After an ATM pitstop, we walk past hotel hawkers and taxi touts until we reach the Aerobus. I stare at the Thai script signs inside the bus, seemingly made up of lower case "p" and "q"s. Only after we are halfway through the bus ride do I realize I left my only ATM card in the machine. I am extremely angry at myself for doing something so stupid but all is not lost. I have enough money for my time in Thailand and Laura is willing to lend me cash throughout the rest of Asia if necessary. I cancel my card and order a new one. Now I just have to decide where to have it sent after it arrives at my house. I'm thinking Athens, Greece so I can be sure it has enough time to arrive before I do.

"It has no really taste, eating like pudding" comments Torsten about a dish he orders at the Phuket night market. Christophe and Torsten are two German friends traveling together we meet on the way to our guesthouse. Christope is on a mission to find fisherman's trousers for a price that pleases him and asks every clothing vendor we pass.

The next day we head to Ko Lanta. Ko Lanta is comprised of a series of islands off the Andaman coast in southern Thailand; Ko Lanta Yai is the largest and our destination. The process begins in an eight person van to Phuket's port where we load onto a ferry. On the top deck, pasty boys in board shorts sun themselves, two guys in aviator shades and shaved chests dare each other to swim the rest of the way, and the breasts of an enormous British woman threaten to fall out of her inadequate bikini top. We are close to our first stop now. I see Phi Phi Don island on my left and Phi Phi Le (made famous after The Beach was filmed there) on my right. Minutes later, we exit and are ushered toward a small boat bound for Ko Lanta. I smell a combination of sun, sea, sweat, and cigarettes from my perch atop a mountain of backpacks. I try to avoid getting ashed on by the many smokers but it's sort of inevitable so I focus instead on the breathtaking scenery of rocks and ocean.

We arrive at Ban Saladan port and chose a bungalow located on Klong Nin beach, about three-quarters of the way down Ko Lanta's west coast. The driver hucks our packs on top of a pickup truck and after squeezing eight other travels in the back, he drives us to Ko Lanta Nature Resort. For 300 baht (about $4.60 each) our dwelling is a bamboo a-frame bungalow on stilts. A mosquito net hangs on the wall and the shower spritzes in every direction except directly on my head but who cares we have a hammock on the porch! After unloading our packs, we notice our new German friends are loding two bungalows down from us! We have fun with them, they teach us German phrases, let us ride on their rented mopeds, and tell us that David Hasslehoff is one of the most famous singers in Germany. The beaches are not mindblowing, but still good and the atmosphere is utterly relaxing. The rest of the evening plays out like an idyllic beach movie--drink a mango lassi at the open air bar, swim in the bathtub warm ocean, and watch an orange sun dip into the sea. But then we watch fire dancers and one catches the back of his tank top on fire. "Excuse me, you're on fire" comes a polite voice from the crowd the performer doesn't hear. "Stop, drop, and roll!" I yell. He will be ok.

One day I have an oceanside thai massage from a fortyish woman with drawn-on eyebrows. She is incredibly strong and at one point actually hoists me skyward, her knees pressing into my back. I am amazed at how she performs much of the kneading with her elbows and nimbly moves around my entire body to gain access of each area. And it's under $10.

We attend the Lanta Lanta festival in Old Town, a strange brew of a carnival indeed. One "game of skill" offers stuffed bears, eggs, and cooking oil among it's prizes. The lead in a thai-reggae band is dressed exactly like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. A "Miss Lanta" beauty pageant is judged by a muscular trannie in a cobalt blue dress. Skinny thai teenagers perform a dance routine to pop music, my favorite is the lone guy who wears a green t-shirt and shakes his booty with sassiness like I've never seen. Afterwards I congratulate Greenshirt and he dissolves into a fit of giggles! I feast on pad thai, grilled corn, and some kind of gelatinous sweet I can't identify for a few baht. I buy a lightweight robin's egg blue print dress and Christophe finally finds some fisherman's trousers.

I borrow a snorkeling mask from the Germans and discover striped fish, funky coral, and something that looks like a cross between a snake and a newt. We drink rum and coke and play Connect 4. We continually evaluate the quality of our daily mango lassi on a scale of 1 to 10. At night the colorful christmas lights of mellow beach huts twinkle as we contemplate our dinner venue. We hike to the Mai Kaeo caves, described in the pamphlet as "most of the impression in Ko Lanta" As I shimmy through the narrow crevices, passing bats and huge spiders with diamond eyes along the way, I would have to agree. On the way back, we have the opportunity to ride on an elephant but I just can't do it. One elephant already has a hairy guy with a huge tatoo on his left love handle sitting atop its head and looks deeply unhappy.

I like Thailand. The Thai people have been nothing short of kind and accomodating in every way. Although the average annual income is under $5,000 usd, most people appear to be quite content. Families run their businesses, be it serving food, massage, some type of tour, etc. Houses are simple but this climate doesn't demand more than that. I befriend Mi, Wan, and "Rambo" who all speak enough English to carry on a conversation. Mi sums up the Thai lifestyle as "good food here and lack of stress...Americans eat bad food and worry all the time about money." Mi is 37 but could pass for 19. Clearly, there is something special about life on Ko Lanta.