Ko Lanta

The island is in deed almost paradise-like but as the road from the north is being built, more resorts are stretching out towards the southern beaches. You can still find really peaceful and quiet beaches with clean sand and even clearer waters. But as I talked with one local, there has been a huge change in the past ten years. Builders have been poaching the monkeys and previously common breeds such as Night monkeys are pretty much extinct nowadays. Also the bigger resorts have been just pumping their waste water straight in to the ocean, making the snow-white beach sands a pale shade of gray. They are apparently waking up to the situation but it seems that a lot of the damage has already been done, but still towards south you can find some peace and solitude under coconut trees. I'd still say that Palolem beach in Goa is probably the best I've been to, with Porto Katsiki in Lefkada, Greece coming as a close second. But generally the beaches here are easily compareable to the finest ones I've experienced. And I guess in Ko Phi Phi there would be even nicer ones (like the one they used in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Beach") but somehow the ubiquitous 4-5 star resorts were somewhat of a turnoff and finding cheap accommodation there might be hard.


One nice thing about Ko Lanta is that the whole west coast is pretty much one stretch of a road and thusly it is very easy to get along in there. Walking is nice but waving downwards to the passing scooters or cars is really common and I was "stopped" by hitch-hikers a couple of times and when I didn't have a scooter, I was traveling on the back of a pick-up truck or on the back seat of someones scooter. And had the best and most interesting conversations with the locals during those trips as well. So that is definitely a recommended way of moving around and because it is so common, it is not hard to get yourself a ride. You are not expected to pay anything and generally the company is reward enough for all parties involved. Superb way to travel and meet the locals. And because there generally is just one road, you just pick the right side of the street and wave down with your hand. Generally the thumb up is an unknown symbol for them at least in the hitch-hiking context, so just looking at them and with your palm down just wiggle a little and you are most likely to get a ride.

The streets get quite quiet in the evening so don't count on a ride though. But whenever you have a longer distance to walk and you are not necessarily in the mood for it, try hitch-hiking. Works beautifully in Ko Lanta at least. :)