Location: Koh Lanta, Thailand

I very seriously debated staying in Phi Phi a few more days but am also eager to keep exploring. I wasn’t sure where to go so I went to the pier and asked the local guy working there where he suggested I go next. He pointed to Koh Lanta on a map, which had a good weather report for today. Chasing the sun has worked out so far!

Taking random suggestions is fine but the super old looking ferry should have been my first indicator that I was island hopping two hours to somewhere a little less popular. A few tourists were also on the ferry so I thought it was a reasonable decision… until we pulled up to a ghost town. Maybe in high season this place is slightly more lively but right now nine out of ten shops are closed down along the main road which looked more like a little highway.

The hostel lady seemed only mildly interested in my arrival, and a little more invested in the Fast and the Furious movie playing on the teeny tiny TV in the lobby. The place was swelteringly hot and it turns out that they turn the AC off during the day which is torturous. No it’s fine. Really. I’ll just melt onto your floor. If I didn’t know better I would have been concerned that I walked right into someone’s living room.

I put my bag down in my room and opened the curtain to find the window was blocked by a plank of wood. Outside I could hear construction sounds. I left Phi Phi paradise for this!

It’s fine! I am two minutes from the beach. The beach will fix this!

Nope. No it will not. The first thing I saw when I arrived was two huge red waving flags on a sign indicating that if the flags are green you can swim, yellow you can wade in, and red… you aren’t allowed in the water. Not that I would have gone in anyway looking at the size of the crashing waves all along the deserted beach.

Ok you know what can salvage this? Ice cream.

I made my way down the beach, keeping a side eye on the angry waves. It took me ages but I finally stumbled onto Escape Café, which felt appropriate. I ordered myself up a giant scoop of affogato ice cream in their wonderfully cold little shop and watched the waves crash along the shore, trying to figure out what to do.

Order more ice cream is what you’re gonna do. I read a whole bunch of articles about things to do here, and I think maybe I was just getting unlucky so far. It seems like Koh Lanta is supposed to be a quaint, quiet beach bar type place. Well beach bars it is then! I slathered on some sunscreen and went to continue my walk down the beach, aiming for one such bar… which I found right next door. I can read a book with a drink in my hand anywhere in the world and be happy!

Lym’s Beach Bar was basically a cabana with swings for seats and tall wooden stools sat at wood slab bar tables set directly into trees. As I walked up a British woman did as well. With a huge smile and a gasp she ordered a beer and said to the bartender ‘look at this place! It’s so beautiful! How could you not just be happy all the time here?!’

Well if that isn’t the universe telling me to get over myself then I don’t know what is.

I ordered the same beer she did and sat right at the beach under the half shade of a… tropical pine tree? Unclear. The warm wind picked up and I decided to try and get a timer photo of myself on the beach swing when Rosie, the Brit from earlier noticed and offered to take one of me. She ended up inviting me to her table with her Mum, Joyce, and the three of us visited over a few beers.

Joyce introduced herself and said ‘it’s Joyce, Joy, or Mum’ and within minutes the three of us were happily chatting away and they invited me to watch the World Cup Soccer game with with them tonight, as it was England VS. Spain! We sniffed out an Irish pub (there’s literally one in every single area of the world) and sat down for a great evening of beers, fried pub food and yelling, along with an entire bar of Brits. It must have been every Brit on the island packed into this one little bar called The Irish Embassy Pub.

I don’t have any idea what my plan is for tomorrow but if screaming along to the World Cup soccer game in a bar full of Brits is all I get from Koh Lanta, then it was already worth coming.

Sav