Ko Lanta!!!!

Well, we've had a couple of days in Ko Lanta so far. Today is Monday, we arrived on Saturday...I'm just trying to figure out where I am in my days, sorry....

Ok, I last updated the journal on Sunday morning, so here goes...

Sunday, we laid on the beach, and did some snorkelling around the resort we are at. Amazing! All kinds of fishies, all colorful swimming around some of the rocks just, maybe 50 metres off of shore. It's great. I got a BAD burn, a BAD burn...did I say a BAD burn??? It's super red still, but it doesn't hurt anymore. I had sunscreen on (SPF30), but sunscreen never works for me anyway. Oh well, just grin and bear it, I guess!!! Rented a motorbike abotu 4:00PM (250 baht for 24 hours...like $8 CDN), and drove around for a while. Drove down to the townsite. Court and I went shopping. Cheap! You gotta learn to bargain, totally. We're starting to get the hang of it now, though. Courtney bought a white shirt, scarf, a satin outfit and a skirt for 1000 baht...about $30 CDN!!! She is in total shopping heaven!!!!!!!!!!!! She loves it!! I keep telling her it'll get cheaper, in Bangkok, and maybe Vietnam, but she can't help herself!!! Ahhh, it's too funny.

When we rented the scooter, Courtney wanted to drive, because she has a scooter at home at the lake, so she knew how to drive one. So she took a little spin on it, and was pretty wobbly!! She said to me, she didn't wanna drive, so I jumped on. I was even more wobbly, I've never driven anything like this before. I did a couple of quick laps, then Court hopped on, and we took off, wobbling down the lane. I started off slow, until I got comfortable, then started going faster and faster. I'm an old pro now, and I love it! It's so cool, flying along on a scooter at 40 klicks, wind in the hair. Of course, there are not helmets to be found.

Went to a bar for supper, where you get a free BBQ and buffet when you buy a drink. It was actually pretty good, BBQ chicken, and great buffet with lots to have. Beer and spirits are expensive here (sorry Darren, things must have changed since you were here), the giong price for booze in a bar is typically 100 baht ($3 and change CDN), although you can sometimes get local beer and "Thai Whiskey" for about 30-60 baht. BTW, to calculate CDN dollars, I typically chop the last number off, then divide what's left by 3. So, 240 baht becomes 24, then divide by 3, leaves 8 CDN dollars. That's gets you pretty close anyway. After a couple of drinks at the bar, we went across the street and bought some really cheap Thai vodka (that's what Thor told us...Thor is a guy from Norway we met on the bus, he is travelling with a buddy of his). The "vodka" was only 70 baht for a 1 litre bottle, and bought some coke, and went back to our resort and the four of us (myself, Court, Ryan and Carly) had a few drinks, then walked down Long beach (it's a long beach!) right to the other end, where a small party was happening at a bar. We had a drink there, then about 1:00 AM, we decided it was too far to walk back, so got a taxi and paid 100 baht for the four of us to get back to our resort. The taxi was just a scooter with a "wagon" attached to the side, so the four of us squeezed in, it was a blast!!! The scooter would hardly move with 5 of us (us plus the driver), we could only go 20km/hour downhill!!! It was sooo much fun.

ONe interesting thing, when we were walking down Long Beach, as the surf came up on the beach, it would leave behind what appeared to be tiny phosphours rocks or something, they would glow in the sand for a minute or two then die out. It was really cool. Oh, and the crabs, you could see the crabs scurry out of the way at night as we were walking along. So awesome.

Anyway, this morning, we got up, had breakfast, then took our scooters to the waterfall in the island. The resort person told us she didn't know if there was any water coming down it right now, because it was the dry season, but we headed off anyway. The road started out paved, then turned to a packed gravel, then turned into nothing but dust and dirt, very deep dirt at some points. It's hard to drive a scooter through deep, fine dirt. Court and I came flying up over a hill, and the downside of the hill was thick dusty dirty, and I slammed on the back brake to slow down before we wiped out. Court was kinda freaking behind me. I heard a scream, I checked my mirror, and in a flash, saw Ryan and Carly in the process of wiping out!!!!!! They had come flying over the hill, and he hit both brakes, his front wheel locked up, and they took a spill!!! Carly took a nasty cut on her knee, but Ryan was ok. Court and Carly walked the rest of the way down the hill, I drove down (slow), and Ryan couldn't get his scooter going again, so he glided down. He managed to get it going (good thing...it was a long walk back), and we continued on. Carly's a big girl, no crying or complaining, in fact she was laughing about it, even though it hurt. She scraped her hand too, but her knee took the worst.

Took us about 1.5 hours to get to the waterfall (after biking, we had to park it and walk about 2km to the the waterfall). There wasn't much water, kind of a trickly coming down this cliff, but I'm sure in the rainy season it's quite impressive. It was so cool to walk through the jungle to the waterfall, was saw some lizards along the way.

On the way back to our resort, we checked out a few other resorts, the first one was 3000 baht/night, and another was, like 1500 baht/night. We found one for 200 baht/night (that's less than $7CDN boys and girls...$3.50 each!), so we decided we'd go there the next day.

We got back to the our resort, and walked to the next resort, someone had told us they have cheap, good Thai food, so we decided to check it out. It was very good, but it was very spicy and hot, what I got Thai noodles. I couldn't finish eating it, but I had stuffed myself so full, I thought I was gonna explode. While we were there, we asked about their huts...250 baht/night for the one closest to the beach, 200 baht for one a tad farther away. This was great!!!! We'll just move next door now, instead of going half way down the island, we can just carry our packs to the new place. The new place is truly beach hut style! We'll take pictures.

BTW, gas is pretty expensive here. 25 baht/litre, which is about 90 cents/litre. Good thing the scooters don't take a lot.

We tried to upload some pics here, but it's too slow, and we couldn't! That's too bad, both Court and I want to show you all how we're living, and make you all jealous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!! I'm so red, I feel like I can heat up all of Saskatchewan!!!!!

My scalp is burned too. So is Courtney's. She's never had a burned scalp, so it's new to her.

Court and I are getting a new wardrobe for me (and her too). But I have no sense of style, but I'm travelling with good taste, so I'm all set. She's telling me what she likes, I'll try it on, and we barter from there! It's great!!! :-)

Anyway, Court's done on her computer is rerring to do some more shopping, so I gotta finish this one off. I'm buying all "classy" Thai-type clothes, I'll be so styling when I get back!!!

Until later. Hopefully next time we'll get pictures uploaded.