Happy days! So lovely to be back on Koh Lanta and have the opportunity to catch up with all of my lovely Lanta Diver friends. Brings back happy memories of doing my divemaster course, and working as a DM guiding for a season in 2007/08 and playing with all of those wonderfully awesome manta rays :)
After surviving 17 tedious hours in the airport at Singapore, walking between wifi venues, and sleeping on the chairs trying not to be sick with a bug I managed to catch - I finally got off the plane in Krabi with a big smile on my face! As soon as I got off the plane, my bag was waiting and I went through and booked my minibus and ferry tickets to the island, and 30 minutes later was on my way.
My bungalow was just perfect! I had a hammock, a massive bed inside, and literally 100m (if that) to the right was the ocean and Long Beach - my favourite beach in Lanta with so many fun memories. I was right next to Mr Wee's, Funky Fish, Somewhere Else - all the old haunts for dinner settings. So cool. I took myself straight to the beach and ordered a Chang and sat and watched the sunset, and the World go by. My favourite thing to do in the whole wide world.
That evening I met Nora for dinner at Mr Wee's and we ordered salami pizza, again just like the old days. She introduced me to her lovely new boyfriend Marcelo and we swapped stories as fast as we could about life, and where next plans, in between stories about what they can expect in Lembeh when they go diving with Two Fish Divers in May. Can't believe I will miss them, but so happy for them as I know they will have awesome times. Marcelo is an underwater photographer (well I guess above water too, but works as underwater in Lanta...) so he will have a total blast with his camera! Nora looks so happy, so was cool to see her so smiley!
The next morning I was up early to meet the minibus to get into town for diving! I was super excited about the possibility of seeing manta rays, less excited about the 4 hour boat ride to get there however. It did provide us girls with a good amount of time to gossip our way to Hin Muang though and catch up on the last 4 years. Anjali was on the boat as well so was lovely to gossip the day away. Anjali suggested my doing another season in Lanta or considering coming back here to teach yoga which is definitely an idea for more consideration :)
First dive of the day was Hin Muang and it was the most beautiful dive ever. I have never dived Hin Muang, as a customer or guiding it, when the conditions were so calm. The visibility was like forever, and the reef has grown back in such a healthy way since 2008. There's so much life underwater, and the strangest part was no current whatsoever which is just unheard of. Normally this dive site can be exhausting with always having to change directions to avoid ripping currents and the mantas appear through a green haze as viz is so bad. Hin Daeng was exactly the same, gorgeous to dive but no manta rays as just too calm a day for them. They haven't seen them in a few weeks so chances were slim anyway. Was just really nice to be out on the water.
Nora and I used to work together at Lanta Divers and were nearly always on the slow boat to Hin Muang/Daeng which meant we had some awesome dives with mantas (sometimes 5-7 at a time playing so close we had to move out of their way! Very lucky!!) through this season but also meant we were always on the early boat and up at 5am to work!! We put the world to rights on our early mornings though and both went through differing degrees of life experiences during our time working together, so our days were always filled with plenty of stories ;) That was a season where we both learnt a lot.
I dived with a Swedish couple who were a bit tricky to begin with but warmed up as the day went on, and ended up joining Nora and I quite a lot chatting. They invited me to dinner with them that evening and I went along to find out more about them. They were a nice couple, who make a point of traveling somewhere exotic in Asia each year with or without their children which I think is kind of cool. I always like when people continue their travel dreams and adventures even though they have children. They very kindly paid for my dinner saying I needed to save my money for more exciting things on my travels :)
I had plans to stay longer and dive again with Nora, and have girls drinks on the Tuesday evening. I spent the morning sending emails to find out how long I needed in Bangkok to get my visa for India, and then got myself ready for the beach. Surprisingly the Embassy responded quickly and told me I needed to allow 8-9 business days for the visa at a minimum which sent me off into a panic as I only had 8 business days left before flying to India, and even that meant leaving Lanta much sooner than I had intended. The day quickly became about racing into town to get bus tickets to Bangkok, finding a hotel and saying goodbyes instead of chilling. I did manage to get some yummy street food in Saladan and enjoy a mango shake in the tuk tuk back to Blue Sky and hit the beach for a bit in the afternoon which was a relief to have time to do so :) Also managed to fit in a 3 mile run along the beach that evening too which felt great after not having run for a full month since my Dubai runs! I miss running so much and my track sessions, and all of my running friends, and races and goals.
On my final night, I had dinner with Nora, Ivan (My DMT Instructor and friend) and Marcelo at Somewhere Else. So sad to be saying hi to Ivan at the same time as saying bye to everyone. I feel like I just started to relax and then it is time to move on all over again. Sucked big time as I was really hoping to have at least another 3 or 4 nights in Koh Lanta to catch up properly. Ivan talked about sunset drinks at his new place. I decided I would try to get back to Koh Lanta after submitting my visa in Bangkok if I could find decent flight prices. Guess we will see once I get there, and what I need to do about passport and visa details. It's so hard to figure out from their website...
Anyway spent the final morning chilling in a cafe on the beach reading and doing not very much until the minibus came to collect me, and then very sadly saying bye bye to Koh Lanta :( It was an awesome 3 night stopover lol!! Looking forward to catching up with Nora and Marcelo somewhere in Indonesia later in summer, maybe Ivan and others too xx
Ah Koh Lanta I still <3 you!
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