Koh Lanta Update - Monday into Tuesday, March 8

So last I wrote, I had arrived at Khlong Jack Bunglaows and while at almost the southern most point on the island and not a town, or anything in sight, I slowly began to get acclimated to my paradise.

PARADISE FOUND........and for 100 baht a night.

I bunch of people were at the "bar" (a hut on the beach with some wooden tables) and we had an introduction cocktail. That led to some swimming, some lunch (at the hut adjacent to the bar) and getting to know your new beach talk. There are about 18 people in total staying at this place and from what I can tell, it's going to be great. The afternoon was spent on the beach, at the bar, laying in hammocks, and relaxing. After we got back from the "town", we (Tuci, Nadine, and I) decided on dinner and we sat around and talked and drank until about 1AM. Their English isn't perfect but it's pretty damn good and they like to be corrected and taught how to say new things so it's fun.

The help is so friendly and so are the other people staying here.

I got to bed at about 1:30A and at 2AM, the winds started. Remember, I am in a bamboo hut so you hear pretty much everything outside. All of a sudden, I started to hear wild winds followed by an insane smashing noise coming from the roof of my hut. Remember, this place is remote. Very little electricity so when you want to walk around at night, you need a flashlight or you may end up walking a while and ending up somewhere you don't want to. I went outside and after looking around with my little flashlight, I realized that there was some metal sheeting on the corners of the roof on the outside and one of my panels was lose. it was flapping and smashing into the other panel it rested on and it was LOUD. This went on ALL NIGHT. I barely slept and when I did, it was only for about 15 minutes at a time until the next wind came.

March 8th - and a big shout out to Dave - Happy Birthday Dave!

I got out of my hut at about 6:30A and as soon as I saw someone from the guesthouse, I told them and they said they would fix it before tonight. I hope they do because that would drive me nuts for 2 days in a row.

I went down to the beach, took a morning swim, watched the sun as it rose above the black rocky cliffs that outlined the beach and waited for others to wake. Andre was first. I was glad being I'm not a big fan of Thomas, his traveling buddy. I'm not so sure he likes Americans and he's making that known. Oh well, everyone can't like us.

By 9AM, everyone was up, people were making their way to the breakfast hut and people were planning their days. Oh yeah, there's nothing to plan as the options are pretty simple: sit on the beach, sit on a hammock, swim, sleep, or take a walk on the dusty dirt road to the next guesthouse down the road and do the same things on the next beach over, a completley deserted one. I had breakfast with Tuci and Nadine and then sat on the beach for a little bit. After a Beer Chang at 11AM, the 3 of us went for a walk. the beach is crescent shaped and at each end are black craggy cliffs that look like volcanic rock. We started climbing the rocks and made out way over to the next beach. There was nothing on this beach but 3 people sunbathing who had to have gotten there the same way we did or from the other end. We walked across the beach, and climbed over the next set of jetty like rocks and found another beach. Once again, nothing here but a guesthouse that had been damaged by the tsunami and not operational at the moment.

Tuci and Nadine turned back and I went further. Over more rocks and a few beaches later, I arrived at a dead end as there was no way around this one. The black rock jetted up from the sea straight to the sky that it was nearly impossible and I wasn't in the mood to swim all the way around it. On the way back, while climbing some rock, I tried to balance myself between two boulders to take a photo and I slipped. Although just a slight cut on my finger, I think I had more blood on my hands than OJ had after he didn't kill Nicole and Ron. I had my 35mm camera around my neck and the back had popped open upon hitting the rock. All the photos I took from Phi Phi til today had now been exposed to extreme sunlight and I was slightly upset. Nothing I can do about it and remember the motto of this trip is........ummmmm.........I forget but it doesn't allow room for being upset, annoyed, or pissed off for any reason whatsoever. Further down the beach, I saw some great bungalows. It turned out they were a handful of cottages that belonged to the hotel that sat above them. I realized I had stumbled across a jewel of Lanta. This place was AWESOME. It was a 4 star resort with a crazy pool, awesome grounds nestled in the cliffs and mountains above the beach and a room here could be yours for the low low (and it was pretty low) price of 11,500 baht a night but discounted to 8500. I could have gotten him down even more but what was the point in trying if I had no intentions of staying there. I moved on, made my way back to my own little paraside and had some lunch and tried to re-hydrate after my crazy walk and rock climbing. After lunch, we just hung on the beach, swam a little and napped.

Tuci and Nadine are great and I do plan keep in touch with them. We have really bonded and it will be sad to see them go tomorrow.

We had dinner on the beach and sat, drank and talked until a little after midnight. I went to my bungalow and packed up. The little pick-up truck was going to take Tuci and Nadine to the pier tomorrow morning and I was going to go a little further north to a beach that may be a little more populated than this one. While this place is awesome, I'm ready to see another part of the island and from what I hear, I have a great destination.

Stay tuned.......