Our homestay on Koh Yao Yai, Green Mountain Resort, booked our boat tickets to Ko Lanta (1,200 baht each, same price as at the pier). We were picked up in a songthaew from our resort (included in the boat ticket price) and dropped at the Chong Lard Pier. We took a 40-minute speedboat to Ao Nang Pier (near Krabi), stopping at two piers on Koh Yao Noi first. There we transferred to a large ferry (with toilets, snacks, and drinks onboard). We stopped at Railay Beach for about 20 minutes to pick up more passengers via longtail boat and then it was a 2-hour ride to Ko Lanta. In Ko Lanta, getting off the ferry was annoying, as we docked alongside two other ferries deboarding. It took a long time to unload, and grabbing luggage as you deboarded was a free-for-all. Finally, we made it off, paid our 10-baht tourist fee to get on the island, and then headed towards our hotel for the night.
We booked two nights at the Asura Resort, which was on the north side of the island and walking distance from the pier. The Asura rooms are nice and new; all rooms face the interior pool, which is very clean. The bathrooms have a separate shower (rarity in Southeast Asia) with good pressure and hot water. The best part is that we were just a short, 2-minute walk from Klong Dao Beach – a very sandy, swimmable beach, however, no shade, which turned out to be a common theme on Ko Lanta. We spent the first afternoon here, relaxing until dinner. Since we only had two nights booked at the Asura, we had to figure out if we wanted to stay here or move to a different part of the island for the following night(s). Even though we liked the Asura Hotel, the north side of the island is very busy and crowded. We decided to explore the rest of the island on the second day to determine where we should stay next.
For our explorations, we rented a motorbike for the day (250 baht from Asura). We started by driving as far south as Kantiang Beach, first driving inland towards Old Town to see if we liked the looks of the Andawa Lanta Resort that we had seen online. From a drive-by we decided the pool looked much smaller than the pictures and it wasn’t near anything, so we drove to Kantiang Beach. We loved this beach – much less crowded than the north side of the island and still a nice sandy, swimmable beach (particularly on the south side near Same Same But Different Bar). However, still no shade. We stayed here for a few hours before leaving to find some lunch and check out a few other beaches. On the way, we spotted the Sea @ Lanta Hotel, which had decent reviews and was cheap. It ended up being cheaper at the front desk (800 baht/night) than online, so we booked a room for three nights! As we drove back north towards the Asura, we stopped at Relax Bay Beach, Long Beach (Phra Ae), and Klong Kong Beach. These beaches were similar to Klong Dao and Kantiang, getting more crowded as we drove north. Since none had shade to offer, Kantiang Beach was still our favorite. We spent the remainder of the afternoon at the Asura pool, with a few beers before heading to dinner. That night we also checked out the Indian Bar, which has a fire show every night around 9 pm. We also watched several fishermen bring in their overflowing crab pots. A wonderful evening on the beach to end a wonderful day!
The next morning, we had to switch hotels, which was a pricey endeavor. We needed to get a tuk tuk and the first offer was 400k baht each! Crazy, so we kept walking. The next tuk tuk driver asked us where we needed to go, so we showed him on the map and repeatedly stated “near Kantiang”. He acted confused (obviously a ploy since it would be ridiculous for him not to know where Kantiang is on the island) but told us 250-baht total. We confirmed again before we got in and he nodded that he understood where we were going. And then about half-way there (and he was driving very slowly), he pulled over and pretended like we had arrived where he thought we were going. When we showed him again on the phone (for about the fifth time now), suddenly, he was like “oh, Kantiang, that’s very far, 500 baht.” We stood relatively firm on the price, only offering up to 300 baht because we had clearly shown him where we were going. When he finally realized we weren’t budging, he started moving again at a much faster speed. Eventually we arrived at the Sea @ Lanta Hotel, where we had a clean room with a hot shower and good air conditioning. A great deal on the island at 800 baht (~$27) per night. We dropped off our stuff and walked to Kantiang Beach (about a 15-minute walk with some hills). Patrick picked up a coconut outside the 7-Eleven and we spent the afternoon on the beach, leaving after the beautiful sunset.
We needed a beach break, so we rented a motorbike (250 baht from Sea @ Lanta) and rode over to Old Town (on the east side of the island). Since there are no beaches on this side of the island, just the fishing village, Old Town sees fewer tourists. There are still a few guest houses here and restaurants. We ate at Baja Taco (see below for details) and relaxed on their well-manicured grounds for a couple hours. Then we drove through the Old Town – a cute, mostly one-street town with shops and restaurants. We headed back to the west side of the island for sunset, which we enjoyed with a happy hour cocktail at Cliff Sunset Bar.
Our next two days were relaxing, hot beach days at Kantiang Beach. We ended up booking our hotel for an additional two nights and a snorkel tour to Koh Rok with Tin Adventure Sea Tour for our final day on Ko Lanta (booked at The Monkey Lanta shop for 1,200 baht per person). The tour was a splurge for us, but definitely worth it! We were picked up at our hotel around 8:40 am, dropped off at Kantiang Beach, and picked up by the boat around 9:30 am from the beach. There were close to two dozen guests on board, plus about six staff. It was crowded when everyone was on, but no overwhelming. They seem to pick up from north to south along the beaches, and drop off south to north, so we were fortunate with our location. I took a nausea pill so for the first time in a while, I wasn’t seasick! And I’m glad I did, because many others did end up getting sick. Our first stop was Koh Rok Yai (the larger island) to drop off all of those that didn’t want to snorkel. The boat was rockiest while we docked at this floating dock. About eight to ten people got off here, so there was much more room on the boat for snorkelers! These islands are surrounded by the amazing blue/turquoise colors that make for great pictures – if you choose not to snorkel, you get to spend more time enjoying the amazing beach.
For the rest of us, we stayed on the boat for another five minutes before arriving at our first snorkel spot. Our tour company did a great job finding us spots with fewer people. We were the only group at the first snorkel spot! We spent about 30 minutes here, admiring the colorful coral and plentiful fish (e.g., parrot fish, angel fish). There were also giant, colorful clams that I had never seen before, which were amazing! At first, they look like coral, but when you dive down, you can watch them snap closed. Another plus with our tour company was that they had staff dive with us, pointing things out and taking underwater pictures (which were available for free online afterwards!). We moved to a second snorkeling spot for another 30 minutes or so; this spot was a little better than the first spot. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of snorkeling in general here! After our second snorkeling spot, we headed back to Koh Rok Yai for about two hours of beach time and lunch (buffet with massaman curry, vegetables, fried chicken, and rice). There are a lot of day trip boats, so lunch time is crowded, but each boat provides their own respective lunches. At around 1:30 pm, we got back on the boat for a third snorkeling spot. Equally good snorkeling – my favorite sight here was a giant tan/grey sea slug inching its way across the coral with its underlying tentacles. The current was strong here, so we had a good, tough swim back to the boat. We had about 40 minutes to explore at this spot before heading back to Koh Rok Yai to pick up the non-snorkeling passengers and heading back to Ko Lanta. Overall, we were gone from around 9:30 am to 3:45 pm. We really enjoyed our trip!
That night we headed down to the Why Not Bar for drinks after dinner. There was live music and a fire show (at 8:30 pm every night). The fire show was impressive; some of the performers must have been ages 10-15, so young! They had some fireworks and sparklers incorporated as well for a 20-minute show. This was followed by live music (two guitarists and an electric drummer) who played mostly American music, and happily took requests. It was a very laid-back vibe, with atypically low crowds. A great last night on Ko Lanta! We ultimately stayed seven nights on Ko Lanta (two at the Asura Resort and five at the Sea @ Lanta Hotel). Some of the restaurants that we really enjoyed on the island are below! I’ve also mentioned the Tab Computer shop because they were very helpful when our laptop unfortunately died (story below).
- Kantiang Restaurant (south side): This was right across the street from our Sea @ Lanta Hotel, so we ended up eating here three nights. And it was delicious! Every night, all the tables were full. We tried a variety of dishes – Patrick ordered every type of curry. I ordered seafood fried rice the first night and the Tom Yum Seafood Soup the second and third nights. The soup was one of my favorite meals over the course of our entire Southeast Asia trip! The meals are very reasonably priced, and you can watch the sunset from here as the restaurant is situated on a deck above a small cove.
- Tuesday Morning (south side): Located next to Kantiang Restaurant. We visited this restaurant twice for American-style breakfast including an egg, bacon sandwich and avocado mash with toast, bacon, and a poached egg. A little pricey, but good!
- Alama Restaurant (south side): Good food, but nothing special. There was a 20% discount on food for the month of January when we visited, otherwise, this would not have been worth the price. I ordered fried fish with rice, and Patrick ordered a curry.
- Why Not Bar (south side): Beachside bar with a fire show at 8:30 pm every night and live music.
- Baja Taco (Old Town): Really good Tex-Mex food. Well worth a drive over to Old Town. We ordered too much food (and ate it all) since we hadn’t had Mexican in a while. Fish tacos, shrimp tacos, and ground beef burritos. Pricey for our budget, but again, worth it.
- El Greco – Greek Taverna (north side): We ordered lamb and chicken gyros from here one night when we needed a break from Thai cuisine. It was a little expensive for our budget (chicken at 180 baht and lamb at 280 baht), but very tasty!
- My Home (north side): Good lunch combo deals (curry, rice, and watermelon drink for under 100 baht).
- Tan’s Bamboo (central, near Klong Khong Beach): Good, reasonably priced food. We ordered fried rice and curry from here (our typical dishes).
- Indian Bar (north side): Fire show at 9 pm every night with happy hour drink specials.
- Tab Computer Shop (north side): Unfortunately, Ko Lanta is where our laptop died – based on the error code, the CPU/motherboard failed. We found this small computer repair shop on google maps. The shop took the computer for about a day to investigate. They confirmed it was a CPU/motherboard issue, which they could not fix, and unfortunately, didn’t have the tools to retrieve the data. We were grateful that they looked at it, and they didn’t even charge us for their time – very nice of them! We could have ordered a new laptop through them, but it would have a taken 3 days to arrive since they order from the mainland. So, we resigned to going without a laptop for about a month or so until we could get to a store in Malaysia. Not the end of the world.
