Thailand with Team TT plus one!
Bangkok, Ko Lanta & Koh Lipe, 23 January - 15 February 2017
After leaving the Philippines we headed to Thailand. We had a few days in Bangkok before meeting up with Nic where we spent the next two weeks dodging tourists by going to a couple of less touristy islands, Ko Lanta and Koh Lipe. Team TT had never been to Thailand before and we had heard very mixed reviews from other travellers.
We kicked off our Thai experience by wandering around Bangkok enjoying the architecture, the street food and the Thai culture of Khao San road (!), seeing some “local” sites along the way…
Some scrummy street food
We visited the Grand Palace which was pretty impressive, however, what was more moving was seeing the huge amount of Thai people dressed in black mourning their late King…
Monks too…
Inside the grounds of the very Grand Palace
Remember visiting Buckingham Palace as a kid on a school trip, laughing and joking and daring the naughty kid to go up to the Queen’s guards to make them laugh…
Did he succeed, what do you think?!
From Bangkok we flew to Ao Nang on the mainland in the Krabi Province where we were meeting Nic, although neither of us realised we had booked a room above the notorious Ao Nang red light district!
After a teary Taylor reunion and Dan being propositioned by many lady boys, we made a quick exit and boarded our ferry over to Ko Lanta.
"Sisters are doing it for themselves"
Arriving and then our first sunset on the beautiful Ko Lanta
We cruised around the island once again enjoying beach bum life, we visited Long Beach which, yep you guessed it, is a very long beach.
We enjoyed the sunshine, catching up, relaxing and a few beers…
This tended to be the general theme of our holiday with Nic!
However, we didn’t spend all our time enjoying the white sand beaches, glorious sunshine, turquoise tranquil sea, ice cold local beer and cocktails… we all had a cookery class with Time for Lime. A great little organisation where they also run an animal welfare charity that shelters rescued dogs and cats and looks to relocate them around the world, quite impressive hey! The cookery class was pretty awesome too…
There was a bit of relaxing before we started, well I was with Mr Timely and Miss Organised so of course we arrived early :-)
It was a great afternoon, we made lots of delicious Thai food including a chicken Massaman curry and a fried papaya salad, yummy!
Does Dan look intimidated to you…?
Dinner time
I already mentioned that we cruised around the island, we hired a couple of scooters and felt the wind in our hair (under our helmets of course), I wasn’t brave enough to drive one myself so Dan and Nic led the way!
We also went on a boat trip and visited nearby Phi Phi island.
Maya beach, “The Beach”
Maya beach is beautiful, there is no disputing that, just unsurprisingly extremely busy with many boat loads of tourists. If you can resist not seeing "The Beach" I wouldn’t bother, there are tons and tons of beautiful beaches in South East Asia where you won’t see another tourist. Exactly how it must have been for “Richard” or whoever was the first person to clap eyes on this beautiful bay.
Next up was snorkelling at Phi Phi Don…
Tiring this holiday lark…
After all the strenuous activity it was back to enjoying the beach…
After a lovely week on Ko Lanta it was time to head to Koh Lipe, a southern Thai island very close to Malaysia. Not before a final night out on Ko Lanta…
Not the best time to hit the buckets of cocktails hey…the night before having to get on a boat to travel to Koh Lipe! :-( No picture required.
Koh Lipe was very impressive, a tiny island with that small island feel, a walking street with all the bars and restaurants and some wicked diving, where we were reunited with our dive instructor Matthias from the Gili’s!
I’m not even sure words can describe the beauty of Koh Lipe, other than to say there are no filters whatsoever used on these shots, it was truly magnificent to capture and experience.
We decided to explore some more of this idyllic island so hired some bikes and set off… it was bloody hot!
Downhill at last, yeeeehaaaa!
The next day while Nic was working on her sun tan we had an underwater Gili reunion…
Koh Lipe offered us some stunning sunsets, we thank you Koh Lipe…
No filters on these either, just me and my Olympus OMD EM10 Mark II.
We had to say goodbye to Koh Lipe and head back to Bangkok where Nic was catching her flight home :-(
We had an AMAZING two weeks in Thailand, not because we were in Thailand but because we got to share it with Nic. It was sad to say goodbye, thank you for coming to see us Nic and make lifelong memories, such fun times, “kill it!”
Next up for Team TT was JAPAN!!! Stay tuned…
Love and hugs
Team TT xxx