Thailand – Part III – Old Lanta Village, the National Park and Assorted Wildlife!

9th February, 2019

It is hard to believe that we leave Thailand tomorrow after 3 fabulous weeks. I can’t say the days have flown past as it has been wonderfully relaxing and leisurely, but you do sort of wonder where they all went.

We did take a trip on one of those days to see other parts of the island, indeed, with the intention to visit a part we has not seen last time we were here and that was the National Park at the southern tip. Unfortunately we missed the turning (no mean achievement considering how few roads there are on the island!) and ended up in Old Lanta half way down the east coast on the other side of the island. We had been here before, but it is still worth a visit and is a reminder of what the island and possibly Thailand in general might have looked like about 20 to 30 years ago. That said parts of it are restaurants and chic shops, but the buildings are still nice. We got the impression it was populated by a higher Chinese population than normal in the rest of the island.

Of course we did have to break the journey for Val’s Daily Coconut!

A few photos of the town of Old Lanta Village…..

We did go as far down the island as you can go on the east coast, but you end up at a rather disappointing looking resort called Pirate’s Paradise.

We did make it to the National Park on another venture southwards, but other than a lighthouse and a nice looking beach, it was a bit disappointing, unless you wanted to do a 2 km hike uphill in tropical forest and tropical heat, up for which we, not surprisingly, were not!

As these things happen, we have seen more wildlife in the grounds of the hotel than in the National Park and anyone who has followed my blog for any time will know that I cannot resist a few photos, especially with my new super-duper camera. So if you can’t take any more photos of birds and assorted other animals, look away now and just be thankful there is a financial cost to the amount of photos you can post on this site! I was told there had been a hornbill in the grounds, but I missed it!

We are off on the ferry tomorrow morning to the island of Langkawi in Malaysia for two weeks. Unfortunately Val has strained something in her left thigh, which is very painful and has meant a visit to the doctors, an injection and enforced rest, which is not Val’s preferred state. She is being good, though and we occupy our time with Netflix, reading and playing Scrabble, Yahtzee (just completed game 756 – I am ahead by 7) and card games. We are hoping it will sort itself out, but it may entail another visit to the doc’s in Langkawi.

It has been a lovely stay here, not least because of the very friendly staff at the hotel and indeed all over the island, but all good things must come to an end, though we hope only briefly and that they will resume south of the border in Langkawi.

More soon……