This Is A Lake - A travel blog

My plan for today had been to go to Ko Phi Phi, but to my dismay Maya Bay (the beach from The Beach) is closed! Thailand had closed that and several other areas for around six months earlier in the year, to allow the environment to regenerate after the damage done by excessive tourism, and they were supposed to reopen in October; unfortunately, they have extended the closure indefinitely. It’s good that they’re taking steps to preserve the place... but it hurts to come all this way and not get to see it! Instead, my hotel redirected me to a Four Island tour, which as the name implies revolves around visiting four different islands around Ko Lanta. Once again I was picked up by a speedboat from the beach outside the hotel. Our first stop was Ko Ngai, a tiny island with a beautiful, narrow beach. They basically dropped us off to our own designs; I opted not to snorkel, since I did that all day yesterday and the water didn’t seem clear (not dirty, necessarily, but it had lots of leaves an...

First day of the island! Today I was booked on a snorkeling tour of two nearby islands, Ko Rok and Ko Ha. I got up bright and early for my pickup at 8:00, only to be told that (despite what my voucher said) pickup actually started at 9:00, and by the way, we’re still setting breakfast buffet. Suffice to say that this did not endear them to me... Anyway, eventually a large speedboat approached the resort’s beach and picked me and two couples up to join around twenty people total on the tour. We rode for about half an hour to reach our first destination, the island of Ko Rok: a large enough island that seemed densely forested; it must be a natural park, because there was no development to be seen. The water was clear enough that you could see all the coral and rock formations from The boat stopped closed to the island, and simply let us swim and snorkel for a while. They provided us with all the equipment we needed and then some: some people put on flippers and life jackets, whereas I wa...

It is on for the last leg of my Thailand trip! This is the “beach paradise” part. I am not a big fan of beaches (I grew up on a beach town so maybe the novelty just wore off) but I figured it was worth checking out the turquoise-water-white-sand experience at least once, and this seemed as good a chance as any. I’m telling people I’m going to relax, although if you know me you know that I don’t relax and that my secret plan is to tour around the neighboring islands. When looking for Thai islands to visit, it’s difficult to choose from several dozen options, from all-night party islands to remote natural hideaways. Because I had so little time, I wanted one that was easily accessible, which shortened the list to the biggest and most popular ones (inevitably, well connected means frequented, and vice versa). Ko Phi Phi, the famous Beach, has a reputation for being drunken/trashy so I didn’t want to stay there even if I still want to visit Maya beach; Ko Samui looks great and I love that ...