Olives and Elephants

A great tragedy occurred on one of our first ocean swims on Kaw Kwang... In clear blue water all of three feet deep, we managed to lose our bright pink, yellow and blue pocket disk!! We're SO sad! I guess the ocean really wanted to get in on our frisbee game. We're in search for super packable beach games or even a tennis ball to keep us entertained. Second tragedy of the week: my forever hat that I've had for 15 years died on me. The adjustable piece in the back completely ripped out and was beyond any sewing kit repair I could manage. Now I'm rocking a royal blue DC hat with high end velcro adjustments. Ryan has a grey one with a Nike swoosh, twinsies!

We finally had some rain and I was thinking we'd then miss the sunset that evening but it turned out to be a doozy. I was late getting to it but caught the bay soaked in pink rays and the tail end of the sunset with the storm rolling out to sea. 

Ryan is bored with my sunset obsession already but another storm cloud was headed our way that made things more interesting. This cloud never rained over us but was chock full of lightening and put on a show. Lightening was going off every few seconds and even with that, it was super hard to capture a photo of it. Between the light show and a huge hermit crab, Ryan said, "this is the most exciting sunset I've ever seen. It could only be more exciting if a volcano was erupting!"

We walked backwards down the beach to keep watching but eventually became too hungry and ventured off for dinner. We decided to try the family restaurant next to the one we've been going to that gave us that adorable bill and it was even better! Yup, we switched teams. During our walk home, in the dark sky you could still see the lightening cloud and it's constant light show. 

We opted for another scooter day down to the southern tip of Lanta to get a peek at the lighthouse. I love scooter days! I always have one of two songs in my head depending on if we just passed a rubber tree field (http://youtu.be/4-bD0ZG5_2w) or a stand for gasoline/"happy oil" (http://youtu.be/RvU8u69NHNM). We sat in the lighthouse shadow and watched a hawk hunt in the ocean. I tried to capture the view but the panorama squeezed Ryan's head as if he said "Beetlejuice" three times. 

And then there were the monkeys! Ryan tried to make friends but one hissed at him, he backed up a bit and four more joined in on the hissing! Bunch of jerks! Kicking sand worked to chill them out and then they didn't seem to care about us. There were probably 30 crab eating macaque monkeys hanging out, eating, grooming, sexing and doing full on cannonballs into the water. Who knew monkeys love water?? One was definitely showing off all the positions he can hang in from a branch above the water. We watched them for probably two hours. When Ryan got up from our bench and it was just me sitting alone, two monkeys sat right beside me. The one took my purse in his little hands and started to gently tug on it. He was confused as to why it seems to be attached to me, starts turning it over to try to detach it, tries lifting up the flap to get inside but doesn't understand the buckle. He's looking at me in the eye with this look of, "This is mine? I can have this?" I eventually laughed which I guess is terrifying because he ran away. At a certain time, they all called it a day, walked over the bridge and into the forest. 

So we left the lighthouse to get to a better sunset spot but not without stalling out our scooter, named Betsy, on the crazy steep hill. I had to run up after Ryan and Betsy. We settled into Kan Tiang Beach for sunset where we watched local and English kids play soccer and were graced with a yellow banana hammock sighting.

Deciding to stay in Koh Lanta a bit longer, we moved a few towns south to Khlong Khong and treated ourselves to nicer accommodations. We're so fancy with our own fridge and balcony! This town is more of a single road with a couple restaurants and businesses on the road and then the beach is packed with bars for any kind of party you're looking for. Cigare Bar (yes I'm spelling that right) was one of our favorites with an almost vacant upstairs with hammocks and chill music. I say almost vacant as we met a middle aged Englishman named Steph who had been in Lanta a week longer than planned and just couldn't wake up early enough to get to the ferry that would take him to his next stop Koh Lipe. We saw him every day until we left, and I would bet he's still there. Hippies Bar was our other favorite. The guys who work there also live there which is the case at Cigare Bar as well. So when we showed up to Hippies, drawn in by bongos and ukuleles, they were just waking up, eating breakfast, playing cards, and were cool with us just hanging out. The guys playing music were in the band that was playing that night which is the best music we've experienced to date. They covered some really obscure American songs, played local reggae and some of their own songs. It was so awesome that I got comfy on the pillowed floor and fell asleep! This glimpse into good live music is a rare deal. Most bands cater to their tourist audience and play somewhat awful covers of Amercian classics. Just about every bar in this area has a fire show and on slow nights, they let you try whatever flaming toy you want. So for a night we watched as many a tourist tried to twirl fireballs without killing anyone. Couple of dicey moments but it all worked out. 

We also had to find a new workout spot which entailed running up sand hills, something which made us suffer for days. At the top of the hill Ryan was doubled over, I was thinking he was just winded, turns out he had "fire belly" from all of the spicy dishes he loves. He swears he'll take a break from it for a day but when the time comes, he always orders something as spicy as possible with a big grin on his face. He's addicted. Our last evening workout, there was a downed palm tree which brought all of cows of a local farm out to our workout beach. They eventually moved back to the farm which was right next to the top of the hill where we were doing lunges and push-ups... Nothing like holding a plank while a bull with horns stares at you from ten feet away.

There are some great snacks here for all my silly allergies! My new fave with crunch is a rice cake with a sticky chewy watermelon honey drizzle. I'm hoping to find these all over the place as they make last minute snacks for travel easy. We also tried rice nests with pineapple juice and honey which is like cotton candy frosted mini wheats in texture... as in the outside is sweet and melts like cotton candy and then the inside is dry like a mini wheat. I wouldn't buy them again but they were interesting... However, ice cream rolls, enough said. The stands where the ice cream is made have a super cold metal disk inset where your two flavors (Ryan choose banana and chocolate corn flakes), are chopped up, combined with milk, chopped some more, starts to freeze, it's spread out, hardened a bit, and scraped into rolls. Beautiful and delicious!

We went out later that night to find a party at The Freedom Bar which we saw signs for all over the place. All bars have signs that say "Party TONIGHT" or "Party Jan 16th" and then someone paints over it for next week's date. As Freedom Bar doesn't show up on any google map, we mapped out directions according to the number of 7/11's we would pass. 7/11 is an institution in these parts. There are 7/11 t-shirts in all souvenir shops. We got to 7/11 #6 and still didn't see our bar so we must have passed it. Went into #6, pointed to my map which clearly calls out all 7/11's and asked the lady which one we were in to make sure we were where I thought we were. She shakes her head,"This one new." Our whole precise unit of measurement was off! So we were at #5.5 and we're all of one street away from the party we were searching for. Hung out with some cool Aussies, watched a snake show and a fire show, then hit the road and had the best Pad Thai of my life at Ta Tha Ta Restaurant.