Day Three - Ko Lanta, Thailand

We caught the plane out of Mumbai at 11:30pm. Thai Airways was lovely, despite their cheesey "smooth as silk" slogan. We landed in Bangkok at 5am (with a one hour time change) and waited for our next flight at 8am to Krabi, which was filled with everyone from mainland Europe on holiday. The Krabi airport runway is the most lovely and charming I have ever seen. Everything is green and lush!

From the airport to our final destination at Moonlight Bay Resort on Ko Lanta (an island 50km southwest of Krabi) was an adventure involving a bus shuttle, a pickup truck, a ferry, and an open air taxi with a total travel time of about 6 hours.

The shuttle from the airport took us to a hostel / travel center in downtown Krabi where we bought our ferry tickets. The staff was disappointed to hear that we already had reservations at a hotel (sorry they couldn't make any money off us). Downtown Krabi seems charming, but mainly serves as a rest stop for tourists looking to go on to the islands. A pick up truck arrived and loaded all of us on to drive to the pier. At the pier we were placed on a narrow, long, low ferry with about 75 other (European) tourists. The ferry also had people equipped with brochures encouraging the tourists to pick hotels on the island.



We putted along for an hour and a half with the sea breeze blowing, and the scenery passing us by before we reached the first island, where a handful of people disembarked (onto other boats which shuttled them to the beach). A half an hour later, a second island, and finally, a half an hour later, we were at the pier for Ko Lanta, by far, the largest and most populated island of the three.

We haggled with a taxi driver to take us to Moonlight Bay Resort, ultimately spending 350 Baht for both in an open-air taxi for the 20 minute ride. I think we ultimately paid too much, but we had no basis for negotiations.

Moonlight Bay Resort is run by Scandinavians and is certainly upscale, but we feel no shame in indulging a little bit on our honeymoon :-) The hotel is on a rocky beach and has has a bar, restaurant, pool, spa, library, and beach equipment (i.e. kayaks, snorkel gear) for rent, as well as wireless internet on the beach (which we just discovered).


We have a beach-front bungalow with a jacuzzi on the front porch.


We enjoyed a beer and a delicious Thai dinner of prawns and curries, before taking a nap at about 6pm. That "nap" turned into bedtime, as we discovered when we woke at 5:30am the next day.