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Other entries in Ko Lipe

Thai tranquility at last

If only getting here was as easy as the BOD map makes it look. Having stayed the night in Khao Lak we were up early on Wednesday to catch a minibus at 8am. That took us to Krabi, where we had to get in another van to Hat Yai (which is on the east coast, but we wanted to be on the west). The last leg was another minibus to Pak Bara, and having arrived at 7.30pm that was quite enough for one day. Not the most exciting day we've had but at least we made it, which is quite an achievement as the ticket agent hadn't even heard of the place.

Yesterday we had a squint at the Ko Tarutao Marine Park Visitors Centre before we had to catch our next transport - the ferry. It wasn't much like most of the boats that we've been on so far as there were just a couple of wooden benches shaded by a tarpaulin roof. Contrary to what you might think, we figured that this was probably a good thing as if they didn't have the transport of mass tourism then maybe they wouldn't have the tourists either.

We were able to let go of the fact that the boat took twice as long as it was supposed to and that the first couple of places we tried to book in were full (a concept we hadn't been faced with so far) when we finally checked in to the Andaman Resort, which has little wooden and palm bungalows for 300B (about £5) per night. It looked like it might fall down if the wind blew more than 10 knots but it must have been pretty calm last night as it hasn't fallen down yet. On arrival we took a walk around the island, covering the whole thing in a couple of hours. That included lots of stopping, drinking and getting lost so you could probably run around it (if you really wanted to) in about half an hour. Another measure of what it's like is that there are no cars, and only about a dozen small motorbikes. The main 'roads' are no bigger than a path in the woods back home.

Today we made no plans whatsoever, for what seems like the first time in ages. Laura didn't sleep too well last night (paranoia about giant lizards and robbers) so we were up early, lying on the white sand for hours before finally responding to the call of thirst and hunger. For most of this time it was completely silent, but the aforementioned lack of land transport on the island means that everything and everyone travels by boat, so we had long-tail boats buzzing past for a while shortly before and after the morning ferry arrived.

We were pretty well toasted by mid-afternoon, so avoided some of the rest of the sun by walking back around the interior of the island, trying to remember as much of it as possible. For tomorrow we have to go back to the mainland, which makes the visit here sound a little like more hassle than it's been worth, but it's not the case at all - it's truly beautiful here and the prospect of a week of city life without a little downtime before hand was too much to contemplate. 

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