Koh Lanta- a Tiny Island with Big Snakes

As if I didn’t have enough to worry about while scooting about on our moped, I now have another, bigger fear- Cobras!

We rented a moped to drive the 12ish kilometers down to the national park at the southern tip of the island we are staying on, Koh Lanta. The road to the park is a very hilly (we saw grades as high as 16%!), and very winding road. Once we got past the last big town, Klong Nin, we didn’t see very many people. On one of the steep uphill climbs we were passed by one lady on a moped. On the way down that hill we were passed by a second lady on a moped. As we rounded the final corner of the steep downhill part of the hill, we came across the two ladies who had recently passed us. The first lady was walking in the road, next to her moped which lay on its side. The second lady was on her still on her moped, but she was turning around and riding back towards us. Our first thought was that the first lady had crashed and the second lady was going to get help (never mind that the first lady appeared to be just fine). However, when the second lady got close to us she waved us down and yelled “Snake!” We slowed down and looked past the over turned bike to see a huge, black cobra snaking his was across the street. I know that I have a bit of a penchant for exaggerating about things that scare me, but even Nick said it was the biggest snake he had ever seen!! It was at least as long as the street is wide and really thick. He just snaked along, raising his snakey little cobra head (that was actually when we realized it was not just a regular giant snake, but in fact, a cobra. Yuck.). Eventually he slithered his way off the road and into the forest. The first lady went back to her scooter, picked it up and scooted away. The second lady proceeded to make her way down the road as well. We headed on down the road as well, slightly more cautious and at least half of us were totally freaked out and every little jungle noise raised alarms and caused near panic for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, the rest of the drive was less terrifying and we did see several monkey families and even an elephant! We finally made it to the beautiful national park. After parking our moped we purchased our tickets to the park at the entrance booth where we were given the worlds worst map (which we could not actually figure out until we had been all the places in the map, then it made sense- which is exactly the opposite of what a map should do!) and told we should start with the 2km hiking trail. 2km hiking trail in the middle of a forest full of Cobras? No thanks. Fortunately another, braver couple who had not almost been eaten alive by a cobra on the way to the park had arrived mere minutes before us and were gearing up to take the hike so we decided to hike behind them and let them scare off any Cobras. (when I say “we” I mean me. I was totally flipped out but Nick was fine. He patiently agreed to wait until the other couple was a good distance away from us before setting off. He is so nice!)

It turned out to be a beautiful walk, we saw termite mounds, rubber trees, epiphytes, thorny vines and trees and tons of greenery all around us. I was glad I did it. Especially when we turned our last corner before descending to the beach to see an absolutely breathtaking view of the ocean, the white sand beach, an island and the lighthouse.

That view alone made the hike totally worth it!! The beach area had a small visitors center, a few covered shelters and lots of monkeys! We saw several right as we got down from the hike, including a few babies!! We thought they were so cute! But we learned that they are more than just cute, they are also sneaky little thieves! As we were sitting in one of the shelters, dutifully applying sunscreen, the monkey family made its way over to the shelter. There were several other groups of people in the pavilion, most with bags and bottles of water. The monkeys sauntered right on into the pavilion where everyone started snapping pictures of them. While one was hamming it up for the cameras, another one stole a woman’s plastic bag full of towels! She shouted and I guess it scared the monkey, he dropped the bag and ran. A few minutes later, the monkeys were back at it. They stole a water bottle from someone and proceeded to bite at it until a small hole opened, then one of the monkeys layer it on its side and proceeded to drink the water flowing out in a steady stream. We laughed at the monkeys (but took care to guard our stuff), played in the water, climbed up to the lighthouse and wandered around the visitor center before calling it a day and heading back to our bungalow.

Although we rented a scooter a few more times to go beach hopping and then to cooking school, we didn’t see another cobra. Maybe Koh Lanta is not crawling with Cobras as I had originally thought.

The beaches were all very beautiful, some were completely sandy and stretched on for miles, some were more like the one beside our bungalow- nice, but if the tie was out, full of large, sharp rocks. Mostly, the rocks sticking up out of the water didn’t bother us. We would have liked a sandier beach, but any beach is better than no beach in February! There was one time that it went from being a bit of a nuisance to a huge problem. The last day we were in Koh Lanta we rented a kayak, at high tide. We had no trouble getting it into the water and out to sea. We paddled along for a few hours, went and had lunch and then paddled back at low tide. Poor planning. We kayaked in as far as we could but got stuck a good distance from the shore. We had to pick up our kayak and carry it to the beach and then along the beach until we got to the place we had rented it from.

Up until that point, it was an awesome, super fun day! After we returned the kayak we rinsed off before heading to cooking school. It was definitely one of the best cooking classes I have ever been to. We started off with a welcome drink and an appetizer. The appetizer was a traditional Thai appetizer- pepper leaves stuffed with ginger, peanuts, shallots, coconut, lime, chilis, dried shrimp and topped with a sweet and salty sauce- yum! Then, we got a lesson in thai spices and flavorings from galangal to coconut palm sugar. We made spring rolls, pad Thai, red curry paste (then red curry with our red curry paste) and cashew chicken. Wow! All of it was amazing and we all (there were 6 people in our class- us and an American family living in China) made our own dishes so we could adjust the spices and garlic to be just the way we liked it. After every course, we sat down and ate what we had just made so there were plenty of breaks. It was awesome and Nick even got full!

In other Koh Lanta news, there seem to be a very large number of Honda Fits here (or, Honda Jazz as they are called). The fits here are all tricked out and I am getting so many ideas to really get my little fit looking good when we get back. Probably a custom spoiler is in order! Koh Lanta seems to have a predominately Muslim population and we heard the call to prayer several times a day in our bungalow. All in all, Koh Lanta was absolutely incredible and we had a great time there!