DAY SEVEN/EIGHT:
Other than the 4 islands tour of death and beauty, we didn’t
do much on Koh Lanta other than enjoy its food, views, and beach walking. We
got a lot of reading done and just enjoyed relaxing. To be honest, I needed a
day to recover from my nausea. Happy tears streamed down my face when I woke up
on Day 7 in solid ground NOT rocking back and forth in a rain soaked boat. I’m
easy to please!
So our last few days in Lanta we saw a washed up jellyfish
which was kind of cool and ate more dessert at “The Kitchen” where we had to
wait over an hour because the place rocks and it was so worth the wait!
The next day we hopped a tuktuk to the pier and boated over
to the even smaller island of Railay Beach. SO small in fact that there are no
tuktuks, taxis, bikes, or anything…. Just walking. Our hotel was on the
opposite side of the beach and we walked there in about five minutes. Loved it!
We got to Railay beach around dinner time so we picked some
random restaurant, which was stupid, ate there, grabbed some beach snacks and
sat on the beach listening to Christmas music and watched the sunset. Perfect
way to spend Christmas eve night!
DAY NINE
(Christmas Day!!!):
The next morning I woke up really excited. It was
Christmas!!! We had breakfast at the hotel (a decent spread considering the
food options on the beach, in my opinion, weren’t the best) and made a plan to
check out the caves and snorkel. I dawned my Santa hat even though it was a
million degrees as per my mom’s request to get a Christmas hat picture on the
beach! I was boiling but people were smiling at me and some even wished us a
Merry Christmas. Believe it or not, we didn’t get a lot of smiley face wishes,
but it didn’t matter.
We were still happy to be on a beach having a very
untraditional Christmas! We checked out some caves and swam through an area
that had a big DANGER sign that I saw after swimming in it. I felt really
badass to have swam through a place that had something called “Portugese
Manowar” (I called it Man of War for months… Bernard just corrected me now)
that could cause death. Don’t worry Mom and Dad! We are fine and many people
were swimming there. I think the sign was outdated. No big deal!
Anyway, so we snorkeled all over the caves and around giant
rocks and such. Railay had the best snorkeling of the trip that’s for sure!
We
spent hours enjoying the sea life and every now and then coming to shore for a
fruit smoothie to regain sustenance before hopping back in the water to check
out more coral and fish!
We decided to have a special Christmas dinner at a very
popping restaurant that had a cute cocktail bar attached. My food was delicious
and my drink even more so! It was a perfect day, until…
Around midnight, my tummy was like GET UP WOMAN and I had a
bout of the most horrific food poisoning known to man for about 48 hours solid.
It was the worst thing ever; however, I must admit, if you are going to toss
your cookies for what seems like a lifetime, it’s nice to do so in your own
private hut amongst nature and monkeys and beautiful sunshine. Hah! The silver
lining needed to be found! What a Christmas! So I spent two days in bed reading
and sleeping and heaving and throwing up. It was awful. I hallucinated hardcore
too. I thought I was going to die, but luckily before our boat back to Ao Nang
and later flight, I felt kind of alive enough to make it back to Shanghai!
Thank goodness. What a Christmas indeed!!! Next year, I think we will lay low.
I cannot handle another perfect storm food poisoning throw up Christmas… but it
was a Christmas to remember that’s for sure.