Thailand Lao Loang

Thailand: Ko Lao Liang

We got to Trang, Thailand late in the evening and had no clue where
the bus was dropping us off at, where to stay or how we'd get there.
Luckily there was one "taxi driver" waiting there for such an
opportunity. Charades and very broken English got the point across
that we needed to find a place to sleep so we could go to Had Yao pier
in the morning. He went to get our transportation while we got our
bags situated. I looked up expecting a taxi but instead was looking at
two motor scooters with our "taxi drivers" waiting to take us to a
place we could sleep. With packs on our backs we hoped on and held on
for the few minute ride to a random hotel, which was conveniently
right next to the mini bus station where we'd catch a ride to the pier
the next morning.

I asked the lady at the front desk how much for a room that night. She
didn't speak english so she wrote down two options. What looked like
980 for air conditioned and 250 without. With a 30-1 exchange rate the
air conditioned option seemed a big jump from the non-air option so I
tried to negotiate by writing down 750. She just pointed at the 980,
so I tried again by writing down 800, again to no avail. Then our
friend the "taxi" guy helped us understand that what we thought was
980 was actually 380...haha, wow! $12 US, the best price we've found
yet for one night accommodation.

In the morning we walked to the mini-bus station and packed into a
little mini van with eleven others for the hour ride to Had Yao pier
to catch a long-tail boat to Ko Lao Liang, a little secluded island in
the Andaman Sea.

Once at Had Yao we negotiated a boat ride but decided we should find
an ATM before heading out to sea to make sure we had enough cash for
whatever we needed since most island accommodations we might go to
didn't take credit cards or have ATMs around. Unfortunately the little
village of Had Yao didn't have any ATMs either. With little to no
english speakers available, it took some doing but we were eventually
able to figure out that the nearest ATM was a little ways away in
another village. To get there I negotiated a ride on the back of a
scooter from some guy in the village while Julie waited at Had Yao. By
this time I was really wishing I'd remembered to hit up an ATM before
leaving Trang.

After a few minutes flying down the road and around corners at break
neck speeds on the back of the scooter, holding on for dear life, sure
that we'd crash and burn any second, I was seriously re-thinking this
poor decision. After 5 minutes passed and we sent seem to be anywhere
near an ATM I began to realize that I definitely misunderstood the
distance factor of the earlier communication regarding the ATM. My
driver didn't understand English at all so I had no clue how long this
really might take. I decided to give it a few minutes and then pull
the plug and head back. The further away we got, the more I dreaded
the trip back. I tried to get across the question of "how much
further" and he seemed to understand my charades and expressed what I
interpreted to mean, "just a little further". A few minutes later and
we arrived. I got the cash and hoped back on the scooter. Thankfully
we made it back without incident, jumped on the boat and headed out
for the hour and a half trip to Ko Lao Liang

Ko Lao Liang is a small, quiet island. There is only one place with
accommodation and most people book it ahead of time but we just
decided to wing it and hope they had availability. If not we'd just
hop back on the boat and head to another island.

We were in luck, they had just one tent left. Yup, I just said tent!
There are only tent accommodations on Ko Lao Liang. They are really
big two room tents, a few steps from the beach with mattresses in them
for beds, a light and an electrical outlet, (electricity is produced
by a generator that runs in the evening and night time hours only).
There are about 30 tents on the island so it's generally a really
small number of people around, very relaxed atmosphere.

They have free kayaking and snorkeling (although much of the reef is
unfortunately dead on the west coast of Thailand, you can still see a
variety of fish but visibility is so so here). There are also 50 or so
great rock climbing routes on the island that draw in rock climbing
enthusiasts from all over the world. (rock climbers bring most of
their own gear so they don't really have any for rent/hire).

Many of the Thai islands are getting over crowded with tourists,
resorts, and everything that comes with that. We were really looking
to avoid all of that and just wanted a nice secluded place to relax
for a few days and unwind and Ko Lao Liang fit the bill.

They have a full time staff available that cooks you three nice meals
a day and keeps the island clean. They also have a small bar, more of
hut, on the beach with sodas and various types of alcohol available.
There are flush toilets and coldish showers that feel great on a hot
day.

We were there for 4 days/3 nights and spent most of the time relaxing,
kayaking around the island and a smaller neighboring island,
snorkeling, lounging on the beach and in the ocean, finding sea
shells, getting to know others on the island, learning to walk the
slack line that was set up by someone visiting and generally just
taking it easy. We really enjoyed our time there.

The weather was nice most of the time with an occasional rain shower
in the afternoon or evening, typical this time of year.

The island arranged our transportation back to the mainland. We headed
back via another long tail boat and then were driven to the Trang
train station to see if we could catch the overnight train to Bangkok.
We got our tickets and had a couple hours till departure so we got
some food and got a Thailand SIM card for our WiFi device.

We jumped on the train just as it was about to leave and I realized we
hadn't bought any snacks or such for the trip, you can buy stuff on
the train but it's much more expensive, so I quickly jumped off and
ran to a store, just outside the station, and grabbed a few items and
ran back to the train getting on 30 seconds before it left. Whoa, that
was a close one.

We were off to Bangkok!