Thai fisherman, Koh Lanta Thailand

Koh Lanta Thailand – Sunsets, dog walks and jellyfish

The stormy afternoon sky dissolved into a fiery sunset that painted the clouds neon orange. Despite being in Thailand for almost eight months, this was the first time we’d sat on a beach and felt the sand between our toes. We watched a fisherman row to shore as the sun sunk slowly into the Andaman Sea and congratulated ourselves on choosing Koh Lanta as the destination for our final Thailand holiday before we jet off to Nepal at the end of the month.Thai fisherman, Koh Lanta Thailand

Why visit Koh Lanta?

Some Thai islands have a reputation as party hotspots with crowded beaches littered with rubbish and lined with bars playing non-stop reggae music. Koh Lanta, by contrast, is known as a quiet, chilled-out haven. The island is laced with clean, sandy beaches which are lightly speckled with tourists and fringed with calm, coral-rich waters. Although there are still a few bars advertising ‘happy shakes’ and fire-dancing parties, the night-life scene on Koh Lanta is fairly low-key and you’re more likely to see couples and families than backpacking partygoers.

The beautiful beaches on Koh Lanta Thailand

Koh Lanta’s interior is lush with rainforest and ringed with mangroves, the warm sea studded with limestone outcrops and full of colourful marine life. Mu Koh National Park lies at the southern end of the island and semi-nomadic sea people, the Chao Leh, live in the surrounding waters. Around 90 percent of Koh Lanta’s population are Muslim, so dome-shaped mosques dot the island and the call-to-prayer rings out periodically. While Saladan Beach in the north is the most popular tourist area, we stayed further south on the more peaceful Khlong Khong Beach.

Khlong Khong Beach, Koh Lanta, Thailand

Sunsets and dog walks on Koh Lanta Thailand

Much of our week on Koh Lanta was spent wandering the beach or relaxing by the pool at our aptly named accommodation, Pinky Bungalows. The tropical heat, which climbed to 38 degrees, would frequently give way to stormy afternoons, beautiful lightning displays and thunderous rain showers. Cloudy skies stifled most of the island’s famous sunsets, but we were lucky to have one day where the clouds dispersed enough to reveal a dramatic sunset.

Koh Lanta sunset

One day we visited Lanta Animal Welfare, the island’s shelter and re-homing centre for stray cats and dogs. The centre was founded by Norwegian expat Junie Kovaks in 2005. Since then, sterilisation programs have dramatically reduced the stray animal population on the island and hundreds of rescued cats and dogs have been re-homed both locally and overseas to Europe, America and even Australia.

three leggeed dog and a cat at Lanta Animal Welfare, Thailand

We dropped in for one of the centre’s hourly, volunteer-led tours, to learn about how the shelter is run and meet some of their current dogs and cats. It brought back memories of our volunteering stint at the Dog Rescue Project near Chiang Mai and we returned later in the week to walk a couple of the dogs, April and Lucky. One of the only downsides to our nomadic lifestyle is not being able to have a dog, so it was lovely to get our hound fix in Koh Lanta.

Walking dogs from Lanta Animal Welfare, Thailand

Four Islands Boat Trip on Koh Lanta

We couldn’t visit Koh Lanta without exploring its surrounding underwater treasures, so we took a boat trip to snorkel and explore some nearby islands. We sped out on a small wooden boat across the sea, passing clusters of jagged limestone karsts to Ko Ngai National Park, where we pulled on flippers and masks before plunging into the topaz water.

Koh Ma, on the Koh Lanta four islands boat tour, Thailand

The seafloor was covered in coral of all shapes, from brain-like sponge and colourful spaghetti strands waving in the current to tree-like formations. Angel and parrot fish pecked at the rocks while shoals of smaller fish parted around us as we peered in at the underwater world.

Looking out to sea from Koh Lanta, Thailand

As we were swimming back to the boat I felt stinging strands wrap around my forearms, lashing my skin. Back on deck I showed the red welts to our guide, who nonchalantly remarked that they were jellyfish stings. “Not poisonous though,” he shrugged, handing me a coke to pour on the wounds, “Sometimes there are electric jellyfish that burn off the skin,” he said. “Now?” I asked, gesturing towards the water. “Maybe,” he casually replied.

Koh Ngai Beach looking out to the Andaman sea karst formations

More wary now, we moved to another snorkelling spot near Koh Chuek Island and I kept a close eye out for the translucent strings of jellyfish as I slid back into the water. After lunch, we sailed to the Emerald Cave. We swam, alongside numerous tour groups, through 80 metres of black cave to a small circle of beach surrounded by steep, limestone cliffs. Thai people scale these vertical walls in search of birds’ nests which are used to make expensive soup.

Emerging from the Emerald Cave on the Koh Lanta Four Islands boat tour, Thailand

Our final stop of the day was Koh Ngai, where we took a break from the sea and relaxed on a paradisical, white-sand beach. We took photos and marvelled at all the different shades of blue in the sea, the limestone formations on the horizon and shadows of palm trees decorating the sand. Just as the rain clouds closed in on us we made the rocky journey back to Koh Lanta, covered in salt, exhausted but fully dosed up on sun, sea and sand.

Koh Lanta Thailand Pinterest Pin

Our watery adventures haven’t come to an end now we’re back in Chiang Mai because next week we’ll be celebrating Songkran, The Thai New Year water festival. The streets of the city will transform with religious parades, giant water fights and non-stop craziness. Update: here’s our post about Songkran 2017 in Chiang Mai. 

Travel tips for Koh Lanta

We flew from Chiang Mai to Krabi airport with Air Asia. From there, you can take a minivan from Krabi to Koh Lanta for 400 THB per person. The journey takes about one and a half to two hours. There are hundreds of Koh Lanta hotels to choose from. We stayed at Pinky Bungalows on Khlong Khong Beach, which was excellent. The rooms are new and very clean, there’s a long pool and the 1,000 THB per night rate includes a good breakfast.

13 Comments
  • Rhonda
    Posted at 01:13h, 10 April Reply

    ahhh. Looks just lovely. I love that part of Thailand.

    • Amy
      Posted at 12:15h, 11 April Reply

      We’re so glad we made the decision to go to Koh Lanta Rhonda, I only wish we’d had time to explore more of the islands in that area.

  • Archer
    Posted at 11:37h, 11 April Reply

    Looks like you had a fun time. Did you got stung by a jellyfish?

    • Amy
      Posted at 12:16h, 11 April Reply

      Yep, it was fun minus the jellyfish stings! They weren’t at all dangerous though and not very painful, more of a shock as I just wasn’t expecting it. The sea there is beautiful though.

  • Gilda Baxter
    Posted at 20:51h, 12 April Reply

    Beautiful place, the sunset photos are gorgeous. We wanted to visit on our trip to Thailand Ko Lanta but did not have enough time. I definitely would like to go back to Thailand and explore further. I am glad the jelly fish was not poisonous, although still painful though. The water festival sounds like great fun..enjoy?

    • Amy
      Posted at 10:26h, 16 April Reply

      Thanks Gilda, we had a great time at the festival and in Koh Lanta, I can’t believe we’re leaving Thailand now in less than 2 weeks!

  • Victoria @The British Berliner
    Posted at 08:11h, 15 April Reply

    ‘Love Thailand!
    ‘So glad that you managed to get your own bit of beach sunshine. It looks great!

    Sadly, it’s always the same, if you live in a place, you’re more likely to see less of it than a visitor lol!

    • Amy
      Posted at 10:26h, 16 April Reply

      So true Victoria! I’m sure we’ll be back in Thailand at some point though, we never get sick of this place 🙂

  • Graham
    Posted at 19:10h, 23 April Reply

    “One of the only downsides to our nomadic lifestyle is not being able to have a dog”

    guyz there’s a typo here, you misspelled cat

    • Amy
      Posted at 10:08h, 24 April Reply

      Ha! Actually we’d love both a cat and a few dogs, plus some ferrets! Maybe one day 🙂 Hope you guys are well over there in Hanoi!

  • Louisa Klimentos
    Posted at 23:33h, 01 May Reply

    Hi Amy and Andrew .Kho Lanta sounds great and i will definetly tell my son to go there.You two looked great doing the monkey trail by the way.I love the way you wrote this blog .It makes me want to be there now.The sunset looked amazing.Life can get it my way some time and missed out on reading your blogs.I am glad our found the time to read your blogs They are getting better all the time.Look forwae\rd to reasing more of your adventures,love louisa

    • Amy
      Posted at 09:09h, 03 May Reply

      Hi Louisa, thanks for reading, I’m glad you liked the post. Koh Lanta was lovely and I wish we could have adopted those dogs!

Post A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.