Day 12, January 30

We checked out of our house and headed to the pier. Our little moped was riding the river again. In the morning it was very beautiful. All the little islands were visible — like small mountains scattered across the sea.

We arrived at the same fishing village from which we had traveled to Ko Jum.

Today our route takes us to the island of Ko Lanta, and once again we are getting there on our own by moped. Ko Lanta is quite far, 80 km and two ferries.

The ride was windy. We stopped along the way for a snack. We didn’t feel like rice at all so early in the morning, so we decided to go to a shop. We bought Thai yogurt and cornflakes. Yogurts in Thailand are something else. Runny, almost like milk, and cloyingly sweet.

We reached the first crossing. We bought tickets, which turned out to be very cheap. For the two ferries we paid 50 baht, that’s 35 UAH.

We sailed to the island and drove to the booked hotel. A pleasant-looking Thai man, the hotel owner, apologized and said that our room (with a window and balcony) was occupied, so he would put us in another one. The other room was awful — 2 by 2 meters in size, without windows, with brown walls… Utter misery. And we had already paid for two nights here…..

But Volchiy immediately opened his laptop and started looking for other hotels. We found a couple of other acceptable options and went to have a look.

Looking for hotels on the spot is quite a hassle. It takes too much time — say hello, ask how much it costs, take off your shoes, look at the room…. After the 5th hotel we were already tired, but we didn’t give up. In the end, we found a decent option — both in terms of price and the room. We decided to stay, paid the money. Went back to our old hotel and picked up our things.

We wanted to get our money back for at least the second night, but the owner said that was absolutely impossible. We had paid the money to the intermediary company, and that he wouldn’t find anyone else for tomorrow…. We talked with him for a long time, and in the end he did agree to give back the money for one night. Actually, he was a good guy — it was just bad luck for him with the hotel…. We decided that this was one of the worst hotels in our entire lives.

Let’s head to our new home for the next two nights. It was already getting dark — almost the whole day had been spent moving and wandering from hotel to hotel. We went for a swim — the beach is across the road. We arrived just in time for sunset — beautiful. The beach is quite nice, spacious, with not many people.