Ko Lanta
Asia 2016
To jump ahead, I’ll say that my birthday turned out great, just the way I wanted it — long and eventful. I somehow managed to avoid that strange bitterness that usually came over me in Kyiv at the end of my birthday — that another day, my birthday, had flown by. But let me tell it in order.
In the morning we went on a boat trip around the islands — this is the most popular excursion here on the island, and it’s sold everywhere. I read about it back in Kyiv and decided then that I really wanted to go, even though it was expensive — $40 per person. And then I came up with the idea that it would be great to combine such a trip with my birthday.
At almost 9 a.m., an improvised Thai-style taxi picked us up from the hotel and brought us to the pier, where the trip began.
Our little white boat is docking at the pier - the first stop on the wonder island
First, we were taken to an amazing island with so many fish that my eyes were simply darting everywhere. All the colors of the rainbow, in different sizes, they swam alone or in whole schools. I tried to remember them all, but that was completely impossible.
Here, myriads of little fish were spotted
There were also funny pink fish there that tried to attack us; they looked quite menacing — apparently they were guarding something. We were given 40 minutes, which turned out to be very little; just as I was getting into it, it was already time to run back to the boat.
Beautiful rocky outcrops (or hills?) covered with vegetation are scattered along the sea route. Very picturesque.
Then we swam near the rocks, but it wasn’t very beautiful there because it was very deep. But we swam a little farther away from everyone and found very beautiful corals of different shapes and sizes.
Wolf on the Ship
Then we sailed to another island, where there were once again lots and lots of fish. We swam there for a whole hour, or at least that’s what our guides said, but the hour flew by like a moment. The water was warm, we swam slowly, very slowly, and admired such an incredible underwater world.
Eating. After swimming, I’m always really hungry :)
"The entrance" to the cave is where the man with the flag is — that’s the tunnel we had to swim through
And then we were taken to the “cave,” which is located inside the island. The island, like a bagel, is surrounded by sheer cliffs, but there is a tunnel 80 meters long that you have to swim through (on your own, without a boat, since the tunnel is narrow), and then you end up in a round lagoon. It’s a pity there are no photos, because you had to swim there to get in. But it was very interesting.
On the way back, we swam in complete darkness, the darkest darkness, when you can’t even make out shapes. Volchiy held my hand and somehow swam with me. It wasn’t scary, just very unusual. And then, when we swam out into the light, the water looked emerald, very beautiful.
This was the ship we had
And that was the end of our journey; it was a little sad, I would have liked to swim some more, but everyone else was clearly tired — they all settled down to sleep, wherever they could. By the way, we were fed something all day long: fruit, cookies, rice with chicken.
My gift. Sealed securely.
We were brought to the hotel. And the long-awaited moment had come — opening the traveler’s gift that we had been carrying with us all this time. Volchiy had wrapped it very beautifully, and I kept racking my brain — what could be inside such strange packaging? Besides, it smelled oddly of candy, which went against all conceivable logic — why would I need a box of chocolates in Thailand…. And so the moment of opening had arrived.
A gift from within
My nose didn’t let me down — there really were candies inside, but that wasn’t all that was there. The most valuable thing was hidden under the candies. Volchiy gave me a phone, an iPhone :) It’s really cool, small, fits very comfortably in the hand, and feels very pleasant to the touch — the body is metal. I wanted to turn the iPhone on somehow, but without a SIM card it refused to start up. I had to somehow trim my SIM.
I asked at the reception where this could be done, and the girl said that in the main village on the island there was a mobile phone shop and the guys there did that. We went there; it’s not very far, about 7 kilometers from us.
My Kyivstar card turned out to be a very old model and, in principle, couldn’t be trimmed. The young salesman was amazed at how old it was and what country we had come from with such antiquated cards. And the card is probably already about 8 years old…. I’ve had it for a very long time. We decided to try trimming the TravelSIM card; the guy warned us that it was risky — because it was also kind of odd and there was very little room to spare. But we still risked trimming it. With almost trembling hands, we inserted the SIM card into the iPhone — and, чудо, the phone worked and there was a signal — the SIM card works! We bought the guy a beer — he did everything so carefully for us.
Evening beach and restaurant lights
We returned to the hotel, washed off the salt water, and went to the beach. The beach is full of restaurants and bars.
Our festive dinner. Pizza in Thailand is a luxury.
We went into one of the little restaurants. It looked beautiful, with a table overlooking the sea, a tablecloth, candles on the tables. We ordered pizza and beer. The pizza only really resembled pizza in shape, which was, of course, quite expected. We had already long understood that eating pizza in Asia is practically forbidden, but it was my birthday after all… And I really wanted something different from rice and pad thai.
All in all, the Thai-style pizza was even tasty.
Then we went to watch the fire show right there on the beach — an exciting sight. The first guy was pretty hopeless, everything kept slipping out of his hands, but the next guys put on such a show with those fire sticks that it was simply breathtaking. They moved so fast that it was impossible even to follow what they were doing.
We returned to the hotel very late at night. I installed Viber, my first app on the iPhone — just so I could call Dad :)
And then I lay down on the bed and fell asleep, I don’t even really remember how I drifted off.
