One of the main reasons I was heading to the southern islands of Thailand only a few days after arriving in the country is I needed a break. A big one. After getting sick in China and never really recovering and then 3 weeks of trekking through the cold and dusty Himalayas, I was absolutely beat and needed a bit of recuperation time.

And what better place to do that than a tropical getaway!

The journey to the island of Koh Lanta on the Andaman Sea side of south Thailand was a long one. Here’s a recap of my commute:

Walk 2km with my luggage to the Sky Train in Bangkok. Take the train to the last stop and hail a taxi to Don Muaeng Airport. Fly from Bangkok to Krabi. Take a van into town, wait a half hour (while grabbing some lunch), get into another van, drive for 3 hours (plus 2 short car ferry rides), and finally arrive at my final destination.

But of course it couldn’t be that smooth.

Well it was until I actually got to the island. In Krabi Town we were given name tags with the name of our hostel written on it so the driver would know where to drop us off. Only our driver didn’t speak a lick of English and had no idea where my hostel was. We ended up passing it and I rode with him in the van as we dropped off the other passengers, traveling basically the entire length of the island.

At least he stopped to let me take a few pictures of the sunset as we were driving back towards the area where I was staying.

Luckily when I arrived in Thailand I had gotten a local SIM card for my iPhone (the first country I’d done this in - it was 345 THB (Thai bhat) or about $10 for 1GB of data and 80 min of local calls) so I was able to pull up my hostel on Google Maps and lead him in the right direction. Why is it that I always have to direct taxi drivers where to go…isn’t that their JOB??

Anyway. I arrived at my hostel - Let it Bee - threw down my stuff, and ran to the beach (about a 5 min walk away) to watch the remainder of the sunset. Then I had some dinner and a mango smoothie at a beach side restaurant. A nice way to end my first day here.

The next few days would find me waking up, going for a swim in the ocean, enjoying a breakfast of muesli and yogurt or a fruit smoothie, going back to the beach for some sun and gorgeous turquoise waters, back to the hostel for a little nap during the hottest part of the day, then back to the beach for a sunset jog and a swim before a delicious Thai dinner.

It’s a rough life I lead these days.

Have you ever been to the Thai islands in the Andaman Sea?