Koh Lanta day one

From 11/19

We woke up to the sun heating up the room, as we were placed into the sunrise room. It's like they knew we were early risers. We had breakfast at our hostel and played a game of cribbage. Now that we're in Thailand again, we went to get Thai Massages on the beach after breakfast.

I've only had two or three Thai massages now but this one was definitely the most painful. You would think since it's right on the beach you would be more relaxed but she killed my muscles. When I stood up I was actually sore, like the feeling of actual bruised muscles. Also when she was using her feet she literally kicked me in the nuts (they use their feet to massage your inner leg and hamstring. I thought she was a professional. All she did was make an "oops" noises and continue. 

It was a good massage and I felt really loose later on but it was painful. That being said I would do it again. After the massages we walked to lunch at a place called Irie (place we listened to music last night). We shared a large salad and a brown rice chicken dish. It was amazing. They also had coconut shakes that were pretty good, but not as good as the Koh Rong shakes. 

We wandered back to the beach and swam and read for a bit. The water isn't as beautiful as Phuket, but it feels just as nice to jump into when it's so hot out. 

(Views)

And then this came rolling in. 

(A storm - we could see the rain come in from up the beach)

We beat the rain and went to a beachside bar to grab a coffee/beer to wait out the rain. After our hang up with the rain we went for one more swim and then headed back to the hostel to relax before dinner. That's when I wrote this and when we planned or next day and a half in Koh Lanta. 

After enjoying the hammocks and lounge couches we made moves to get dinner. On the way we stopped at Irie and Alex picked out a bag she wanted. All the bags are handmade and they can make custom changes for you as you wish (same with their jewelry). The bag hung a bit low and didn't have any zip pockets inside so they offered to shorten the strap and add in a zipper pocket by tomorrow night. 

We continued down the street and found a dinner spot to grab some red curry. Everything on Long Beach (area in Koh Lanta we're staying at) is walking distance away, probably maximum one kilometer away. 

Afterwards we went back to Irie for some tea and played word games. I'm a fan of the "first word that comes to mind" game. I say a word, cheese for example, and Alex says whatever comes first to her mind, like "Packers". Then I respond by taking that word and saying my first word, like "amazing" (although recently they haven't been amazing at all, quite the opposite...). 

We headed back to the hostel to shower and read before calling it a night. Tomorrow's our last full day in Lanta before traveling back to Bangkok! Ah, what's happening? 

"Traveling-to-a-place energy and living-in-a-place energy are two fundamentally different energies."

- Elizabeth Gilbert