Koh Lanta
That Koh Lanta water 😍
Koh Lanta is an island in the Krabi province of Thailand. It actually consists of a few small islands, but the main island to visit, and the most populated, is Ko Lanta Yai (what most people actually refer to when they say Koh Lanta). The West side consists of a bunch of small bays and beaches with few businesses and lots of reefs for diving. The East side consists of mangroves and forests. It’s still relatively undeveloped compared to many other Thai islands, so it’s not one of the more popular places to go. Hopefully this won’t change too much in the coming years, but considering the amount of construction, I would say the island is going to be very different in the future. We decided to go because several travelers recommended it to us as their favorite Thai island and one of the most chill. For us, this was a perfect way to end our trip - especially after the craziness of Pai, Bangkok, Ao Nang and Krabi.
Koh Lanta isn’t far from Krabi, but due to the ferries and smaller roads, it takes about 2.5-3 hours to arrive by van. Hostels and hotels have the van transfer schedule and can book the ride for you. If I remember correctly, we paid around 400 Baht for the ride, but always ask for discounts as the hotels can usually charge less than their advertised price. Since we booked our hostel last minute, we didn’t have too many options of where to stay. We went with the “Best Stay Hostel" on the Northwest side of the island. It ended up being a perfect hostel for us because we were at the end of our trip and looking for something laid back, but it is not somewhere I would recommend for a solo traveler. The environment isn’t the easiest to meet people, and it’s not in one of the main sections of the island. On the positive end, the people that work there are very nice, it’s kept clean, and the free breakfast in the attached restaurant is wonderful.
Picture of the outside of the hostel taken from Hostelworld.
Picture of the bunks in each room taken from Hostelworld.
On the first day, our van transfer dropped us off at the doors of the hostel mid-afternoon. The sun was supposed to go down around 6, so we only had a few hours to do something. Our first stop was lunch at Utopia, a small lunch joint that a fellow backpacker had recommended it to us. It’s basically a shack and is a short walk/bike from the hostel with delicious local foods for a good price - plus the owner is the sweetest and will make sure the food is flavored to your tastes.
The hostel offers cheap bike rentals, so after lunch we picked up a couple bikes and headed to the closest beach we could find on Maps.me called Secret Beach. We loved it. Close to zero people, relatively untouched, and beautiful blue water.
Sunset at Secret Beach.
The road to Secret Beach.
For dinner, we took it easy and ate at the hostel’s restaurant. Although breakfast is included in the hostel’s price, lunch and dinner are treated as restaurant meals, so you have to pay. They offer local, Thai foods as well as sushi!! Cici and I didn’t find any cheap sushi places throughout our time in Asia, so when we had the chance to order some here, we jumped at it! I can’t say it was the best quality I’ve ever had, but it sure did hit the spot. :)
Day 2:
We rented scooters in the morning from the hostel and headed South to what was recommended to us as one of the best beaches, Bamboo Bay/Bamboo Beach. It about a 20 minute scooter down the coast, then a minute or two down a bumpy dirt road to the beach. A few minutes farther along the main road is the National park, however, the woman working at our hostel said that the National park’s beaches weren’t better than Bamboo Bay, so we stuck with the free and closer option at Bamboo Bay. A nice surprise was that they had a restaurant on the beach as well as a few tables, chairs, and a beach cabana.
The dirt road to Bamboo Bay.
Enjoying our lunch of green & red curry at Bamboo Bay.
Panoramic view from the shaded cabana.
After spending a couple hours at Bamboo Bay, we decided to beach hop our way back to the hostel along the Western side to see what other beaches we might like. We stopped at Nui Bay Beach where you essentially climb/hike down a 5 minute trail to the beach. Once at the bottom though, we decided we (1) liked Bamboo and Secret Beaches better and (2) didn’t feel very safe at the beach as there was a group of guys making us a little uncomfortable at the bottom. Why stay there when there were other options where we felt perfectly safe?
We ended the beach hop at Secret Beach again because we loved it so much, there was cold beer, and it was super close to the hostel.
For dinner, we ate at Utopia once again because we liked the owner so much and it was the quickest option.
Photo of Utopia taken from TripAdvisor. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g303905-d13322149-Reviews-Utopia_Restaurant-Ko_Lanta_Krabi_Province.html#photos;aggregationId=101&albumid=101&filter=7&ff=294706744
Day 3:
The last day, we woke up bright and early to do a motorbike tour of the island. We rode around to the East side of the island out to the mangrove forests. Unfortunately, we were both budgeting quite a bit given that this was at the end of our travels, so the price to kayak turned us off. We did a short walk around the trails within the forest and ended up crossing paths with a few monkeys! They are NOT friendly at all and hissed at us when we walked past them. Do not mess with monkeys!
An up close view of the mangroves.
Walking through the mangrove forest.
Monkey footprints in the concrete.
Rubber tree plantations line the roads on the East side of the island.
After the mangrove forests, we headed to Koh Lanta’s old town to explore and do a little shopping. There are some cute boutiques in addition to the typical tourist shops you can find all over Thailand. Both of us found cute things to buy for family members as gifts! There’s also a number of cute places to eat - however, we chose to keep going as we weren’t hungry yet.
Koh Lanta’s Old Town.
Motobiking across Koh Lanta
We wanted to try this joint, but didn’t get the chance.
Once we arrived back at the West side of the island, we had a couple hours to kill before I had to catch my van transfer to the airport. Can you guess where we spent those last couple hours? Secret Beach! We really branched out on this trip 😂. There’s a 7-eleven not too far, so Cici ran over there and grabbed a couple beers and snacks for us to enjoy at the beach as the only stand on Secret Beach was out of food. It was the best way to end our last day in paradise.