Ah, the lovely Lanta…

We truly enjoyed our stay in Koh Lanta, you can read all about it in our last post, it was Off Exploring's "Travel Blog of the Day"! We had to leave sometime though, and we felt like that time had finally come after nine nights on the island, so once again we made reservations, packed our stuff… and gave our trusty sand (read: booze) bucket set to the first family with children we found on the beach. We had looked into the ways of getting back to Krabi town and found the options to be the same as the other way: either a boat or a minivan. The boat prices we found were 400 to 550 baht per person, depending on whether or not we would like to have transportation to our hotel. Pickup on Lanta was included in both. A minivan was priced a little less expensive at 300 baht per person, with pickup from our resort and drop off at the next one in Krabi. We took that offer.

The ride back to Krabi was faster than the other way, when the traffic had been horrible. It only took us the estimated 2,5 hours. But the thing about the minivans is that there's absolutely no room for luggage. Not even on the roof, as someone who's travelled through Nepal and India would assume. There are 14 seats in addition to the driver's and there were 14 of us. And all our stuff. Luckily one passenger was a child who could barely fit on his parents' laps, but there were two guys sharing one seat also. And then there was the massive pile of luggage, we weren't the only ones taking stuff with us. There was luggage also on the "isle", so we were completely crammed. I didn't want to think about what would happen if the van would drop into the water during the ferry rides… None of us would have made it out…

We made it through, however. Only to discover that the minivan wouldn't drop us to our hotel after all. They say all Thais are lovely and nice and try to avoid confrontation to the last, but I guess no-one told that to the people working in the transportation company. We tried to explain that we'd been told we would get delivered all the way there and not just Krabi Town and that we had paid for that. I was nice, for once. They just said "Get out" and "I don't want to talk to you"… We had no choice but to give in and get out, the van was taking in more passengers to go back to Lanta. We asked a couple of tuk tuk drivers how much it would cost to get us to our hotel, the Diamond Home Resort, where we'd stayed one night a week and a half ago. They asked for 200 to 300 baht, loudly telling how far it was and not willing to negotiate at all. We had walked that distance twice, but we wouldn't do it with all of our things. We had secret knowledge though: Diamond Home has free transportation to and from the town center every two hours, so we decided to wait one and a half for that. It went smoothly enough, though had we made the reservation earlier or read our emails over someone's wifi, we would have seen that they offered pickup for free anyway, we only had to say when…

The Diamond Home Resort was good like that. We only paid 350 baht per night and with that we got a nice fan cooled room with hot water shower, a decent pool area and free wifi that was good enough to video-Skype with. We also took the free transport back to town to see the night market they have from Friday to Sunday, they have all kinds of things there from food to clothes to jewelry and handicrafts. We ate from a street stall by the shore, it was good, but cost about as much as in a cheap restaurant on Lanta, 50 to 60 baht per main course.

We stayed two nights in Krabi Town organizing and planning what we would do next. We had wanted to go to Cambodia's Siem Reap to see the famed Angkor temple complex, but we didn't know how to get there. We knew there would be busses from Bangkok, but we'd heard nothing good about them except that they are cheap. Research on the internet gave us an idea of just how bad it could be… First of all, the bus is slow, taking maybe eight hours from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Then there are the border formalities, which can be daunting, supposedly there are touts and crooks everywhere, even the officials can try to cheat you or you can end up with a fake visa. It would be manageable, though, and there are even specific busses that take you the whole way without having to use one mode of transport from Bangkok to near the border, another to the border, another to the bus station on the Cambodian side and yet another to Siem Reap. The "direct buses" should cost about 51 USD per person for tickets there and back. The many transportations would be cheaper.

That didn't seem like something to look forward to. Perhaps it was because we had grown lazy on Koh Lanta, or maybe the times spent in buses and trains in India and Nepal had taught us a thing or two about traveling by land, but whatever the reason, we decided to fly. Air Asia's online ticket sale wouldn't work for some reason, but we managed to buy the tickets from Krabi airport before checking in on our Thai Lion Air flight back to Bangkok. We paid about 130 euros per person for round tickets, which was more than we had hoped, but then again, when are we going to be able to fly to Cambodia for that much? It seemed so much easier than the hassle of the long drive and the border formalities… We were ready to pay for comfort, just this once.

After flying back to Bangkok we checked in Thanapa Mansion, where we spent one night before flying to Krabi. It's conveniently located near Don Muang airport, the taxi drive cost us 75 baht plus the 50 baht airport fee. On the way back it was 99 baht, but without the extra fee. One night in the hotel put us back 500 baht, which seems to be an OK price for Bangkok, even though the place is far from the center. We didn't venture that far but stayed in the neighborhood, checking out the nearby shopping malls and the night market, all within a walking distance. Dining in the food courts underneath the shopping malls was interesting since they had these 100 baht prepaid cards that you needed to use for purchasing meals. You get the remaining money back when you return the cards.

It's hardly worth mentioning, but there was a cockroach in our bathroom in Thanapa Mansion. One can't really fault a hotel for one cockroach, this is the tropic, it can't be helped. The great Diamond home resort in Krabi had one big one crawling down the outside wall of our room as we were enjoying the night sky on the terrace. You know how they say it's a jungle out there? Well, here it's everywhere. We always try to read reviews of guesthouses before booking and some people don't seem to grasp that at all. Someone gave a bad review of a bungalow because there was a rat outside of it. In the wild. Where they live. I'm not saying that pests are OK, in the next post I'll share with you a meal we shared with cockroaches, but all of them can't be helped.

That might be enough for now. We got in the plane for Cambodia and got there without problems. The next post will be about our five night stay there. Just as a heads up, Siem Reap is filled with wonderful culinary delights: snake wine, frogs, crocodile burgers… Fried larvae…

Yummy…