Long hot ride to Koh Lanta

3:22 waiting for ferry

It’s 3:22 and we are in the que waiting to the ferry to Koh Lanta. It’s so hot and the air conditioner barely works in this mini van - I know first world problems but still. 

The drive from the airport to the ferry has been largely through palm farms in what appears to be a muslims neighbourhood- there are more mosques here and many women in hijabs. It’s a nice change. 

There was a horrific shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand yesterday. A 28 year old white racist Australian opened fire in two mosques killing nearly 50 people. I don’t understand. So sad. Not sure what could make someone so angry and so stupid. Sad. 

So we left the airport after a nice short plane ride with Bangkok Air (very efficient airline) around 2pm. The driver dude stops for a smoke and to pick up snacks for a friend along the way. He left us all in the van not asking if maybe we’d like to use the bathroom during this supposedly 2 hour car ride (depending on traffic they said - they didn’t mention the 7-11 stop).

We pulled off and the driver passed snacks to his friend at the side of the road and then we go. Oh, he’s also been on his cell phone a ton. They don’t have rules about talking on your cell and driving here. People do it on scooters and it’s been throughout South East Asia. Crazy.

So hot is this van. Leg sweat. So gross. Melting. Been using my passport as a fan. We took the cheaper mini van. They had us wait 40 minutes at the airport before it even arrived. All the other people from the plane took the minivans from the yellow booth and they were long gone when our sketchy van finally appeared. 

Note to self look at vehicle before agreeing to ride in it. We’ve been passed by at least 5 other highly air conditioned looking newer tourist mini vans. 

I can see a stop light up ahead. Our driver has gotten out and is visiting a house with chickens at side of road. Keenan and I are sharing headphones listening to tunes. It makes time better the music does. Thank you arcade fire, beastie boys, the weekend and the carters for taking my mind off this painfully slow and hot mini van ride. 

I predict we arrive by 5-6pm it should have been by 4pm. I want to swim and play and run. It’s 35c here. Average temperature each day. We are south now. It hope this hotel is better then last night, supposedly there is three pools and were near the beach. We can do this. 

4:11 we got the last spot on this ferry. They put the scooters on last to fill up all the wee spaces. It’s looking pretty beautiful here. The last spot means we didn’t wait long to start the boat ride across. We aren’t getting out of the car which is unfortunate but it’s a short gaunt across. Fun it turns around to go across so you travel backwards. Who knew? 

The ferry before us got stuck half way and had a tug boat go out to push it in. Maybe it’s good we stopped! Otherwise we would have been waiting on the water to get pushed in. They were still docking with the tug boat when we sped away! 4:30 on Koh Lanta! Hotel here we come! There’s a few other people in the van so we’ll see when we get dropped. So hot. 

Yeah - just saw wild money’s at the side of the road. Lots of construction. Nice seeing  free mammals! 

4:43 arrived! Yahoo! Happiness - we’re near the beach and have a pool!!! Time to swim off the sweat!