Koh Lanta / Mantas

After leaving the Phi Phi Islands we headed south by boat to Koh Lanta. We arrived to find empty beaches, great food, cheap lodging and plenty more of Thailand to explore.

We spent about a week in Koh Lanta soaking up the sun and the salt. A couple of the days we rented a scooter (only about 7 dollars a day) to explore the large island. We found some great snorkeling and some cool underwater swim through.

We also came across a couple Elephants and Caitlin got to feed them!

I decided to dive again and ended up going with a Scandinavian company called Lanta Diver. They ran a tight ship and had much better prices than on the Phi Phi islands. I decided to do two of the most famous sites in Thailand, Hin Daeng and Hin Muaeng. These sites are 2 undersea coral pinnacles about a 4 hour boat ride south of koh lanta, and were supposedly the best places to see manta rays and whale sharks. They use the pinnacles of underwater cleaning stations. I got very lucky and on both dives got to see a 5 meter wide manta for close to 20 minutes on my first dive at hin daeng and then for the last 5 minutes on hin muaeng. It was amazing to see such a large animal underwater, very other worldly. It seemed that the mantas liked to show off and play with the divers and were not spooked at all. At one point I was only a couple meters away, breathtaking.

We stuck around for the rest of the week to see a couple other beaches and enjoy the inexpensive living for a couple more days. Koh Lanta has definitely been my favorite place so far!

Well up next is Railey, a boat only access beach town, known for its rock climbing and caves!