Travel blog: Sunshine in Ko Lanta

Anna Kainberger is taking a year-out from her career to travel in south-east Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific, along with Hawaii and the USA. This month she is reporting from Thailand. Here is her eleventh blog entry:

I spent five days in Ko Lanta soaking up some valuable sunshine, staying at a place called the Sanctuary, which is located on Long Beach.

All the islands in the south of Thailand have peak season and low season prices and my bungalow at the Sanctuary did set me back 500 baht a night, which for a backpacker really is quite a bit of money.

However, as these were my last couple of days in lovely Thailand I did splurge a bit and enjoyed my time, lazing around on the nearby, almost deserted beach.

I treated myself to papaya salad and wonderful curries every day, already thinking of my final goodbyes a week later.

A great thing about the Sanctuary was that they provide two hour astanga yoga classes every the morning, led - surprise, surprise - by an Austrian yoga guru.

The classes were next to a little cove from which you had a fantastic sea view when doing all the calming, yet fairly tough exercises.

It was just the right thing for me to get back on the physical track and to reach the total bliss of relaxation.

Classes started at 09:00 every day and you could buy, when you felt like it, three classes for 1,000 baht or one class for 450 baht. This is very good price for two hour sessions and the view was simply unbelievable.

After breakfast and a shower, I slapped on plenty of sun lotion and headed down to Long Beach to find a cozy spot and spend two hours of sweet-doing-nothing.

The sea views at Ko Lanta are fantastic, the ocean is a wonderful turquoise colour and you can stare at it for hours without getting bored. Well, not if you are Miss Kainberger that is.

I have to say that the beached whale existence is not for me. I can handle two to three hours reading a book and come lunch time I have to get out of the sun, as I am blessed with sensitive skin that intends to burn even with sun screen factor 50, so I have to seek out the shade.

Come 12:00 I would usually spend a couple of hours in my very own hammock in front of my shady bungalow and later on go and explore the island.

Of course motorbikes can be rented, or you can hitch a motor taxi, which will take you anywhere for a price you agree beforehand - just hail one as you go along.

I explored secluded beach coves and built sun shelters out of palm tree fronds. I enjoyed numerous sundowners and spent hours in a hammock reading books borrowed from other travellers on lovely Ko Lanta.

As a whole I would classify Ko Lanta more as a family resort holiday destination rather than a backpacker island.

If you are a diver you will find some beautiful spots off the coast of Ko Lanta and you can also go around on a long-tail boat doing all sorts of snorkelling trips.

After five days of doing virtually nothing I decided to head over to Had Yai, the most southern town in Thailand, in order to slowly start making my way towards Singapore, from where I would leave for Sydney soon enough.

Had Yai is a funny little place. It's very multicultural, with Malaysian, Chinese, Indian and Thai influences. It is also a shopping mecca for tourists leaving for Malaysia or going further up the coast into Thailand.

It is a gateway to Malaysia and Singapore and very convenient for doing a visa renewal run if you have been staying at Ko Lanta, Ko Tao, Krabi, or even Phuket.

I had done all my shopping in Bangkok and prepared myself to say my final goodbyes to Thailand and south-east Asia, as this part of my adventure was coming to an end.

Anna Kainberger