Day 20 of The Big Adventure, according to Sarah. 
We had a nice lie in – until maybe 9am, when the people out in the communal area started making noise that was too loud to ignore. We decided to head back to Danny’s for breakfast because I’d seen them advertising banana fritters and i love banana fritters. 

So we wandered over and sat down in the same seats we’d had for dinner. 

Lauren ordered fruit, yoghurt and muesli (standard) and I had the banana fritters with honey and Nutella. They were YUM. 

Leaving very satisfied, we headed back to the hostel with the vague plan of going to the beach for the day. We got back to the hostel and the two Brits who were doing Workaway there asked how we were and what we were up to and suggested we go and try out ‘Secret Beach’. And only a 10 minute walk up the road – it was meant to be. 

We had been planning on heading to Koh Lipe next so before we went to the beach we decided we should do a little reading up and make an informed decision. Lots of people we’d spoken to had highly recommended that we go and see Lipe – apparently it was an untouched beauty. But the more we read reviews the more it sounded like it had gone the same way as PhiPhi. When looking at places we could stay on Lipe even the cheapest guesthouse was double the price d Koh Lanta. Did we really want to go that much?! 

We did a little more reading and found that it was a 5 hour ferry down there. This combined with the extortionate prices (for Thailand) meant that we decided to skip Lipe and head back towards the mainland. Ao Nang was next on our whistle stop tour of Thailand. 

We were very aware that we needed to make a longer term plan as well; Parker and Freya were coming to meet us in Vietnam on the 17th and we didn’t really know what we were doing until then. Should we stay in the southern Thai islands? Should we head north to Chang Mai? Should we see Cambodia? 

We were overwhelmed by the decision in front of us and set about reading everything we could find that would help us make a decision. 

Before we knew it, it was 1pm and we still hadn’t made it to the beach. Our little tummies were grumbling so we decided to head to 7eleven in search of some ham and cheese toasties that had been highly recommended by the Brits. 

They were the really plasticky, highly processed type that were only just recognisable as ham and cheese toasties. They were rather small and didn’t do much to help our hunger so we cracked open the Thai Pringles and continued reading up on where we should head next. We ended up deciding to get our original flight to Bangkok on the 27th March and to the travel down the northern part of Bangkok, into Cambodia and through to Vietnam. We were going to be tight for time but at least we’d get to see a whole new place. The islands down in the south of Thailand were all beginning to feel the same. 

We began to plan a vague route and look at things to do along the way, which took most of the afternoon. But it was good for us to finally sort things out and make some real decisions. 

By about 4pm we were going a little mad stuck in our room so we decided to head out to the ‘Secret Beach’ we had been recommended. We walked along the road and then turned off along a dirt track (very dusty) which lead us straight to an essentially empty beach. 

 

No hotels, no shops, no beach vendors, just one little hut selling waters and sprites and that was it. Lauren and I headed straight into the water for a refreshing dip. The water was again bath-warm and not as refreshing as we’d hoped, but a lovely swim all the same. 

  
We decided it was probably time to head back, so we gathered our things and walked back along the dirt path. 

  
We returned to the news that one of our best friends, Shelby, had just got engaged. Whaaaat?! We were both shocked and overwhelmed with joy and sat about discussing all the parts of a wedding and how exciting it was all going to be. 
We then both showered and got ready for dinner. We decided the head to ‘Bamboo Restaurant’ for dinner tonight, a small wooden shack across the road from us with cute tables and chairs made out of bamboo. 

We ordered some vegetable Spring rolls and a coconut milk chicken curry with rice. It was again deeelicious – I was loving trying all the different curries for dinner. 

We headed back to the hostel to find the hostel owner and the Brits playing their favourite card game, Dip Bo. They invited us to join and asked how our day of planning had gone. We told them we were planning to go to Ao Nang tomorrow and the hostel owner kindly organised our transfer to the pier and our ferry for the next day. Pickup was at 7.30am so we had to head back to our room to pack up our bags and get an early night.