Thailand Part II

In order to get to the island of Koh Lanta from Phuket we needed to take a ferry. The boat we took was about an hour and a half to Railay beach where we had to change boats on the sea. Both boats came together and we made the transfer. The next boat took over two hours and landed us at the harbor on Lanta. We were told that we had a free transfer to our hotel but all we could see were annoying taxi drivers charging ridiculous rates. Luckily a nice woman offered her help and arranged a free ride to our hotel. The island of Lanta is quite large with several beaches running along the west coast. Our beach was further to the south about three fourths of the way down the island. Our hotel was small. The grounds consisted of only nine rooms. The room was nice enough but the view was amazing. The hotel was right on the beach. For the next five days we were to be beach bums. We ate beach side nearly every day and night.
We took a cooking class at Lanta Thai cookery school and made some amazing Thai dishes. We learned how to make Green Curry and it's curry paste. We also made Tom Yam soup, Panang Curry and Phad Thai. Our teacher was such a great chef. We took the morning class and because of this we were the only students and had a private session. It was great just to talk to our teacher one on one. We learned about how he got into cooking and about his family. He taught us a lot about Thai food and culture. Everything we made was made fresh and grown on site. Even the coconut milk was made from the trees right outside. Because we made four dishes each there was no way we could eat it all. We took it to go and saved it for lunch and dinner. We were really surprised how easy it was. We can't wait to experiment when we go home.
Most other days were spent in the water and on the beach. We would wake up have our complimentary breakfast, omelette, toast, jam, fruit, tea and juice. After that we would take a dip. Then we would lounge under our umbrella. After that repeat several times until our afternoon nap. Our beach was often quite empty looking. Most other hotels were as small as ours. We felt isolated from the world. The only western anything was a 7/11 about a 15 minute walk away. The island of Lanta was much to our liking, seclusion and relaxation. At dinner time we would try a new restuarant.
The last night we ate on some axe pillows on the beach. The waiter told us after dinner to grab a free shirt at the bar. We were excited, a free shirt. We wondered what the shirt could possibly say. Perhaps it said Koh Lanta or maybe our beach or perhaps the restaurant's name. When we finished our meal and drinks we walked up to the bar in antticipaton of these free shirts to discover they were not free shirts afterall. Instead we were offered free shots. Big difference. We were laughing so hard because we were seriously discussing these free shirts for the past twenty minutes. We each had a different shot. Latanya had a shot of scorpion and spider juice. Which was a tequilla tasting liquor. There were about three scorpions maranating in the bottle. One of which was huge. I had a snake blood shot, which was a rice wine with snake blood mixed in it. It tasted like cough syrup with tequilla and Jagermeister. It was not tasty but surely an experience. The next day we were going back on the ferry to Ao Nang.