AN ENGLISHMAN IN LANTA

It wasn't easy leaving Bee Bee's as we'd fallen in love with the place, but having done a reccy of the island by scooter the previous day, we'd stumbled upon another fantastic beachfront set-up (further south on the same coastline at Klong Nin) that had only opened for business 3 days before. We were the first people to stay at 'Otto's Bungalows & Bus Room', which was 3 lovely Scandinavian-style huts with fan, 2 larger AC rooms and 1 converted old Thai bus with AC. We opted for the cheaper, and nicer, fan room to start with - we saved the bus for our upcoming 20 year anniversary.

Unfortunately the weather was pretty lousy for our whole stay, but we ended up hanging out at the bar with Otto himself (the cackling, long-haired buddha and Don of Lanta), the 2 local stoners who worked there, Chai & Bart, and the resident British chef, Mr. Bean, who cooked up the finest full English every morning - he bought in essential ingredients, such as HP Sauce, baked beans & back bacon from the mainland at Krabi. It could be argued that our first proper English breakfast in 8 months was the best we'd ever had! But it wasn't just breakfast that Mr. Bean (or Beanie or Dean) excelled at. We had a fantastic week with the man from Dartmouth. He was incredibly helpful in every way, a great laugh, provided us with much insight into ex-pat life in Thailand, and even drove us to the Malaysian border, at Satun, to get our new visas. To top it all, he helped Ben sort out a day of surprises for Emily on November 12th...