Today our alarms were set early, so that after breakfast we could get up and head to the beach.
After being asked about 5 times by our crazy tuck tuck driver from the night before where we were going and if we wanted a taxi we decided to walk a bit up the road before we hailed a tuck tuck. About five minutes later and lady and her two small children pulled up in a tuck tuck along side us asking if we were okay or lost, soon we found ourselves hopping into her little vehicle (even though she definitely wasn’t a taxi) and going with her to take her children to school and to full up in petrol. Once we arrived at Long Beach we gave her 150baht (the amount a taxi would have cost us) and she was genuinely surprised by our offering money – it just shows how extremely lovely Thai women are, willing to drive us a good fifteen minutes up the road in her little tuck tuck just because she didn’t like us walking. (Thai women are completely different to Thai men!)
After renting some deck chairs on the beach and chilling all morning, swimming in the sea, taking photos, listening to music and admiring the beautiful jewellery that the beach sellers had to offer (I got a cute necklace with a little blue elephant on it) we headed to our favourite restaurant for lunch.
After lunch, once we were back at the hotel (just a boring, normal tuck tuck driver this time) we relaxed by pool and we’re generally just being depressed and moody about having to leave the island tomorrow.

We had a fabulous last night this evening, at a restaurant called “Time for Lime”, a restaurant and cookery school set up by a Norwegian lady ten years ago in order to use the profits to set up and run an animal protection center on the island called the ‘Lanta Animal Welfare’ or ‘LAW’. This is what it says on their website:

Hard work since 2002 has brought TIME FOR LIME to where it is today – a successful beachfront concept on Koh Lanta with a unique approach and a different ‘way of thinking’ than other places. A few things make us stand out from the crowd:
Our true PASSION for food and a desire to create a well designed and laid-back atmosphere for people.
Our COMPASSION for animals in distress on the island.

On arrival we were immediately struck by the lime green layout of the restaurant and the chilled seating areas with lime green cushions ontop of bamboo and wicker chairs and tables.

We picked a beach cabin right on the water as our spot for dinner and ordered the restaurant’s world famous Mojitos:

It’s over 10 years since Time For Lime introduced the Cuban cocktail, the “Mojito” (with our own recipe of course) to Koh Lanta. They became very popular among guests and it took about 2 years before other places started trying to copy the recipe (with bad results!) They also misunderstood one small thing, they thought the cocktail was called the “mosquito”… Nowadays thankfully this has been corrected.

Our meal consisted of a 6 course taster menu with our special desert being a lime cheesecake. It was divine food, and even though it was spicy we all loved it! (Even Julie who doesn’t eat any spicy food) we were all raving about every course as we ate it and even called the owner over on numerous occasions to congratulate her on a great menu! Our favourite by far was number five, we all had the King Fish and with the combination of fish cooked to perfection and a home made chilly paste, the meal melted in our mouths.

After our meal we also got to see some of the animals that our money was going towards looking after, the most amazing by far was where the dogs stay. There are 10 dogs in ‘LAW’ and all 10 of them sleep in a Thai couples bedroom, with the Thai couple! Each dog has dug an indent or hole into their bedroom floor, creating their own bed and this is where they sleep.
The meal was brought to life by Moe, an English volunteer who has worked with LAW for many many years but this last year, after her retirement, has moved to Thailand to help with the animals full time. She was enthusiastic about the food, the animals, Thailand as a whole and our experience – making sure it was the best it could be! (This is a picture with Moe and Norman – a stray dog now named after Normandie)

After a depressing night of packing (it honestly took me about two hours to pack, with many stressful attempts, one strop where I tipped all the contents of the bag onto the floor, and one trampolining session jumping on my clothes trying to flatten them) we are finally all ready to go tomorrow. It will be sad saying bye to Koh Lanta and all the islands for that matter but when we have a ferry, an overnight bus and an 8 hour flight coming up, what’s there to be sad about… Wish me luck!