Blue Moon & Crazy Food in Ko Lanta

Nothing new to report really, we're still in Ko Lanta and have no plans to move on yet (until Singapore). We were initially thinking of going to Ko Phangan, but how different can another Thai Island be to the next? We are enjoying Ko Lanta so much, mainly because of Lek and Malay's amazing hospitality and you don't meet people like them every day, and surely Ko Phangan will have a beach just like the one we have here. If we do go there it will cost us time and money and not make it any easier to get to Singapore. So I'm pretty certain in saying Ko Lanta it is until we go to leave in about a weeks time.

There is a bar just down the road from us here that we go to most nights, especially before Jean & Valerie left Thailand because they really liked it too. 'Gangster' (I think his name is Geng), the guy that owns Blue Moon Bar has lived in Ko Lanta his whole life and gives the place a really chilled out atmosphere. A few nights back he showed us a photo album of his from twenty years ago when he and his friends used to row their boats to the surrounding islands and camp out on the completely deserted beaches dressed as aboriginals and make spears out of sticks. Before doing some travelling of his own he had the only bar on Klong Nin beach called Blue Moon, which he reopened when he got back. Now the beach is pretty packed out with bars along the whole stretch. When it gets a bit later in the evening he comes and sits with us and other customers and lights a fat one. If you want a drink you have to go behind the bar and make it yourself, that's how laid back this place is!

We've been having dinner with Lek and Malay for quite a few nights now, every time we try to pay but they are adamant and will not let us. I literally have had the money out in my hand begging to let us pay but they won't take it. Last night they said they would let us take them out to dinner, but when we got back to the resort from being on the beach Malay was in the kitchen cooking and told us food would be ready at 7pm. I have eaten some pretty strange foods with them, as they want us to try real Thai dishes, not just Thai green curry or sticky rice. I can't remember the names of the foods, but we've had raw prawns with chilli sauce, snails and century eggs (duck eggs rubbed in ash and buried in sand for 2 months so they come out like a black boiled egg! - or crocodile dinosaur egg as Malay calls it) to name a few.

All made with egg

Duck 'century' eggs

A coconut rice desert & snails

Raw prawns & fish

I didn't think I would like the raw prawns but they were amazing, you pull the tail off, place it on a spoon, and top it with chilli and lime sauce, garlic and thin pieces of lettuce. Same with the snails really, they looked gross but I wanted to try them, unfortunately these ones hadn't been washed properly and were a bit sandy but they did taste good. The coconut and rice dessert was a bit strange, it had a sugary taste with a salty aftertaste which for me didn't go well. The duck eggs looked horrible, but they just tasted like normal boiled eggs to me!