After spending the last few days in Ko Lanta, I think we have officially started to unwind. After being so busy back home, it’s really hard to just slow down and relax. Sitting on the beach and watching the waves roll in helps.

Being able to get a massage on the beach doesn’t hurt either. A one hour massage costs about $10. We enjoyed massage right on the beach in front of our hotel.

The beach was perfect for morning runs. It’s wide and long, and a tide rolls in overnight, packing down a nice section of sand for running. The beach faces west, so it’s shaded from the sun in the morning. And, although it’s always humid here, the mornings provide some relief from the heat.

We found a nice little food stand just steps from our hotel. It was full of locals, which is usually a good sign that the food is good and reasonably priced. It’s here that we had the best shrimp fried rice we’ve ever tasted. And they served Coke in a bottle!

One interesting thing about this island is that they have these little gasoline stands along the side of the road which sell gasoline in liquor bottles for 40 baht per bottle (about $1.30). Tuk tuks operated by motorbike are the transportation of choice for getting around, and clearly those don’t use as much gas as the big vehicles Jay and I drive back home. We regularly put 18+ gallons of gas into our vehicles each time we fill up, so seeing these little bottles on the side of the road certainly puts things into a different perspective.

I’m on my third book since arriving on this island. Love having down time to read! We downloaded a bunch of free books onto our Apple devices before arriving – mainly classics. Yesterday, I read “Around the World in 80 Days” and today I read “The Call of the Wild”. Jay is reading “The Time Machine.”

It’s been really nice over the last few days to just slow down, relax on the beach, eat good food, and most importantly, just enjoy our time together.