And what proved to be the perfect respite island. Our time here was mainly filled with beaches, exploring and time in the three pools; two of which were right outside our bungalow door.

The actual minivan trip over to the island wasn’t too bad. Comfy seats in an air conditioned van, even if it was packed to the rafters. Dropped at the door we were welcomed into Lanka For Rest Boutique hotel. Great room. Massive beds, good shower and loads of space to spread out.  Mooched around the first evening treating ourselves to a top Thai meal at The Sisters restaurant. The food was phenomenal. Clearly at the top end of the eateries, more of a one off treat rather than an every night affair this, otherwise we’ll return home the size of a house! Lots of street food that’ll also suffice. All fresh, cooked right in front of you. Perfect fodder on most occasions. New flip flops, t-shirts and a football later we were all tucked up in bed reading and booking USA accommodation for July!

We hired scooters, we decided Koh Lanta’s roads were quiet enough for us to pootle about with he kids on the back, we then visited the island’s Animal Welfare Centre. As expected Arlo LOVED it, where they focus on nuetering and spaying dogs to keep the island’s cat and dog population down. They remarkably manage to adopt out dogs to people all over the world and if your heading in their direction on your next flight you can be a ‘flight volunteer’, delivering a pooch to their new family across the globe. We really lucked out yet again as following the tour, we were invited to volunteer to socialise with the puppies to help them get used to safe human interaction. Both kids really enjoyed this and it also helped bring Henna round from the upset of having one of the cats steal her croissant (1st world problems!). I think she was actually more upset with me for saying she was being silly worrying too much about the cat rather than just sticking the thing in her mouth and eating it. God help her when she meets a group of ravenous monkeys hell bent on stripping her of every morsel of food in her possession, she’ll have no chance! After puppy playtime, we we’re allowed to take a small dog, Mustard on a walk with his small ‘family group’. This was great despite the trail heading through a mozzie ridden forest, past an angry bull. We learnt about the tapping of rubber trees and met some new friends.

The kids loved the soft sand here on Lanta almost as much as the excitement of riding pillion on a moped. But you really couldn’t beat just the simplicity of what was almost a holiday within a holiday. We met another travelling German family who have gone about their adventure in the opposite way to ours. i.e., flying by the seat of their pants and winging it every day. They were more than happy with their approach, having as they do, younger children and therefore limited activities they can access/ need to book.

We did plan initially on taking the opportunity to do a full day, speedboat snorkelling trip out to Koh Roc but all decided against this, as neither Colette nor Arlo was looking forward to getting seasick on such a bumpy ride and we figured that we’re going to have lots of opportunities for snorkelling straight from the beach at Ningaloo reef in Australia. This gave us an extra day by the pool for all the normal day-to-day stuff of schooling, blogs, journals and lounging about. We’d experienced a ‘stingy sea’ on the previous day, apparently down to tides, dismembered jellyfish legs, sea lice and the full moon. We skipped the chance to wander a night market as our next 2 stops have them on abundance.

Overall we loved our time here, leaving after 6 nights fully recharged, ready for Chiang Mai.