Little paradise: Koh Lipe!

At this moment we are back at the island Langkawi in Malaysia, and we will travel in the direction of Penang tomorrow. However, last post we just arrived at the beautiful island Koh Lipe in Thailand and we would like to share with you some pictures of this beautiful island. We planned to stay two nights at Koh Lipe, but decided to stay longer, since we liked it so much! The water was crystal clear, the beaches white and although very small (you could walk from one side of the island to the other in 15 minutes) absolutely stunning. 

We took the ferry from Langkawi (Telaga Harbour) Tuesday last week. When checking in, we had to give our passports to the crew of the ferry. Of course we did not feel comfortable with this, but “this was the policy” we were told. Since everyone handed in their passports bravely, we handed in our passports when we boarded the ferry as well. After 1.5 hour, we arrived at Koh Lipe. The ferry stopped 500 m off the coast and small so-called longtale boats picked up the passengers and their luggage. At the beach, there was a small office with the sign ‘customs’ where we waited for 1.5 hour. It was not too bad to wait with your feet in the sand and a very nice view – quite different than many other 'immigration' offices we have been. However, we were quite relieved when we got our passports back, with stamp of Thailand! ;-)

Below a few pictures of the first impressions of Koh Lipe island:

Beach where the longtale boats dropped us off.

Beautiful beaches and crystal clear water.

My dearest husband alias Koh Lipe monkey ;-)

We stayed in a small hut at the middle of the island, which was quite basic, but at the same time very comfortable. In the night, we had dinner in a small local restaurant, which was absolutely great. We really enjoyed it. The atmosphere at this island is very different compared to Langkawi. Although the island is much more focused on tourism (Thai massage? Diving trip? Pancake?) it really felt like we were on our second honeymoon. ;-)

Our hut (Gecko Lipe "resort")

Enjoying local Thai food :-)

For the next day we booked a tour to go snorkeling. The weather was perfect and we both had so much fun! We shared the boat with three backpackers from Poland and two from China. It was amazing how clear the water was and how many fish we saw. The tour lasted the whole day (9am to 4pm) and we visited many different islands in the neighborhood of Koh Lipe. The beaches were absolutely amazing, it felt again like a dream: too good to be true.

Thanks to the present of Tim (thank you so much again!), we were also able to take some pictures with our phone under water. Although it was not easy, here some of the results:

The last two days we decided to relax and enjoy the nice beaches of Koh Lipe. We were reading our book, we listened to music, enjoyed the good Thai food: very lazy and quite an achievement for us: just to do nothing… ;-)

Our view for two days...

View from Idyllic Resort

We have a very hard life...

No wifi, but lots of books, games, talking and coffee!

Deciding what we'll eat from the barbecue, hmmm....

The last evening on Koh Lipe we walked from sunrise to sunset beach. A very nice walk and we enjoyed the beautiful sunset.

Last Friday we took the afternoon ferry back to Langkawi. We almost missed it, since we were relaxing at one of the cafés on the beach. When it was already 16.30h (the time the ferry should leave), Erik went to the ‘immigration’ office to ask what was going on. To our surprise, all the other passengers were gone. Then we were told that the ferry was about to leave at the other side of the island because of the low tide. When we showed them our boarding passes, we were asked to jump on the back of a scooter and we were brought to a beach at the other side of the island. At the beach, we were picked up by a fisherman who brought us to the ferry, which was waiting for us… Ooops! ;-)

We made it! :-)

Bye bye Koh Lipe...

When we arrived at Langkawi, we checked in at Tubotel, since we really liked it here (and we left our backpacks here as well, so we did not have to carry them to Koh Lipe –  we took just our daypacks). Yesterday the weather was beautiful, and we did our laundry, relaxed and read a book at the hotel and played volleyball at the Cenang beach with French and Malay people. 

Reading a book at Tubotel

Relaxing at Tubotel

Garden view from our tube (no. 22)

Erik playing volleyball at Cenang beach with sunset.

We also watched the Iron Man, which was taking place on Saturday on Langkawi. It was absolutely crazy what these people are doing, especially with this weather (35 degrees and extremely high humidity)! The winner finished in 8h 54m (5 seconds before no. 2) for 3.8 km of swimming, 180 km on the bike and a marathon (42.2 km)...  

Today we rented a motorbike again, to visit one of the waterfalls of the island (Durian Perangin Waterfall) and afterwards we had lunch at Tajung Thu Beach. The motorbike is really the best way to explore the island and we enjoy riding the bike very much! 

So much fun!

Our motorbike!

Beautiful walk to the top of the waterfall

Durian Perangin Waterfall

Spot Erik... ;-)

Nice view from the waterfall

lunch at Tajung Thu Beach

After our lunch, we saw dark clouds coming to the island and we decided to go back as fast as possible to the Tubotel. We had to stop every now and then for the heavy rain (yeah, the downside of a tropical island…), but we made it safe and sound to our hotel. Well, not entirely, because I have accidently burned my leg on the exhaust pipe of our motorbike, which – as we later learned – is also called “the Langkawi kiss”. Nothing serious, so no worries, but it is quite itchy. 

Fried banana, hmmm.... 

Pitt-stop to shelter for the heavy rain.

With this nice souvenir I got from this Island I will finish this blog post for now. Next blog will probably be from Penang!

Big hugs,

Erik & Annemarie