Cutting Loose

We joined our host today for a boat trip around the closest islands to Ko Lanta, which was billed most certainly as "not an official tour". Ganging up with a group of American/Canadian friends, it was a hard-drinking/chain-smoking/spliff-toking kind of day, although not for all of us and most definitely not for the captain.

Steamed vegetable egg cup

In unwitting preparation for this, I made us a substantial breakfast of khai toon pak (ถ้วยไข่ผัก) - steamed vegetable egg in a cup. It bears a great resemblance to Japanese chawanmushi (steamed savoury custard). The cup 'omelettes' contained sliced long green beans and were topped with a simple salsa of tomato, rice vinegar, fresh mint and coriander. I served it with sticky rice (khao niao, ข้าวเหนียว).

Our host had introduced her friends as "characters" and characters they were indeed. There was the bar owner, the sports instructor, the librarian, and the science-fiction writer. All wonderful people and great fun for a day on the boat.

Crapulence

Arriving at the pier, the cooler was loaded with beers, cigarettes, aromatic 'cigarettes', and a bottle of whisky ("for later"). I got the impression that it would be an interesting ride when before cast-off at 10am ("beer thirty"), the first of the cans was almost drained. The booze cruise set sail for the local mangrove forest.

Mangroves are a type of tree that is found growing near water. They look odd, as they have aerial roots (known to botanists as pneumatophores), which allow the trees to breathe above ground and hence to grow in waterlogged soil. This feature is also found in the banyan trees we saw in the Angkor temples and in bonsai trees, which look as though they are constantly outgrowing their pot.

Mangroves and macaques

The original Chinese traders used to turn the mangrove wood into charcoal using kilns, an example of which we saw yesterday at the community museum. However, the forest on Ko Lanta has long since been placed under Royal protection. As such, it is home now to macaque monkeys, who are visited daily by boats carrying tourists and bananas.

We arrived with a hand of bananas between us and stopped a safe  distance from the monkeys, who had gathered at the shoreline in the exposed roots of the mangroves.

We tentatively tossed a couple of bananas into the water. Emboldened by this invitation, a lone pioneering monkey swam out to the boat and clambered up the side, boarding us with one banana already in his hand. He soon found the source of the bananas and grabbed two more, one in each hand, the other in his mouth.

The boat was soon overrun by the hungry creatures, snaffling fruit, rifling through bags in search of more food, and relieving themselves on the deck. Once the food source had dried up, they retreated to the trees. They didn't have to wait long for another vessel to arrive - this time a speedboat - and be showered in more fruit.

Ko Nui

The archipelago is made up of over fifty islands of a range of sizes. We stopped at Ko Nui - a tiny spit of sand with a 200m circumference and possibly one of the smallest. This had all the hallmarks of a desert island, only lacking a solitary palm tree.

Ko Talabeng

After a swim at Ko Nui, we circumnavigated Ko Talabeng which in complete contrast rises straight-sided from the sea. It is uninhabited and largely uninhabitable, offering no easy access to the summit. I'm not sure how these kinds of rocky islands form versus their low-rise cousins that taper into picturesque sandy beaches.

Ko Talabeng

We entered a cave inside the island, which had formed an enormous stalactite from its ceiling. Taking a swim, we were joined by a group of people who had made the journey by kayak.

Shipwreck on Ko Bubu

Ko Bubu is another relatively small island, which is home to just one guest house and restaurant. We stopped for lunch (simple fried vegetable noodles), after which we walked the entire circumference of the island in about twenty minutes stopping for a last brief dip in the sea. The island is famous for the hornbills that nest there. We caught a glimpse of a pair, but it was fleeting.

Garlic-pepper tofu and morning glory

Back on dry and sober land, I made us a flavoursome garlic-pepper tofu dish (tau hu thod kratiem phrik thai, เต้าหู้ทอดกระเทียมพริกไทย). In restaurants, this Thai dish seems to be deep-fried cubes of tofu plainly served with some crushed garlic and peppercorns. I decided to take a leaf out of Ottolenghi's book and sauce it up with some shallots and soy sauce. The secret is coarsely ground black pepper and lots of it. Deep-frying completely alters the texture of the bean curd for this dish. When it combines with the sticky sauce, the tofu doesn't remain crisp, but gains a satisfying level of chewiness.