Fullboy - Thailand - Ko Lipe & Ko Lanta - Christmas on the Beach!

Everyone knows the Thai islands; white sands, amazing blue waters, and some of the best seafood in the world! I love seafood but back in England I never really ate that much of it due to it being so expensive. If you wanted some good fish you always had to go and pay a lot of money for it at a good fishmongers. In Korea, fish was more reasonably priced and a lot fresher as it was kept alive in fish tanks until just before you ate it, but never have I tasted seafood as fresh, cheap and delicious as in Ko Lipe, a small island in the middle of the Andaman Sea and destination of our Christmas break.

We arrived by speedboat to Ko Lipe, an island truly in the middle of nowhere, small enough to walk around by foot and surrounded by oceans filled with an abundance of marine life. We settled in to our bamboo hut and went off in search of our first taste of Thai food in Thailand. First impressions of the food were great, we tried the ubiquitous pad thai, a Thai version of stir fried noodles garnished with crushed peanuts and fresh lime juice that seems very popular with travellers because it’s cheap, simple and fills you up. Red and green curries were also everywhere on the menus, and were always delicious, especially if you chose the seafood option. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such large quantities of seafood served onto your plate. In England you’re lucky if you get three or four king prawns if you order anything with king prawns in, here, you’re looking at twenty to thirty king prawns! If we’re surrounded by ocean, we order seafood, that’s our new rule.

Our first seafood bonanza was on Christmas day and we decided to treat ourselves to a seafood BBQ for Christmas dinner. We walked up and down the beach past many formal, busy, slightly stuffy looking restaurants with tables and chairs packed tightly together on the white sand and were beginning to feel a little despondent because this wasn’t exactly what we had in mind for our romantic Christmas dinner but we were finally rewarded when we passed a rather informal, relaxed looking eatery with bamboo mats laid out on the sand and soft, bed like cushions inviting us to sit down. After making ourselves very comfortable I walked up to the smoking BBQ to see what fish was cooking. The gigantic stripy tiger prawns immediately caught my eye so I chose them first followed by a couple of squid and two generous mackerel steaks cut fresh from the silver fish’s meaty torso with a barbecued corn on the cob to finish things off. I sat back down with Melissa and we lay back on our cosy cushions and reflected on our first Christmas day in the sun. The food arrived and the prawns immediately excited me because they were so huge!! My clumsy hands haven’t got a clue when it comes to shelling prawns, that’s always been Melissa’s job, so I passed the plate over and she skinned them in seconds. The thick, fleshy meat inside tasted sweet and mouth-wateringly delicious, a Christmas day treat. The squid was wonderfully tender and slightly char grilled around the edges and the mackerel steaks were meaty and cooked to perfection. Rounded off with the sweet corn on the cob, a papaya salad and a few beers, this was a Christmas dinner we’ll remember for a long time.
















Waking up in our bamboo bungalow on the beach to the sounds of the ocean was very fulfilling. The only things we really had to think about were what we were going to eat and drink for the day. To be honest, the choices began to get limited, maybe because we were eating so much and had exhausted most options on the menu but who are we to complain when the seafood options were consistently great. One of the non-seafood meals that stuck in our minds was a ‘yellow’ chicken soup that Melissa ordered. Not really knowing what to expect and true to the menus words, a watery, yellow soup arrived at the table. The soup was crisp and clean with subtle hints of lemongrass, garlic and spices and definitely unlike any soup we’ve tasted before. The colour of Melissa’s tongue after the meal certainly suggested that turmeric was present. I really liked the rustic approach to spicing and flavouring the soup with very roughly chopped root ginger, lemongrass and possibly fresh turmeric root, definitely something we’d eat again.


















Southern Thailand’s cuisine tends to be liberal in its use of coconut and chilli and is unique to the rest of the land. There are dishes found here that cannot be found elsewhere in the country. An example of this is the Massaman curry, also known as ‘Muslim’ curry or ‘Southern’ curry. The dish is characterised by its generous use of coconut and potatoes. I chose the prawn massaman and was rewarded with a bowl of spicy coconut soup with large chunks of potato and even larger prawns. The prawns and potatoes went really well with the spiced coconut soup and made for a warm, comforting and substantial feed. On the same evening, Melissa ordered prawns with sweet basil. Contrary to my belief, sweet basil tastes nothing like the Italian basil that you find commonly in the supermarkets, in fact it has a really aniseedy taste. I knew the two herbs were different but I didn’t realise how different. This surprised me a bit and made me wonder whether or not the Thai restaurants in England actually use the sweet basil or the Italian basil in their soups.

















A dish that is as liberal in its use of chilli than any dish I have ever encountered is the notoriously spicy Tom-Yam soup. After living in Korea for two years, we like to think that we have a fairly high tolerance for chilli. The Tom-Yam completely caught us by surprise though! I would say that apart from eating whole chillies, this was definitely the spiciest thing I’ve ever tasted. The broth had a very hot and sour taste and I later learnt that all of the ingredients in the broth are boiled making for a very healthy soup. I ordered the seafood Tom-Yam and again was amazed by the sheer volume of seafood in my bowl. There were giant prawns, a fillet of fish, squid and shellfish in a rich, spicy broth, all for just over a quid. To say it made me sweat is an understatement and yet at the same time it was more bearable than trying to eat a really spicy Indian curry which tends to have more of a long burning effect. With the Tom-Yam, the heat from the chilli hits you fast but also goes away fairly fast. I think its down to the type of chilli used in the soup, the small Thai red chillies are powerful, pack an instant punch and subside a little quicker than the standard green chilli. I love chilli and the Tom-Yam is definitely a full blown, fiery blast of endorphins to the brain.
















Ko Lanta

On New Years Eve we decided to move to Ko Lanta. Alcohol overtook food as number one priority for the night and we got suitably plastered and celebrated New Years Eve on a beach, very drunk, watching lots of fireworks and dancing around whilst drinking buckets (think bucket and spade) of strong cocktails. We navigated our way back down the beach to our accommodation (this took hours!) and have recollections of warming up food in a microwave of a 7/11 shop at around 5am and then proceeding to spill it all over the floor and then attempting to clean up my mess…. Needless to say we woke up in the morning with stinking hangovers and really needed something stodgy to soak up the mess in our stomachs. So what better way to enter the year 2010 than with….. A FULL ENGLISH!!! I imagine that when travelling, one of the first things a Brit would miss is a Full English or even just a proper bacon or sausage buttie. Unfortunately when travelling in Asia, you’ve probably got more chance of being eaten by a tiger than you have of finding a good Full English. We entered the ‘Brit Café’ and first impressions were good. The ’Brit’ advertised proper Cumberland sausages, the biggest pitfall of an Asian Full English. Most of the sausages I’ve encountered have been pathetic, shrivelled up excuses of meat that I’ve had to force myself to eat. The better sausages have been smoked sausage and you don’t eat smoked sausage with a Full English!! Also the bacon is mostly of the streaky variety with lots of fat and not much meat. Hopes were high when we saw the tick list with every possible item you could think of that makes up a Full English. I checked sausage, back bacon, two fried eggs, hash brown, mushrooms and grilled tomato. What arrived was a joy to behold, I was lifted from my fuzzy hangover into a state of euphoria, 2010 had arrived! I’d have been more than happy if I was served this breakfast in England, everything was cooked to perfection. It was cooked by the Thai wife of the Brit running the café and it was definitely the best Full English I’ve had outside of the UK. It was so good we thought we’d go back to the café a few days later and see if she could pull off the ‘Sunday Dinner’ (roast lamb of course). Again, we were in for a treat, the only sad thing was that we would probably have to wait until October to for another one!


























Links, addresses and useful information

Paradise Cottage Resort website click here

For Koh Lipe's official website where you can book more accommodation click here.


For the best hangover cure known to man, try the full English at the Brit Cafe located on Prae Ae, Koh Lanta. Just ask a rickshaw driver, they should know.