If we were Swedish, we'd be home now

Now this is why we travel- to find out how other people around the world live. Of all the different stories we expected to hear from people of different walks of life, I don't know if I ever could have guessed that there was a large community of Swedish people who emigrate to live in beach resorts on islands in southern Thailand for several months or even years at a time.

We met a family by chance on our way to the island who informed us that there are enough Swedish people on Ko Lanta to support 3 different private schools on the island.  Crazy, no?  This particular family was planning to stay for a year, and had to travel to a different major city each month buy a new visa.  They were living in a bungalow, and their 2 young children were living in another bungalow next door.  Can we do this?  I never knew that just picking up and moving to a beach in Thailand was an option for grown-ups.  Mom, Dad, you interested?  We'd certainly visit!

Other than that, we found Ko Lanta to be a very nice beach resort area that is big enough that it actually has neighborhoods, and you don't always feel like you are living next door to every other backpacker on the island.  Since we didn't take any photos here, we won't bore you with too many details.  Suffice it to say that on Ko Lanta we discovered: green Fanta is terrible (tastes like bubble gum), locally brewed brandy is not to be trusted, and the cure to this brandy can be found in pineapple and banana pizza.