Island Life!

So Saturday was an interesting day.

Nick and I had taken Friday evening off and headed to Krabi for a well earned break. Heading back to Koh Lanta, we get the dreaded text.... the electric meter had blown up!

Our burnt out Electric Meter!

Unfortunately living on an island in Thailand, this is not an unusual happening, but in the middle of high season, right in the middle of breakfast, it is the last thing we need.

Gin, our Hotel Manager and our staff leapt into action, calling the electric company out and turning on our emergency water supply (our water pump needs electricity to drive water to the rooms). By the time we returned at 10:30am the Electricity company had reconnected us!

Next to go was the Transformer

Then we hear a 'BOOM'........ and that was the transformer!

Unfortunately, our electric here is not as stable as elsewhere in the world and this had lead for the Government transformer supplying us and a few businesses near us to blow up! This is the 3rd time I have seen this happen on Lanta!

Now we had a real issue, we had no transformer and the nearest one was in Bangkok (12 hours drive away!). But Gin explained to the Electric Company how essential it was to our guests that they had electricity (and water!) and they agreed to send over a generator for the night and the morning, until the new transformer arrived.

The Generator that we were so delighted to see!

We anxiously waited, worried that the generator would take a long time to arrive and be very noisy, but we need not have worried, it arrived by 6pm and by 6:30pm there were cheers throughout the resort as all the lights and air conditioning came to life!

The next day as promised the new transformer arrived and was installed quickly and easily.

Our new Transformer

Big thanks to the Electricity Company for working so hard to get us running again and big thanks to Gin (for her tough negotiating skills!), Ya (for constantly trying to ensure guests had water), Teng (for ensuring all the customers knew the situation), Tar and Pi Deng (for delivering breakfast with no electricity!), Sao, Kai 1 and Kai 2 (for sending the laundry out that day, cleaning the rooms with little water and doing a mountain of washing the next day) and of course all the guests (who took the whole thing in their stride, enjoyed the free beers and cooled off on the beach).

Replacing the Transformer

It can be tough sometimes living on a tropical island, but it can also make everyone pull together!

Safety 'Thai Style' keeping the 3 phases of electric separated by water bottles!