After moving hotels so much we were determined to stay in one place for a bit and Krabi was the perfect place to do just this.   It lies on the Andaman Sea surrounded by islands and a couple hours from Puket.  The bus arrived in Krabi Town and we had our choice of beaches to choose from and we settled on Ao Nang.  Having a home base at the same hotel for 8 days was so comfortable except for the Reggae bar next door that blasted their music until 1AM each morning.  Staying at one of the surrounding beaches of Railey or further down the peninsula would have been nice but we just didn’t want to move around so much.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105315223482012434599/KrabiThailand

Because of the late evenings caused by the loud music, we started our days late and lazily with coffee on our balcony.  We enjoyed some great beach workouts, open-water swims and reading on multiple beaches.  There is a shell cemetery in a national park nearby that we visited.   Visually it is not impressive as it just looks like broken concrete but it is one of three in the world that has formed and still exists.

Every few steps in Ao Nang someone is trying to sell you a massage, a suit or an island hopping tour.  The famous island of Phi Phi (the island from the movie ‘The Beach’) is nearby along with other clusters of islands.  After reading reviews of filth and it being overcrowded with tourists we sadly decided not to visit these islands.  Instead we visited Railey Beach by long tail boat and kayak for our own snorkeling and hiking adventures.  The quality of the water wasn’t what you see in the pictures of the crystal clear, aqua waters in famous pictures of Thailand.  But in this area and in Koh Tao during high season when the weather is clear and water conditions are favorable we believe it would be amazing.

One day on Railey we made our way to a lookout point and lagoon, which by the map looked like a quick little hike.   Quite the opposite it turned into a climbing, scrabbling adventure in mud with our bare feet.  Katie, full of nerves, made it to the top of the last shear drop and waited uneasily deciding not to descend to the lagoon.  Zane, on the other hand, having the time of his life, took on this challenge wholeheartedly.  Covered in mud, drenched with sweat and cloaked with grin like a little boy, he made it to the lagoon and back to a relieved wife.

Hot Stream

Blue Pool

The only tour we decided to take during our time here was to Emerald Pool and Hot Stream.   There are 3 natural pools in a Nature Reserve to visit with Emerald Pool being the one you can swim in.  It was crystal clear and beautiful sprinkled with about a hundred loud Asian tourists.  The Hot Stream consists of unique, natural cascading pools of hot water recommended to visit in the morning before all the tours arrive.  The price would have been triple to get to these places on our own but in hindsight would have been worth it as on the tour we were on a strict time limit and on the same track as every other tour group.  On these cheap tours you end up spending half the time waiting to pick up other people and then rush through what you really want to see.  As always we battle the delicate line of our budget and trying to get the most out of our experiences.

Our Thanksgiving meal details were already shared in our last post about the amazing seafood meal we indulged in.   Our other meals were mainly street food of amazing curries, tom yam soup, grilled chicken legs and pad thai.  Zane asked for it Thai spicy everywhere we went and they never could get it spicy enough for him!  They must be scared to give a tourist real spice so in turn he cleared out their chili powder and oil in their condiment containers.  There is a large Muslim community in this area, which brings an array of other foods to choose from including crepe stands.  Mango sticky rice was hard to come by in this area so we settled for banana/nutella crepes everyday!