Day 96 - 103 30th Oct - 6th Nov Ao Nang

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We were collected from our hotel by a mini bus and er assumed we would be getting off and then onto a ferry as foot passengers. We were wrong, all the ferries were car ferries se we stayed in the mini bus for the whole trip. When we got to Ao Nang we asked the driver to drop us at the Pranang Flora, we had no booking but it had food reviews on Trip Advisor.



After driving around for 10mins at a snails pace we found the place and the driver jumped out to talk to the receptionist to try and get commission out of us, but we were having none of it knowing that his commission would be added onto the price of our room .



We got the price down to 550B per night which is about €13 this was a total bargain cus the hotel was really really nice, and only 5 mins from "The Strip" and the beach.



We had a really relaxed time in Ao Nang, during the day we would chill down at the beach, have lunch walk around some shops then back to the gotel for a shower, nap and then out for dinner. One night we tried a restaurant that was always busy and smelled really good. As we were looking at the menu we copped what the amazing smell was, steamed muscles drowning in garlic butter. Needless to say

we ordered this to start and they were better then expectation, we wanted straws to drink all the juice, but we settled with spoons, to get the last of the garlic butter, no harm of vampires getting us for the next week, but to be sure we went back to following night to be sure!!!



One of the evenings we were coming back from the beach and I could see massive big black rain clouds coming toward us. Waling up the hill they were getting very close very quick so we half ran, half walked back to the hotel. These clouds were pretty scary looking, it was kinda like walking toward an apocalypse , look ahead dark scary sky, look behind beautiful clear blue skies! The closer we got to these clouds the eerier the atmosphere got. We got back to the hotel in the nick of time it had started to rain as we were outside, but once we got up to the room the sound of the rain was deafening, and then there was the thunder, OMG!!!! My first instinct was to dive under the bed sheets, but G was like look out it's really dark and scary over to the left but you can see it moving toward the beach. And sure enough we could follow the storm it was so odd. It only lasted about half an hour, but it was like being in a cyclone, the wind was so strong the rain so heavy and the thunder and lightening totally synced!



On the 4th of November we took a day trip to Railay Village. It was pretty small not much to see or do, there was a small walking village (This just reminded us both of Valkingstown, Ben and Amy will know what I mean, we just kept repeating it lol !!!)



On our last night we did a late night snorkelling tour. We left at around 2pm and were brought in a nice boat to by a few islands, including Chicken Island (which as the name suggests is shaped like a chicken, but at twilight the colony of flying foxes, which are the biggest bats you will ever see, all leave the island at the same time in search of food. It was a pretty spectacular sight. There were literally hundreds of these massive bats the size of a small fox all flying in the same direction at the same time.



The snorkelling was pretty amazing too. They achored the boat a few times at some really good spots to let us jump out and have a look. At one place we got a piece of pineapple to hold out for the fish, and hundreds of these yellow fush went mental for ir, they would take your hand off it was crazy.



Then we stopped on a deserted island for a BBQ, it was really dark by then we could barely see a foot in front of us and there was only two lights on this island and some pretty hairy looking spiders *shiver*. A long tail boat took us to the island from our boat and when we went to go back to the nice boat, the longtail boat wouldn't start. After about 5 mins the tour guide was beginning to get a little bit panicked then thankfully it motor kicked in and we were away 😊



The last dive of the night is what we had been waiting for, it was pitch black at this stage so all you get to see is the phosphorous plankton lighting us. They glow at movement in the water, they are just like millions of glowing specs of dust, it was pretty amazing and we ended the tour on a high. It was 9pm by the time we got back to the hotel just in time to shower have dinner and pack then to bed to check out early in the morning 😞



Loved Ao Nang



Rxxx

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