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Published: March 6th 2008
Sunny Beaches
Thailand is full of sunny Beaches. This one is near Krabi in the South of the country.We headed to Krabi with two goals in mind. Diving and relaxation.
Alex learned how to dive from a Hong Kong national named Klins at the Blue Juice dive shop in Krabi town. Krabi itself isn't a beach-covered paradise, it's more of a base of operations out of which you organize trips to beach-covered paradises, jungles and the likes. Klins was a patient teacher and in no time we were out in the water diving. Visibility wasn't great, but we did get to see quite a few neat things including a moray eel, a bunch of sea horses, lion fish, clown fish, and my personal favorite, nudibranches. We also got a bonus on our second day when we saw a group of dolphins on the way out to the dive site.
Our time was split between the beaches and the jungle. Honestly, there's not too much to be said about the beaches. We sat. We walked. We played in the beautiful blue ocean. Awesome.
We spent a couple of days in the jungle. First, we decided to climb all 1237 stairs to the Tiger Mountain Cave Temple. 1237's not that many, right? I think we would have been
Flower
Here is a nice white flower with the blue water in the background. fine if we could have skipped steps 200-300. They were about 6 inches wide and a foot and a half tall. We never recovered after that. We almost resorted to shouting slogans at each other after we were passed by a Thai lady who must have been in her 70s. The view from the top was well worth the effort (so I keep telling myself). Sadly, it was overcast, so landscape pictures didn't turn out, but that didn't make the scenery any less breathtaking. Jungle greenery cascaded off of peak after peak of towering cliffs. It was reminiscent of Guilin, but without all the development. Golden Buddhas towered above us as we admired the scene below us. That older woman who sprang past us on the way up prayed at every single statue, large or small and tried to persuade Chris to do the same with gentle pushing and prodding.
The next day we woke up with sore legs, and so decided on an arm workout. We opted for the kayak/elephant trekking combo tour and were not disappointed. We kayaked through mangrove forests, lagoons, and canyons with a pair of Danes, an Englishman and his young French daughter, and
Limestone Cliffs
Cliffs and rocks like these are all over southern Thailand. Made from limestone, they shoot up out of the seas. our talkative Thai guide. In addition to some stunning scenery we also got to see a monitor lizard, a meter and a half long water snake, and many well behaved monkeys. I especially enjoyed all our variations on Bob Marley's
No Woman No Cry. Among the best had to be--"No rain, plants die,"--Chris, "Monkey pee, monkey die."--our guide.
Zoe, the eight year old French girl that kayaked with us, was nearly beside herself with anticipation for our elephant trekking. This was certainly one of those times when catching the excitement of a child makes an experience worlds better. So after drying off we headed to Nosey Parker's, the elephant trekking company.
Elephants are not small.
Chris got to ride the hundred year old bull solo (well, save the guide), and Alex got the chance to ride on the elephant's head instead of on the harness and wouldn't be denied. The trek was short, but fun, especially since Zoe was around. The elephants marched around at a leisurely pace, stopping to uproot a tasty snack or to decorously scratch their backsides up against trees.
So after all this excitement we decided it was the time for some
Islands for Diving
Here is one of the first small islands that Alex learned to dive near. good, old fashioned beach bumming. So it was off to Koh Jum for us, an island that lauds the fact that upon it there is nothing to do.
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