And off we go to Thailand

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First stop -
Krabi

On May 11th -Mother’s Day - we said good bye to Georgetown and Malaysia and headed off by mini-bus to Krabi, Thailand. The border crossing from Malaysia to Thailand was easy and then we changed buses in Hat Yai. For a brief moment we thought we had lots of space on the bus and then the driver picked up more and more people including 3 young Canadian guys and the bus was full! We spent all day on the bus and arrived in Krabi in early evening. The mini bus let us off at a travel agency - and there, of course, was a lady with info on where to stay.

It was Mother’s Day and I decided we needed to splurge - I was missing my guys a lot! So off we went to the new Hotel Sripet -a little splurge as it was 1100 baht per night or $36; this included breakfast. Very nice room and lovely staff.

We of course ate some wonderful Thai food in Krabi -surprise! surprise! - and took a 2 hour long-tail boat ride on the river through the mangrove forest. Our boat guide was quite wonderful. He took us into these amazing caves accessed by a rickety staircase (I know it would not meet the safety standards in Canada! - actually nothing here does. Does make it interesting) -and then to his fishing village -a very beautiful, peaceful Muslim village with a population of about 3000 where people travel around by moped or bicycle or boat. They have a school and a health clinic too. Although the tsunami of 2004 touched only small parts of Krabi some people from here who were out on their fishing boats were lost. So sad.

We booked our trip to Ko Phi Phi through the PP Family tour operator and then explored the Night Market and tasted some interesting fruits and foods. Krabi’s traffic is busy and there are mopeds everywhere -sometimes with whole families of 5 - little kids in the front and between the parents -scary!!! We found a fun eating area not far from the river and enjoyed the laid back ambience. We leave on May 13th for Ko Phi Phi.

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