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Published: March 23rd 2014
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After celebrating Spring Festival with Emily's family, we were lucky to still have 2 weeks off from school. So we headed for sunny Thailand! We flew into Bangkok but jetted right out again to the southern beaches of Krabi. Our friend Hthaiwon had suggested it as a beautiful retreat that was not too touristy. Our first hotel that we had booked online was truly that. A taxi ride away from the Krabi airport, the Sea House Resort was indeed isolated. We checked into our spacious and tropical cabana that overlooked both the pool and the ocean and instantly relaxed. Taking a stroll on the beach, we saw only seashells and a few longtail boats. The restaurant at the hotel consisted of 6 wooden tables on a patio between the beach and the pool, shoes and shirt optional. We swam, lounged, read and ate. So nice. I read a beach book in a day.
After a few days, however, we wanted a little more (not to mention prices at a hotel restaurant with nowhere else to go can be a bit steep). We rented a scooter and rode about 40km to check out Krabi Town and decided to stay for a
couple of days. The accommodations were a bit icky and the town was akin to Hampton beach without the beach. However, we took a 4 island tour from there one day and found our true paradise.
Our friend Kelly had told us about Railay and upon seeing it ourselves, we were smitten. Though it is technically a peninsula, Railay is surrounded by beaches and is cut off from the mainland by lime stone cliffs; it is known to be an international climbing mecca. You can only get there by boat, so it is more like an island. On our tour we stopped at the most dramatic beach of the three - Pranang Cave Beach (apparently voted one of the top 10 beaches in the world). It boasts a dramatic cave that you can swim in with unbelievable turquoise water and white sand! Wow. We swam and walked around a bit and decided we would return as soon as we could. The next day, we took a water taxi there and got a hotel. Our first one was really a bungalow. Sounds of the jungle, mosquitoes and holes in the floor all for 500 THB ($15). The next day we
found a nice hotel room with a pool and breakfast for 1500THB. Worth it. We spent most of the rest of our vacation on Railay kayaking, swimming, hiking and eating great food. Kendall went fishing and caught a Barracuda that one of the hotels grilled up for us and we ate for 3 days.
As you may know, Thai food is fantastic. Curries, Pad Thais, Fish, rice dishes - all as fresh and flavorful and cheap as you could want. My favorite was the papaya & peanut salad which I ate almost every day. The people are friendly and fun as well. We were again pleasantly surprised coming out of China into a more international atmosphere. Of course, English is spoken a lot as there are many tourists. It is also just more prevalent since Thailand has historically been more open. Everyone was happy to chat with us and help us out. We were warned by our tour book that some guys might try to tell us that a tourist area was closed and then take us on another tour. This did happen to us in Bangkok, but since we knew about it we just laughed and everything stayed
friendly.
It was sad to leave Railay but we were looking forward to spending a couple of days in Bangkok before returning "home" to China. Though we were a little nervous about the protests, we knew to just stay away from the area and everything would be fine. However, I wanted to get some Aveda hair products so we went to the mall that was right next to the protest area. Uh oh. Well, we couldn't resist checking it out a bit. As we had heard, it was more like a Phish show without the drugs than an intense political event. People were playing guitar and singing, selling t-shirts, food and jewelry and making what seemed like mellow, Buddhist type speeches. In contrast, our hotel's street (Khaosan Road) was crazy! We arrived late at night and things were just getting started. The street is lined with bars, restaurants and shops with spring breakers and backpackers as their clientele. We saw signs saying "Get your fake ID here" or "We do not card" as well as guys pushing menus of girls and other things on the street. Interesting. Luckily, our hotel room was on the backside and was a nice
refuge with a rooftop pool.
While in Bangkok we took a water bus, visited some temples, saw Jim Thompson's house (a British architect who built a really cool place & then disappeared into the jungle one day) and did some shopping. We had a couple of drinks at the rooftop bar from The Hangover 2 as well. The whole time we were in Thailand, the weather was a fantastic 85 degrees and sunny. We hope to spend future family vacations enjoying this amazing place.
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Scott Aronowitz
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Wonderful Adventures!
You so brought me back to my own time in Thailand, and I'm so happy that you got to experience it all. I'm sure that both of you are having the time of your lives. Next time you go to Thailand (and it is so worth going back again), consider Chiang Mai and also doing some scuba diving. Bravo to both of you! It is so fun reading your blogs. Scott