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Published: March 25th 2016
DI-SAS-TER….. the Lonely Planet Guide for south east Asia was left on the bus, Alison is bereft, it was like having her right arm cut off.
After our train travels with cockroaches we were a bit apprehensive about the next, an overnight trip from Bangkok to Surat Thani, then meeting a bus to take us to Khoa Lak, a resort north of Phuket. The train although not new, was clean enough and shortly after leaving the station, the immaculately uniformed carriage attendant (starched creases and all) came through the carriage, assembled and made the beds, and attached the privacy curtains. It was a pretty cosy and we had a good sleep passing through the Thai country side.
We had bought a joint train/bus ticket and was told the bus would meet us at the station for a two-hour journey. Our train pulled in at 7.30am, and we duly found and settled into a luxury bus for the journey when approximately 25 minutes later, just outside town, we were told to change. That’s when the Lonely Planet got left behind. We were called over to a large pick up and assumed as we, and one other
person were the only ones going to our destination that this was our lift. No, ten minutes later we stopped again, at a remote café to be told the bus to Khoa Lak would be 4 hours wait. Alison and the other passenger made their feelings known. But first he said there is time to eat, we were hungry and did have something but thought it was a ruse just to get business. We were then taken to a local bus station where we were given tickets for the regular bus service, and still we had to wait an extra hour. If we had been taken straight to the bus station from the train, we could have caught the earlier one. We finally left the town 3 hours after we arrived!!, it was then a 5 hour bus ride.
After all the travelling, walking, temples, museums, and cities we thought we deserved and needed some R&R. We picked a nice hotel with pool right near the beach'. In our urgency to relax, even after smothering ourselves in suntan lotion and just laying out for a couple of hours, we underestimated the tropical sun and got badly burned,
with Alison breaking out in blisters, great fun!
Khoa Lak is a nice, but quiet resort, probably a bit too quiet as we like a bit of atmosphere. But the reasons for coming was to visit the Similian Islands National Park. The quickest way to get to them is a hour and a half speedboat ride. We managed to nab some good seats next to the Captain which was great as many of the passengers behind were facing inwards, parachutist style, not a comfortable way for boat travel. We chose a good company and they provided, breakfast lunch and tea and as much soft drink as we needed. We visited many bays and they provided snorkels and flippers to explore the coral. It was great to get a bit of sea air and see the amazing underwater sea life.
In 2004 this area was affected badly by the Boxing Day Tsunami. We visited a memorial and a nearby museum, to gain an insight to what happened here. Sadly, the memorial had seen better days and the museum apart from some videos being played and some graphic boards was pretty weak, telling us little about
the effects or recovery of the area.
Khoa Lak beach was really nice, we had a good three-day rest, but after all the travelling found it difficult to sit still as there are so many other islands to explore. The Ko Phi Phi islands, pronounced pee-pee, just to the south of Phuket caught our fancy, and we’d planned to get a ferry from there. Instead we were advised to get ferry from Krabi town as that was where most of the ferries were. We arrived at Krabi to find a sleepy town with not much going on, and not the bustle of boats we were expecting
We were tight for time and had only two days to organise a boat trip. After getting some quotes from various travel agents, we got some reviews of the boat trip companies. To be honest some were horrendous with people having to get out of the boats and push, cut feet on coral, jumping over boats in the dark. We decided to push the boat out, (excuse the pun) and pay a bit extra for a private boat trip. The islands off this coast are stunning and have
been used in the films 'The Beach' and 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. We arrived at Au Nang beach to meet our Swedish guide Frederik, who was to show us the best of the Phi Phi’s beaches, and snorkelling spots. We were to ride in a Thai longtail boat, called because of the massive propshaft that stick out the back driving the propeller. This boat was huge, a lot bigger than what we expected considering there is just two of us. It could hold a sedate 30 people, or 20 people partying hard!! We wished we could have called on a few friends to party with us! but we had a great day with lunch supplied and lots of wonderful island hopping and snorkelling.
We had a spare day to wander around Krabi. We took a board walk through the mangroves and saw many minute mud crabs, scurrying and popping their heads out. We also visited the Tiger Cave temple. This was a cave where a tiger was said to have lived, and a monk, created a temple. Above the cave at the top of the mountain, is the temple which we were advise to see,
but not before we climbed a whopping 1300 steps in over 30 degrees heat. Halfway up we were having second thoughts- a lot of the steps were very steep, some over a foot tall. We also had to watch for monkeys who liked to ambush you and to steal anything that wasn’t hidden, water, food, cameras. But after a lot of sweat, swearing and consumed water, we reached the summit and were rewarded with a fabulous view. We had arrived just in time to see the sun go down, on this tranquil mountain top temple.
What a difference a couple of days makes, we grew to like Krabi and its local market driven lively atmosphere. Its time to continue our journey south, the more we read about our next destination the more excited we get-Penang, Malaysia!
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