Blogs from South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 23

Arriving just after darkness fell, we found the bus station in Krabi in darkness. It seemed that our bus was the last one of the day to arrive. It was a little disconcerting but we were able to find transport to our guest house. It seems that the bus station is usually a lively place with places to grab a snack and plenty of tuk tuks and taxis to help you move on. Rooms@Krabi Guesthouse turned out to be an excellent choice. It's not luxury accommodation but it has everything you need and the staff are super friendly. They were always willing to help and if their English wasn't good enough to answer your query, they could always find someone else. It was such a refreshing change. We enjoyed it so much that we stayed one ... read more

The glossy brochure for paradise probably resembles Railay. Stranded on the nub of a peninsula and cut off by impenetrable mountainous jungle, no roads lead in or out. Wooden long-tail boats ferry visitors along the Andaman coast, around the towering limestone headlands, and into the placid bay where the cobalt waters lap gently at the postcard crescent of powdered sugar sand. Black-faced spectacled langur and thieving macaque monkeys forage in the small strip of trees between the beach and the sheer cliffs towering over the beach. Seeping minerals have streaked the white cliffs red and black, forming stalagmites, like the wax drippings from a candle in a wine bottle, at the cliffs’ base. Wind, water, and time have rounded the tree-topped crags at the edge of the sea into knobs and towers, reminiscent of Chinese scrolls ... read more

Last night the lovely people at Palmview resort were so pleased to announce that they now had red and white wine. Unfortunately it was undrinkable. On a par with that found in Luang Praang last year. Also the tempura vegetables Sam had been looking forward to were a complete disappointmen, being infiltrated inexplicably with chicken nuggets, so we decided eating elsewhere was sensible. Armed with our torches for coming back we went to find a minimarket to stock up on snacks and water and went back to the lovely pizza restaurant. Pizza, 2 nights in a row, my son-in-law Jon would be most impressed! We walked back in the dark along the path through the palms, such a great shortcut, a bit spooky when you hear a scooter coming. Got back to the room and we ... read more

We only have one whole day here, what to do? The retired elephant was fully booked for both of the day's sessions ( poor bugger, must think oh no, not another group wanting to wash me...), so we looked at the other options. Neither of us fancied walking for hours and going to the lake was a very long day, 6am - 7pm, couldn't face another one of those so soon. So we decided to do canoeing on the river The next day. Easy peasy, you don't have to paddle, the guide does it all for you. Picked up at the resort, 1 1/2 hours on the river, depending on the current. We paid 800b each, couldn't be bothered to trek round the so-called village and get a couple of quid off. We also booked our ... read more

We've spent the last four days in Koh Samui, unfortunately for us it rained on two of those days, which is annoying. When we first got to the island we found that they offered indoor skydiving, so we thought why not! That was an interesting experience, it's A LOT harder than it looks, I thought I'd be floating like an elegant butterfly, turns out I am more like an old helium balloon flapping around in the wind. It was really fun but gave me a sore back. They also offered Go Karting which Mikey did. Something we've both wanted to do for a while is Scuba Dive, and we found the perfect trip which we booked for our second day on the island. We were picked up from our hotel nice and early and taken to ... read more