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Published: September 10th 2006
A day in the long tail boat
Hired the boat for 1/2 day to go snorkeling. We flew into Phuket (a more popular and developed tourist destination) because we had a plan to take the bus from Phuket to Krabi, a place recommended to us by another friend who had just been there. I had read a few times on the internet about how beautiful the drive is from Phuket to Krabi and it was worth the view to take the bus instead of just flying into Krabi. I had read this more than once on the internet boards so figured it was a good bet, but you can’t always believe what you read.
The Phuket airport was crazy; so many tourists everywhere and (it seemed) an equal amount of Thai people trying to round them up or entice them into using their tourist service. With very few signs, we finally figured out to go all the way outside to find the bus. At first I thought (hoped really) there would be a bus for Krabi, leaving directly from the airport. Wrong! Turns out we had to take the bus into the Phuket bus station and the bus into town consisted of a line of minivans and about 5 Thai men arguing (again, no signs
to tell us what they were arguing about or where the minivans were going). We just kept saying “Krabi?” and they kept waving us on. We got squeezed into a van and took off. The driver checked where we were all going, then after about a 10 minute ride, pulled over to the side of the highway and motioned for us and 1 other guy to get out. Hey, wait a minute; we weren’t at the bus station yet! And we were on the side of VERY busy highway! As the driver pulled our bags out of the van he pointed to a bus shelter across highway (the very busy highway, remember). We finally understood our bus would be coming by that stop. I was getting a bit nervous about now. Were we being dumped? We picked up our bags darted across the highway (yes, the same VERY BUSY HIGHWAY!). We made it and settled in at the bus shelter. After about 10 minutes some busses started coming along. These were the nicer VIP busses and they had their destination written on the front windshield. After about 20 minutes a bus labeled KRABI pulled to a stop in front of
us. We were running on faith that we were getting on the right bus.
Bus fare to Krabi was 140 baht per person, which comes to about $3. The bus came with a bus attendant, was clean and made few stops but the seats were kind of small with not much leg room. Combine that with the 2 Muslim teenage girls sitting in front of us who had their seats reclined back as far as they could go and making us cramped up for much of the journey. We saw some nice scenery but it wasn’t worth the 2 hour bus ride. Oh, did I mention the loud, Thai Pop music that played non-stop?
Our bus pulled into some place outside of Krabi and we switched to a tuk tuk kind of truck which took us to Ao Nang beach for 40 baht each ($1). We got in and headed toward the beach, making frequent stops to pick up school kids heading home; we finally stopped at the foot of our road, some 40 minutes later. The driver pointed up the steep hill. Hot, tired and hungry, we grabbed our bags and started walking/climbing.
The beach area
we stayed at was called Ao Nang. It has one main road that follows the beach and most of the shops and restaurants are here. Every other shop it seemed was travel/trekking agency just like in Pai. If you ever go to Thailand take our advice; when you get to your destination just let an agency do all the work for you. We picked one (she also happened to do laundry, 35 baht per kilo 50 baht extra if they ironed, and we let her do that as well). She booked us treatments at a spa, a snorkeling trip
and a kayaking trip into the mangroves. Not all at once, we went back to her a couple of times and only booked things a day in advance. The dive shops are everywhere with lots of choices for diving. They’ll you to scuba in one day.
No one spoke English in our hotel; it was very nice but no English. We had a walk in shower and a small balcony with a sea view. Almost all the beds in Thailand are very firm, no, make that very hard! And the pillows are big and foam. I ended up with
a severe crick in my neck the first few nights in Thailand. Thank goodness the massages are really cheap. I ended up swiping the pillow from one of our flights and using the airline pillow to sleep on. I decided to go on a quest for softer bed and headed down to the front desk to see if they had a room with a softer bed. Since no one speaks English I had to use other methods to get my point across (time for charades again). I tried knocking on the desk with my knuckles to demonstrate the concept of hard (as in a hard mattress) and drew a picture of a bed. They sent housekeepers up to our room that proceeded to check the bed out. They pushed around on the frame and made sure it was pushed up against the wall. I think they thought I was complaining that the bed was knocking against the wall when Mike and I…… Then I tried to explain again and they thought I was complaining that someone was knocking on the door when we were trying to sleep. After the second communication failure I wisely gave up.
One evening while
strolling along the main road, we heard German folk music. There was a group of 4 men standing in the back of a pick up truck singing German folk music as it drove down the road. One was playing an accordion and they were all dressed in traditional German leather shorts and suspenders (lederhosen). We still don’t know what that was all about. Just goes to show; you can see anything around here.
One of our ½ day excursions was kayaking in the mangroves. We were picked up at our hotel in the morning and loaded into the back of a truck (another tuk tuk type vehicle) along with a Danish family with 2 young children. We stopped at a roadside fruit stand and our guide bought a watermelon and 2 pineapples for $1. Mike and I shared a double kayak.
Our first stop was at a cave our guide told us was used by a tribe of nomadic type peoples as a burial site. Did we want to see and touch the bones? He assumed we all wanted to climb into the cave and play with human bones. I’m sure he was disappointed when we all chose
to respect the dead. 30 minutes upstream we saw a small monkey sitting on some dead trees at the river bank. Our guide tossed him some pineapple as we watched. We paddled through some very narrow canyons with the cliff walls going up about 100 feet. It was beautiful with the sun filtering down through the plant life and our words echoing off the walls. Our guide proudly pointed out the camera platforms bolted into the cliff walls used when some James Bond movies were filmed there. On the return trip we stopped at a dock area to take a break and feed the monkeys. This was really our snack break but the monkeys got more of it than we ate ourselves. The group had about 15 monkeys and it was interesting watching the social dynamics of the group. They would beat up on each other as they fought to get the best pieces of fruit. They would come right up to us and take it right out of our hands.
The next morning was spent on a half day, snorkeling and Island hopping adventure. We had our own boat and guide, and plenty of open ocean. He took
us to several great spots for snorkeling, with lots of marine and plant life. It was a very relaxing, fun day and we knew at this point we would be back several more times to fully enjoy this beautiful place. That night we both got Gecko tattoos. The guy we choose was real rough and it hurt a lot. This was not our first time, so we knew it was him, not us.
The next day we headed to the Krabi airport and after a 6 hour lay-over in Bangkok, we where back on the plane heading to Dubai. Our lay-over was not a good way to end the vacation. First of all, all the good shops, and food places are at the departure gates; this included the business-class lounge, the place we planned on spending most of the time. They wouldn’t let us check-in until 3 hours before our flight departed, and we couldn’t get our boarding pass until we checked in. So, no boarding pass meant we had to spend 3 hours hanging out in the main entrance lobby, with no real place to sit or relax. The 3 hours seemed to last 10 and taught us
a good lesson, the next time we travel through the Bangkok airport. Not to mention the $20 exit fees they don’t tell you about until you get to the security check point, then have to head back to the other end of the airport to purchase!!! Bad, bad airport!
Our next vacation will be in Paris, France; around the end of March. But until then, it’s back to desert life and 12 hour work days.
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