Walking in the rainforest isn't for us. Neither of us!

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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 minibus back to Ao Nang for Tues, 450b, leaves around 8.30 and gets to Ao Nang centre (whatever they mean by that? At 12.30 after a change in Krabi again I don't believe the 12.30 thing really, but we will see! It would have been worth trekking round the village, other places it was 350b.

We were driven round to our room, the path is gritty and not easy with a wheely bag and it was the furthest room. Wifi is only in the restaurant, works fine there. It is quite basic inside, but to be honest, I was expecting worse. It's clean, big bathroom, mozzie nets on the window and a fan over each bed. It is stifling inside with the door closed (best keep the door closed....), and there's nowhere to put your stuff, so good we are only here for 2 nights.

So the activity afternoon was to have a walk to some waterfalls in the park, following some duff info from a French guy, meaning we got lost in the resort garden. It was take the path to the LEFT, you numpty! Just 5 mins to the gates, 300b to go in and we were given a photocopy of a map showing one path, dividing at the end, with waterfalls along the way. We didn't think to check distances. There were about 12 places named. We got to the first one after half an hour of an even but up and down path. We were OK in our sandals, others had flipflops on! We had a swim, but there was no waterfall to speak of. This was place number one of 12! We did the maths, 1.5km only done, the furthest was 7km away. Dismayed by this calculation. We tried to get as far as place 2, it was getting hillier and hillier and our legs felt like rubber, so hard to walk in the humidity, despite drinking loads of water and eating the bananas and pineapple bought on the way in, and some pringles for energy. Turned around and trudged back, mostly in silence, knackered, like wading through treacle, stopped for a drink and a reviving read of our kindles. Doesn't make us bad people! Unfit and woosses yes, but not bad! So we didn't actually reach ANY of the waterfalls, google images will have to do.

Then home and showers, crawled under the mozzie net and passed out for a bit. We thought we'd eat in the resort and not walk too far, but HORRORS, the only alcohol they had was wine other than beer, which Sam doesn't like, and not even a diet coke. Sam had her very disappointed face on, so we got our torches for the walk back in pitch dark, covered ourselves in deet and went out to find better options. I wasn't feeling too special and couldn't face Thai food so we went to a pizzeria, normally against my principles, and had a great pizza, Sam happy again with a glass of wine and stir fried vegetables, always a winner, crunchy and delicious with garlic bigtime! The waiters were mainly the children of the family, so there were some long gaps in service, the place was packed as it was the most western-looking and there were a lot of families with young kids, mainly German. Not sure a 12 year old should REALLY be serving us alcohol, but there you go.... I had a Thai iced tea, so sugary. Lots of people up and down on scooters and hardly anyone with a helmet on.

About to walk home in the dark......









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Photos

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We have princess beds with (slightly honey) mozzie nets

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Our house on legs, complete with Coronation Street-style cladding

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Setting off to find the National Park entrance, a short cut!

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The 'village', such as it is

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Beautiful bamboo

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We went for a swim here

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We checked out the distances after we'd given up....

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Pineapples in the garden, bless