Thailand (Krabi) (Kuala Terrenganu- Alor Setar- Krabi)

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Finally left Malaysia & took the overnight bus over to Thailand from Kuala Terrenganu to Alor Setar (taking the long way round over to the west side in order to avoid the trouble of south east...added a little extra time to the journey but better safe thatn sorry!!
couple oif annoying guys on the bus with really dirty laughs chatting all night so no sleep again, plus our bus broke down & we had to switch over to another...always fun in these parts (not), but otherwise fine & we arrived safe & sound just in time to see the wonderful sunrise in Alor Setar (THAILAND!!). Crossing the border was ridiculously easy, just walked straight through & had our first thai breakfast - rice with stuff of course! yummy.
caught bus over to Krabi & negotiated really cheap & cosy accommodation.

Krabi turned out to be a really lovely little town, laid back, great friendly people, not pushy at all & pretty cheap things around, clothes & food...gona be good here! brilliant night market with great choice of food again, similar to the fab one at kota baru, but thai food of course. much noodles & veg stuff here too!!

buses very interesting - basically a truck with a two little bench things in the back, but they get you from a to b & are vaguely comfortable. toher cool transport is the tuk tuk (like a rickshaw by cheating coz it's a morotbike rather than proper man power)

visited Wat Tham Seua (Tiger Cave Temple). Really interesting inside the main temple watching the monks & nuns do their thing, the great attraction required hiking up some very steep & strenuous 1127 steps to the 600m peak. upon arrival (& after catching my breath) an amazingly huge bronze buddha was awaiting at the top. spectacular is all i can say. we then got to see some cool little caves & see where the monks live (surprisingly i found some waching machines lying around, thought they might be more manual than that, but turns out they pretty much like the mod cons, mobile pones, photocopiers, etc!)

Krabi turned out to be the rain town..chucked it down pretty much everyday, making some activities difficult, but nevertheless, we got by & had a great time here!
spent time wandering the smaller wat kaew in krabi...a little village for monks with school for the young wanabe monks. boys come here from age 6-20 (when they become full-blown monks) & only get to go home to see family 1-3 times a year. they learn most subjects here but mainly the study & language of buddhism. young monks need to follow 10 rules, then a wopping 227 once full-blwon (nus on the other hand only ever have to follow 8...now even i think i could do that!!!) had such a fab time 'chatting' to the monks, learning some thai, playing charades & roleplay to try & communicate - always a great pleasure of mine!

in thailand its real hard to make sure you don't offend people - hard to make sure we dont touch them, or point our foot at them, or offend the king, or lick a stamp...plus many other don't do's!!

lots of fun hanging with locals again playing connect 4 (a real craze here apparently) & pool - despite the huge amount of time they have to practise, they were pretty poor & even i beat them on occasions!!

decided that krabi was definitely a place i could get used to...would probably return!!

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