Wat's Up?!?

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We took a bus from Pak Bara to Trang, where they off loaded us from a scary little mini-bus to a double decker super VIP bus, decked out in all pink decor and a TV playing endless Thai Karaoke videos, which all pretty much sounded the same, but luckily nobody was singing. When we got to Krabi, the bus dropped us off in the non-touristy part of town, so we got a tuk-tuk into town (after walking a ways and realizing we had a long way to go). We actually turned down several tuk-tuks because they were overloaded already but they wanted to put three westerners and their backpacks in (seeing nothing but dollar signs) but we insisted on waiting for one with more room, which worked out well since we met a local guy who ended up walking us to the guest house we were looking for and who told us about the free BBQ at the cafe where he worked just down the street. We ended up staying nearby at a place called the Grand Hotel because many of the recommended guest houses were full. It was a good location, but our room was on the 5th floor, which doesn't sound bad, but when it's 95 degrees and there's no A/C, it's rough. (oh and no elevator). It worked out though, as it warmed us up for one of our upcoming adventures. We also had an alarm clock at 8 AM every morning because we were across from the local school where they had drumming every morning as the kids marched to their classrooms (and singing sometimes). This was really loud because we didn't have A/C so we had our windows wide open. We're not complaining though, it was a good wake up call to get us moving!

We spent the next day monkeying around in town, shopping, doing laundry, eating, doing our stairs several times (to counteract the eating...no, not really, there were rarely public restrooms and when there was, they were gross and you had to pay for the experience, come on!), and figuring out our plan.

Once we got the lay of the town and our legs built up, we rented a scooter the next day and headed for the hills. Seriously, for the hills. Our first stop was Wat Than Seua (Tiger Cave Temple), about 8km out side of Krabi. On the way out we saw what looked like a temple off in the distance on top of a really high cliff and thought it looked pretty cool. Little did we know, that is where we were headed. Arriving at the temple site, there were not too many tourists and since it was still pretty early in the morning, we decided to hit the steps to the temple first thing...all 1290 of them, some big, some tall, some short, some small, and none the same as the one before (definitely not to code!). Around 500 steps up, we encountered a problem and almost had to abort the mission. We came upon a very large swarm of bees that you could hear from about 75 feet away. They were hovering right where we needed to go...so we waited it out, tried a couple times to make a run for it, but the swarm scared the crap out of us so we kept turning back. Soon, there was a german guy who was also waiting it out with us. Finally, we saw a hole and made a run for it, focused on looking at our feet so we didn't trip over the uneven steps and keeping our heads down while rushing past the bee swarm and we made it with no casualties!
We continued trudging up the steps and finally coming to the last step we were greeted by the nastiest looking dog you could imagine, gnawing on himself to ease the itch of his fleas, and barely any life left in him. The second site we saw was free water, a wonderful gift since ours had heated up to 95 degrees by this point and the free stuff was relatively cold. We took off our shoes and checked out the temple with all the Buddha statues and amazing views of the area. After taking in the sights, we started the long journey down, which was a workout for a whole different set of muscles and when we stopped, our legs shook with fatigue.
At the bottom, we took a little nature hike and saw some caves (where many of the monks seemed to live), a dog fight, some big trees, and other cool jungle sites. Then we hit the road and headed toward a nearby park where there were some waterfalls.
Since we were out of the traffic area, I even let Cara drive the scooter for a short distance. At the park we paid the typical 200 baht entry fee and started tromping up to the falls. 10 minutes into it we saw the first (lowest) level of the waterfall. Nothing special, but not bad, more than the last waterfall we'd hiked to. We continued up to the 2nd level which was better, but being the dry season, there was very little water flowing. I can imagine during the wet season, it would be an awesome waterfall. The 3rd and last part of the waterfall (that we knew about) was the best part. When we arrived, nobody was there, it was hot, the water was cool and wet, so I had to do something about it. Come on, you can't go to a tropical waterfall without jumping in! Very refreshing! I can't believe I was the only one in it! So anyway, after perfecting my backflip...yeah right....we headed back down the trail and saw a bunch of beautiful butterflies on the way.
Having rented the scooter for the full day we decided if we could run it dry and headed to the next town over, Ao Nang, which was an interesting adventure. Our first stop was the tourist attraction Fossil Beach (Gastropod Site or something like that). It looked like a bunch of sheets of used cement thrown into the ocean, except with a closer look you could see little shells embedded. Hardly worth the 200 Baht they charge to look at it. After the 5 minute tour, we headed to the city center, which was mega-tourist town. Prices were inflated to twice what we were paying in Krabi town, which were already inflated a couple times above normal, but we had nothing better to do so we shopped around, did the tourist thing, and ate expensive food that wasn't very good.
Now came the real scary part, driving back in the dark. We have heard statistics that scooter accidents kill hundreds of tourists every year and suspect that night time is the worst time. Don't worry, I didn't drink! And we were wearing our clamshells (helmets). We set off for Krabi, doing our best not to get lost, doing a couple circles trying to figure out if we really were where we thought we were, and then suddenly we came up on a T, the road turned quicker than we expected, and we hit a little sand on the shoulder (cause that's where you're supposed to drive with the scooter) while breaking. Since the rear break was pretty weak and wasn't slowing me down fast enough, I had to use the front break. Any of you who have been on a bike know that this is going to cause problems. The front end started to skid so of course I threw my flip flops down to stabilize the bike, skinning up my toe in the process...flip flops may not be the best choice for scooting. Luckily the bike only weighs 150 lbs or so. So anyway, we didn't crash, I still have all my toes, Cara's still speaking to me, and we eventually made it back to the hotel with a little bit of gas to spare.

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