Krabi

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We've been a bit slack with our blog entries, our apologies. Once we began island hopping along the Thai coast all routine was lost and internet connection sporadic! I'll try and summarise the islands soon.

We are now in Krabi. Yesterday we extended our VISAs by 30 days to remove any stress of reaching Cambodia before we expired. Our current thoughts are to avoid Bangkok on our cycle route through Thailand, as although we know the flood waters are subsiding, the rural areas leading in may still be a nightmare and Bangkok can't be much fun to cycle through at the best of times.

We went on a Thai cookery course yesterday which was enjoyable and rather tasty. I had felt that my spicy tolerance has been improving but I definitely cannot yet devour a red thai curry! We learnt how to make the red, yellow, green and penang curry pastes, pad thai, soup, fried morning glory, spring rolls and our favourite coconut sticky rice with mango mmmmmmmm. Only missing a small piece of my finger and nail after all the chopping!

Today, we hired a moped and headed off to explore a few sights in Krabi. We headed to the Tiger Cave & Temple first. The temple was having a revamp and the cave was not that special however at the back you can climb up and down into a open cavern area which was awesome. The limestone cliffs hung menacingly above whilst a small community of monks had pitched up home beneath them! I'm reluctant to walk under overhangs let alone live under them! The peacefulness of the area was lovely with great big banyan trees and huge palms, it felt almost Jurassic. There were a number of caves with very beautifully formed ripples in the stalagmites, unfortunately tales of thuggish monkeys kept us from bringing our camera so we have no pictures of them. A perfect place for spiritual contemplation you might think...however, we spotted a monk listening to his ipod! They live in approx 2x3 m tin houses however the washing machines and microwaves outside certainly helped to keep things cushy!!!

After this we headed off to a National Park (Khao Phanom Bencha). We had a short walk into the forest to a multi-tiered waterfall. I jumped in for an invigorating dip whilst George opted out as the sun had gone in!! We attempted a 2km nature trail: which turned into more scrambling up rocks clambering over tree roots and mud upwards and upwards, passing a 'denger' sign until the path blurred with the surrounding jungle and we had to turn back. Saw a couple of interesting centipedes though!

Whilst we spent a few days in Krabi our bicycles received some TLC at a friendly local bike shop! We have just picked them up and they are gleaming and as a bonus my back brake works again. The guy also spotted that George's pannier rack had split but nothing a couple of zip ties cannot fix! We met our first fellow cycle tourist today, Gunter from Belgium. He started in Singapore and is heading up though Thailand to the mountains of China, definitely after a challenge!

We're now off to spend a couple of days in Ao nang before hopping to Ko Phi Phi for some snorkelling and then meeting up with Laura & Tom in Phuket! Can't wait to see you guys 😊

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