Days 5/6 Homestay and Krabi

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Turns out these two days were contrasts in every possible way. The Homestay was a four hour drive to a Muslim village, where we spent the afternoon and night in the extremely hospitable (and of course alcohol-free) company of a local family. The walking tour of the village was a real education - we saw bull-fighting bulls in their pens, ate delicious fruit straight off the tree - a kind of grapefruit but with a thick green outer shell, learnt about the Thai system of supporting small farmers in cooperatives, and most amazingly saw rubber collected straight from the tree in a plantation.

Dinner was incredible. All home cooked, the group did the prepping, and group leader Alif was head chef. Every ingredient was prepared from fresh, including the base red curry sauce. The food was like nothing we've had since we arrived -Thai spicy not western spicy, which regrettably seems to be more common than we expected. Overnight the boys (2) slept separately from the girls (8) which meant James and I had our own rooms,while the girls didnt!

Today we drove into Krabi, a major resort on the Andaman Sea, which was a real shock to the system. People everywhere, resort prices, and hustle and bustle we thought we had left behind in Bangkok. We spent the day island-hopping on a speedboat and snorkelling; there are 200 islands in the area and we visited four of them. Unfortunately so did everyone else! The really crazy visit was to the beach in The Beach film. Beautiful but utterly spoilt by hundreds of people. Such a shame. Luckily we were only there for 20 minutes! But the area is beautiful and the snorkelling and boat fun, even if only a mere dress rehearsal for the Great Barrier Reef in a couple of weeks time.

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