Have a Krabi Christmas (Day 96 - 100 by Chris)

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Monday 21st December 2015

We were awake and packed for about 7:30am. I was feeling as bad as yesterday so the prospect of a flight didn't fill me with joy. We flagged a taxi down and asked him to take us to Dong Muang airport via the express way. We had somehow managed to flag down the most vocal cabby in Bangkok. He didn't spend much time talking to us, but a lot of time huffing and puffing at the Monday morning rush hour. At one point we stopped in traffic with the road 100 metres ahead of us completely clear. The driver was obviously getting a bit irate that there was no movement from the drivers at the front of the queue. I assumed there had been an accident or something because there were lots of police about. It turns out the police had blocked the road to allow the Princess of Thailand to drive through. The Thais take their royalty very seriously. Not a bad word can be spoken of them and everywhere you look there are posters of the King and even his father. Everyone seems so in love with them, so it was quite nice that we should get a glimpse of the Princesses' chauffeur driven Rolls Royce as it passed by.

We arrived at the airport an hour later, with plenty of time before our flight at 11:05. We dropped in our bags at the Thai Lion Air check in counter and passed through security without much fuss. We were hungry so stopped in a shop called 'Bread Talk' for a bread roll and coffee. I popped some strong paracetamol and we boarded the plane to Krabi. The flight only took 1 hr 5 mins and was nice and smooth. We landed and probably spent more time waiting for our luggage than we did getting here, but after paying 600THB (£11) for a taxi, we left the airport and arrived at our hotel, Ao Nang Krabi Guest House.

Krabi is on the mainland situated east of the famous Phi Phi Islands and facing the Andaman Sea. It has a few areas to choose from when deciding where to stay. You have Krabi town, which is the main town centre area, but other than some bars, restaurants and mainly locals, there isn't much for the tourist to see. We opted to stay close to the beach at Ao Nang on account that 1. it was next to the beach and 2. it was next to some other beaches. The hotel was a 'make do' as all the other hotels in the area seemed to either be out of our price range or fully booked. It is Christmas after all, and pretty much everything was booked weeks if not months in advance. On account of this, our hotel was situated about a mile inland, but wasn't a problem as you could easily flag down a tuk tuk for £1.50 down to the beach and back.

I was feeling a little better by the time we had settled into the room and with it only being about 2pm we thought we'd head out to the seafront to see what was happening and grab some food. We flagged down a taxi and 5 mins later were wandering down the seafront being beckoned into pretty much every shop, restaurant, bar and massage parlor. We purchased a couple of sarongs with lovely elephant prints on them for lying down on the beach and haggled for a couple of snorkeling sets. We found a Halal restaurant where we had pizza (pretty much the only thing I could face) and sat down to eat. It was at this point that on looking around we realised that the Thai people in Krabi seemed a little different to those in Bangkok. Over the next few days we discovered that Krabi had a strong Muslim presence and as such there was a huge Mosque and many Halal eateries. We put this down to our current proximity to Malaysia. After dinner and a stroll along the beach we headed back to the hotel to relax and sleep.

Tuesday 22nd December 2015

We woke up around 9am and I was feeling completely better. Either it was the pizza, the rest or the drugs I'd been taking, but there were no signs of my horrendous illness from the previous 2 days. Not about to complain or waste the day, we packed a day bag and headed to the beach. We spent most of the day on Ao Nang beach which if I'm being honest isn't the best beach in the world. It was nice enough, but I think we were very spoiled with our recent experience in Koh Rong, Cambodia. Having said that, the beach had sand and water which is all you need. We spent the day lying down and reading and one or twice paddling in the murky brown water. Being no expert in pretty much anything, I analysed the water and told a rather unenthusiastic Gemma (bordering on not actually giving a shit) that the water must be the dark grey colour on account of clay a little further out which also explains why it feels like you're walking on mud in the water. Not getting any response, I just sat there taking in the beautiful setting this beach was in. We were surrounded by huge limestone cliffs, very reminiscent of the limestone karsks of Halong Bay in Vietnam. After some more relaxing on the beach we wandered along the beachfront shops and popped into Burger King where we dinned on a whopper meal, paying similar prices that you would at home. We then took a tuk tuk back to the hotel to booked some onward travel accommodation and settled down for the night looking forward to a sunny day the next day.

Wednesday 23rd December 2015

We decided to spent another day at the beach (why not?!) and get there for about 11am. The day was much cloudier that yesterday but undeterred, we sat on our elephant print sarongs and willed the sun to turn us brown. The whole day was spent on the beach and in the evening we popped into one of the beach side restaurants where Gemma had a Thai green curry and I had a red curry. I cope quite well with spicy food (usually) but this was a completely different story. They seemed to have found every chilli in Krabi and hid them in my curry. I could only handle a couple of mouth fulls before I decided I'd have to settle for rice instead. Turns out my belly seems to have fully recovered also as my stomach had nothing to say on the matter - phew!

We had another walk down past the restaurants and bars and were offered by a lady outside of one restaurant a flyer advertising their Christmas day party. We had a read and for 3000 THB (over £50) we could have a buffet Christmas dinner (night time dinner, or tea for you northerners) with alcohol and entertainment from the stage area they set up. We politely declined and headed home where we read up on what to do the next day. Forward planning at its best!

Thursday 24th December 2015

Christmas Eve! Today we decided we would leave the area of Ao Nang and head around the coast to a place called Railay Beach. This is one of the most famous stretches of beaches in Krabi and the one you'll see first if you google Krabi beaches. Still on the mainland, but due to the rough terrain, it's only accessible by boat. We headed to the seafront and to a ticket office and paid 200 THB each (£3.50 each) and waited next to the boats for another 6 people to arrive wanting the same trip. The chosen method to get to Railay beach is by longboat which holds 8 passengers and it's only when the boat company have a full capacity that they let the boat driver leave. This being the most popular place to visit, we were waiting all but 2 minutes and then followed the driver down to the beach. We climbed aboard and 10 minutes later we had driven around the coast and into paradise. Railay beach is so much nicer than Ao Nang. It's secluded for a start and as such only has people arriving by boat, so a good crowd control method. Having said that, there were at least 200 people sunbathing, but the beach being quite big it didn't feel intrusive at all. The sand was white and the water a bright turquoise. Most of the day was spent getting burnt (something we only realised when we got back to the hotel) and swimming in the cool water. The scenery was stunning with even more limestone karsks and cliffs in view. This part of the beach was also quite developed, but only with a couple of resorts. They had a place called 'Walking Street' which was a stretch of path leading into the jungle that is now a little high street. Here there are bars, restaurants, tour offices, ATMs and gift shops. We stopped off for some lunch and then later on popped back for a banana pancake snack before calling it a day at about 5pm having had a great day of doing not much. We hopped back onto the boat, of which there are about 20 acting as a shuttle service back and forth. 10 minutes later we were back at Ao Nang. We went back to the seafront restaurant where we had been the night before for dinner and were treated with a beautiful sunset before grabbing a couple of snacks and water and then headed home.

Friday 25th December 2015

"Merry Christmas ya filthy animals" Is a line from Home Alone, a great Christmas film which neither Gemma or I will see this Christmas. We woke up and wished each other Merry Christmas and then discussed all the things we like about Christmas day and basically the stuff we will be missing out on. The next half an hour was spent talking about pigs in blankets, stuffing, Yorkshire puddings, cheese boards etc etc. Slight homesickness gone, we packed a day bag and headed down to the beach via Starbucks which we thought we'd treat ourselves to given it is Christmas after all. We had a nice coffee and croissant stuffed with ham and cheese.

We then headed to the boat ticket office as we did the previous day but this time asked for a ticket to Pra Nang beach, which is in the same direction to Railay beach, but a little further along the coast. As if yesterday wasn't stunning enough, our Christmas present today came in the form of another stunning beach. Not as crowded, Pra Nang was similar to Railay (it was only 500 metres down the beach and around a cliff) in that it had white sand and beautiful clear waters, but it was a longer stretch and went round a bend so obscured lots of the other people making it feel much quieter. This part of Krabi is most popular for rock climbers and there were plenty on hand offering the sunbathers entertainment with their climbing speed and ability. After a walk down the beach to visit a cave we walked back in the opposite direction and found a man offering kayaks for rent. We paid 200 THB (about £3) and used his kayak for an hour. We headed out to some of the huge limestone karsks that jut out of the sea and took some good photos. Gemma had bought a set of snowman and reindeer headbands for us to wear. So there we were in the middle of the sea in our kayak, 32 degree heat baking us wearing xmas headbands looking completing insane. It was so so hot and the water looked deep, clear and cool. I was so tempted to jump in and I kept telling Gemma this. She got annoyed in the end telling me I had 3 seconds to make up my mind. After 2 seconds I was overboard and cooling off in the water. What I didn't account for though was the strong current. After only 2 minutes in the water we'd drifted about 100 metres away from the rocks where we had just been. I used up a lot of energy swimming back to the kayak and struggled to pull myself back up (for parents reading this - we were not in danger - so relax!). Once I did though we paddled to some rocks/cave where were pulled our kayak in and had a little look around.

We then returned the kayak and found a sunny spot on the beach. The next couple of of hours consisted of banana pancake, sea, sunbathing, wind blowing sand into my ear, sunbathing and then packing up about 4pm to get the boat back to Ao Nang. Other than the boat breaking down (no petrol) for 5 minutes we were off again and back at Ao Nang for a coke at the seafront restaurants. We located a bar with free WiFi and skyped family and then celebrated Christmas with a beer and a Thai curry and spring rolls dinner.

We took a tuk tuk (sounds funny!) back to the hotel where we packed our bags ready for the boat journey to Phi Phi at 9am the next day. We spent the evening watching the new series of Luther which I'd found online. So this brings our time in Krabi to a close. To be honest, on our first day here we didn't know what to make of the place. The beach wasn't as we'd expected, but as soon as we realised that there were better beaches around the corner we started to enjoy Krabi more. Overall a lovely place with some stunning beaches and somewhere we'd likely return.

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