Krabi - Ao Nang

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We travelled to Krabi for the 2nd time on our trip, we had previously used as a stop gap to get to the southern islands, we took a flight which cost £16 per person, at the airport the usual thing happened and a older guy from Germany who spoke little English tried to strike a conversation......little did we know this would haunt us for at least 24 hours!!! Sometimes you have to have a filter as otherwise you end up being stuck with the strangest people in the world!!

Bec found a nice little hostel on Ao Nang which was much nicer than Krabi town, little did we know it was above an Italian restaurant (although Blanco was the name). We got there in the late evening and were very happy with the room. Originally the plan was to get a ferry in the morning to phi phi but having stayed in a decent hostel and looked at excursions we decided to book another day!



We travelled with Aimee, Paul and Paula and all decided which trip looked the most value for money. When booking the trip to the hot springs, plus view point, riding on elephants we were too late it was fully booked through the hostel, we were extremely disappointed. The lady kindly tried another tour company which was available and 1/2 price they were selling it for, felt like we had struck gold.

We woke at 08:00 ready for pick up @ 09:00 and was taken to the 3 hot springs, the 1st was 32 degree heat and we were only allowed to be in it for 30 minutes (not sure why as I've been in much hotter heat for the last 13 weeks)....maybe I should have listened to the tour guide, whoops!

Then we went to the emerald stream, again we were good to go in here but it was very difficult to get into, as the rocks surrounded it were extremely slippy and after my recent near death experience with a waterfall I treaded carefully. It was absolutely stunning. Next was the blue Spring which nobody could go into as it had sinking sand at the bottom (see amazing pics)



Myself and Bec went to the bathroom and lost our clan, but we're sure we knew the way back (if only we had dropped cookies on the way) we were short on time and read the signs back to the car park, little did we know there were 3 different treks and we took the longest we had to run for 4K through jungle so the bus wouldn't depart without us. The next stop was the viewpoint (already sweating profusley) we got on the bus and headed straight for the viewpoint, we have probably completed 6 viewpoints and although they were steep it wasn't too taxing. This had 2269steps, there were monkeys everywhere trying to steal anything you didn't strap down and people passing us were extremely red faced and sweatier than myself. Aimee turned back after maybe a few steps and Paula, myself and Bec digged deep and started the trek. I have never seen steps like it I swear it was gullivers world (the movie, you know the one I'm referring to). At one point the steps were so steep and the actual height when looking back made my vertigo rear its ugly head, luckily i questioned friendly looking people on the way down "is it worth it, please tell me it's worth it?", a gorgeous South American guy said "OMG you have to finish, believe me it's beautiful". So we Trekked on. When we got to the top there was a giant Buddha and a ? To ring, it was all worth while! Then they took us to ride elephants, I strongly advise people not to do this, the elephants are not native here and they are chained up and treated very badly, I started to watch the baby elephant doing tricks then had to return to the bus.



So basically don't always be friendly to everyone you meet and don't give money to the bad treatment of animals!

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