Krabi - Au Nang beach and Railey beach for Xmas!

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We headed to Krabi from Koh Tao on the 23rd of December, ready for some serious relaxation over xmas to recover from all that diving. The 'speed boat' and '5 hour bus journey' translated to a 12 hour journey. This phenomenon is known as 'Thai-time'. With Thai-time all ETA's go out the window. It seems the basic formula to working out Thai-time is however long a Thai person tells you the journey will take - double it. This applies to buses, trains, boats, minivans, tuk-tuk rides, even our flight from Laos to Bangkok. - any transport, every journey.

Anyway when we eventually got to Krabi Liam had got there first from Bangkok (he was only 5hrs late) and had booked us a sweet room with aircon and sat tv in a nice guesthouse on Au Nang beach. 300baht each - perfect for Xmas! Au Nang is the beach resort near Krabi town and although it is quite touristy this worked out quite well for us over xmas as it was nice to have all the creature comforts like a hot shower. There was a kind of christmassy feel as there were lots of English there so plenty of xmas parties / xmas trees / decorations etc...

First night we met up with Liams girlfriend Jo - she is a tour guide from Malaysia who Liam originally met in Kuala Lumpar - and we all hit a bar called Chang Bar and played connect 4 and Jenga all night - good times! The next day we all got a longtail boat to Railey Beach - easily the most beautiful / spectacular beach we have seen so far. The cliffs are incredible, I don't think my photo's really do justice to the scale of some of the overhangs and stalactites. I swam out to a spot you could do cliff jumps from - see pic - we estimated it was about 6-7 metres - but it looked so much higher from the top... I hit the water with the soles of my feet no worries - but I bet the girl who jumped before still has a red belly now!

That night (Xmas eve) we went back to Chang Bar for mor Connect-4 / Jenga. Liam had bought us all light-up santa hats so we donned them with festive cheer. Xmas day I got up earlish to get a full english. We then went back to Railey beach and hired some kayaks and paddled out to some rock formations and had a bit of an explore - what an brilliant way to spend xmas! We had a xmas dinner of roast turkey and some of the trimmings at a pub called the Irish Rover. It cost about 10 quid but was worth it - though we all agreed it was a poor substitute to our dinners at home. That evening we went back to our hotel and watched the obligatory xmas film Home Alone on the star movies channel. All in all a good day. Boxing day we hit the sales - well we bought a few shorts and t-shirts anyway and engaged in a bit friendly bartering. We both bought boardies and some beaters (vests). That night we watched a Nicholas Cage film 'Bangkok Dangerous' - it was really funny to see the Hollywood version of Bangkok so soon after we had just visited - there is even a scene where the hero escapes in a Tuk-Tuk!

Food has brilliant - Phil had been on spicy curries though is laying off them a little at the mo as he has a couple of mouth ulcers - I have been mostly on the noodles with meat,veg, sugar and chilli. Also we have picked up a surprising amount of Thai - I can count, ask for various things and barter a little over prices. We will be in Malaysia next week though - a whole new language!

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Comments

[Tobe]

Nice
Stunning place for Christmas boys. Keep the updates coming.