Krabi Part 3: Boat for one please

My time in Krabi had not gone all that well. I arrived, and wasted my first afternoon/evening. The next day I went on a wet, cold boat trip that resulted in me coming down with a flu for several days where I could do little more than sleep, eat, and walk between sleeping and eating places.

However, by my fourth day in Krabi, I was determined to be productive once more. I woke up at midday (early compared to the previous days), feeling OK, loaded myself up with Strepsils and Paracetamol, and set off to do...well...something...anything...

After some absent-minded walking, I decided to go and explore the Muslim fishing village on Koh Klang, across the estuary/river from Krabi. I had seen it from this side of the river, but the weather had previously deterred me from committing to a ferry ride to an island with little infrastructure or cover. Today however, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I was feeling positive.

I had not seen a blue sky in a while.

The fishing village from Krabi.

I had previously worked out that you can avoid the touts and tourist ferries by walking further south along the shore, where there were local ferries frequently running across the estuary.

I arrived at the piers, and the frequent ferries were nowhere to be seen; there were just empty boats, and old Thai men sat around talking. I must have looked confused, because several of them approached me, and one of them offered me a tour of the mangrove swamps nearby, and then would drop me off on Koh Klang on the way back. (Ultimately I came back to Krabi directly, as the boat trip tired me out - still not well.) It sounded ideal, as I had wanted to see the mangroves, but could not find a tour that suited me. 


He enquired how many people, and I confessed to being alone in wanting to do this tour. He paused and considered, and eventually, hesitantly suggested: "400 baht".


In hindsight, I should have negotiated, I really should, as if he started at 400B (£8), what might he have ultimately accepted. But my thoughts at the time were that 400B for a two hour long private boat tour was incredibly good value, and would allow me the convenience of a tour without the inconvenience of other people on my tour.


I readily agreed and we cast off.

My OWN boat (I decided the best seat was just behind the prow).

We moved out into the river, and I fear I went rather photo crazy, and just photographed everything. The boatmen was laughing at how much I was glued to my camera screen. I am going to blame it on not doing a lot for the last two days, and also my happiness to have my own boat.

Have I mentioned I had a private boat yet??? p the river, all the views, etc

Little stilt houses sat off the banks of the river's tributaries.

The view of Krabi from the water.

We all headed past the fishing village I had intended to visit, but was too lazy to do so. It looked pretty from the water at least. At least I got sort of close...

There are a lot of photos with the boat's prow in - it was rather in the way a lot.

Some of the beautiful karst mountains/mini-mountains that abound in the region. 

Too soon, we arrived at the first stop; an ecopark and cave system that ran through the second of the two formations photographed above. The boatman did not have much English, so could not explain what I was supposed to see; he just told me "sam sip (30) minutes" and proceeded to chat with the woman in the ticket office. 

Not knowing what to expect, I pressed on, and soon came to some steps leading up into a cave system. I like a good cave, and by good, I mean those caves where they are dark, dank, and filled with the squeaking sounds (and acrid smells) of bats and bugs.

I appreciate that they tried to make the steps fit in with the rock face. 

I would give this cave a solid 7/10 because it had the dank and the dark and the smells down, but it was fairly small, and I had seen all of it within around five minutes. 


This being Thailand, there were of course unexplained oddities within the cave. The first was this skeleton lying outside the cave. There was a sign in Thai, but that was of little help to me. I presumed it had something to do with the prehistoric discoveries in the province, and linked to the prehistoric man/gorilla statues in the city.

Who or what are you???

Then there were these life-sized figurines of Japanese soldiers from World War II, who apparently made the cave a base during their occupation of Thailand. I am unsure exactly why. The cave is not that easily accessed, and the town of Krabi, which undoubtedly had better accomodation, lies just a few kilometres south. Odd...

Outside of the cave, the small eco-park was adorable and yielded one of my favourite photos of my entire trip so far. There was a small fishing boat anchored in amongst the mangrove trees, and I just felt it made a lovely picture, so here it is:

After my allotted thirty minutes had passed, the boatman and I headed off back down the river in search of mangrove forests. En route, we were passed by several boats which were evidently running on the same tour we were doing (I know this for sure, as the boats turned up at the same restaurant later), and which were laden down with around a dozen tourists in each boat. The occupants looked singularly uncomfortable, and there were some envious glares cast at me as I reclined at the front of the boat, solo, enjoying the cooling wind.

Poor tourists. 

I like to think they paid a similar price to what I paid to sit sweating in lifeboats in a very full boat. They cannot have paid much less, as Thailand is rarely that cheap.

Me on my own boat ;)

Before long, we veered off the main river, and down a smaller tributary. I was enjoying the view, and thought that this was the mangrove-part of the tour. But then we turned again to point directly at this tiny parting in the mangrove growth, which revealed itself to be the entrance to a narrow channel barely big enough for the longtail boat to nose its way through.

Will we fit in there???

Entering the channel we emerged in a dappled, green, slow world of leaves, branches, mud and water. It was difficult to see where the water ended and where land began, and as the engine slowed and fell still, we glided silently through a green tunnel that echoed with insect calls, and the occasional holler of a monkey. 

These few minutes made me so glad I had taken this tour; there is something otherworldly about a mangrove forest, perhaps because it is a forest in water, or...haha...a literal sea of trees.


After several minutes of green, leafy silence, we emerged into a different river tributary, and the boatmen pointed to the approaching shore filled with stilted houses, and signalled that we would stop for lunch. I was not feeling hungry, but I did need to keep my strength up, so I readily agreed.

Lunch time!

We stopped at what I realised was a fish farm/restaurant, and after a brief explanation of what was living in each of the enclosures/nets, I was presented with a menu, and asked what/who I would like to eat.

The prices were fairly steep, but I did want to try some fresh seafood, so I opted for one of my favourite Thai dishes, son tam (green papaya salad) with sea crab. 


I felt slightly bad when, after the waiter had taken my order, he proceeded to walk to one of the tanks, and pull a struggling crab out, and walk towards the kitchen. But hey, the consequences of eating meat is that something has to die for me to eat it, and if you cannot handle seeing death, don't eat meat.


The salad was absolutely delicious, though the crab claws/legs were hard to break into with only chopsticks. Things got very messy.

Delicious

Full, sticky, and smelling faintly of crabsticks, I clambered back onboard the boat, and we motored slowly back towards the pier, having decided by that point to skip Koh Klang. The restaurant was on the island, so I sort of visited, right???

Back onshore, I watched my erstwhile boatman jet back up the river to his next job, whilst I ambled back to the hostel for a nap and some laptop time. I was feeling better but still tired easily, so I only resurfaced for dinner, where I met this rather handsome chap called Nam.

We had been trying to meet for days, and finally our planets aligned and we met on my last night in Krabi. We wandered around the weekend night market, perused the food stalls, and tried not to listen to the awful attempt at singing on the stage behind us. He was sweet, and it was a decent evening. I found it especially amusing that after we posted a selfie on Facebook together, all of his friends were making lewd comments about us. 

Thai people, Facebook can translate Thai into other languages, so I can read it all.

...I mean, much of it was fairly accurately lewd, but still, it does not need to be put on Facebook!

Needless to say, I had a good night eating, drinking and relaxing. Tomorrow, on little sleep, and still not 100%, I journey to my next country: Malaysia. 

Until tomorrow,

DSP

PS: I've had a few comment about the lack of pictures of myself in some of my blogs. This is a slight disadvantage of travelling alone: there is no one to take pictures of you. My phone does have a front camera, and I do make attempts at taking selfies, but the sad fact is that 90% of my selfies never make it onto this blog, as my face seems to see a camera, and go into full-on fat owl mode.

For example:

These are edited, and the best I could make of them. I do not want to have look at my ugly mug when I am editing, and equally I do not want to inflict these faces on you all. Just trust me, if there's no selfie included, there's a good reason for it. ;)

Krabi Part 2: Two days of coughing and shivering, with the occasional cheeky night market trip.

17th and 18th June 2015 - this should be a short one, as I did not do a lot, but much of this did not fit into the narrative of the boat trips which sandwiched my time in Krabi.

Taking a day long boat trip in the rain wearing only swimwear was not one of my cleverest moves.

In all honesty I got what I deserved when I woke up following morning at midday coughing and shivering in the humid heat.

My idiocy cost me over two days of my holiday, and it is only now, when I am writing this, that my cough is finally fading. I have not been able to laugh, or even breathe deeply, for the last week without collapsing into an uncontrollable coughing fit. I could not even laugh on my birthday.

However this cold/flu was not overwhelmingly awful all of the time. I woke up feeling bad, had a window of maybe four hours of feeling OK before I would need a nap, after which I would again have maybe two or three hours before I started shivering and needed sleep again. So, using these small windows of opportunity, I made brief trips to explore the town of Krabi and especially its night markets.

Krabi was a cool little Thai town.

I reasoned that as I am ill, I should keep my strength up...with chocolate milkshakes and banana pancakes....of course.

With this mention of food and night markets, it would make sense to start with my favourite night market, nestled into a block on Maharaj Soi 10. I say favourite, and not main, as there were many night markets in the town. I found five, and do not believe I actually found the main night market.

But the biggest and best I found was on Maharaj 10, and it was there that I went for dinner three nights in a row. It was your standard night market, complete with flourescent lighting, tarpaulins and squawking hawkers trying to make you part with your baht.

Night markets, and the street food culture in general, is one of Thailand's biggest appeals to me. Every night market, and in fact every stall, is completely different, with varying atmosphere and selections of foods. Krabi noticeably had slightly different selections of fruits on offer, and southern Thai curries were much more prevalent than they are in Bangkok and further north. Yet despite these differences, key staples of pad thai, som tam, and tom yum are ever present. As I had spent plenty of time in northern Thailand, I decided to try some of the specialities of southern Thailand, so sampled several of the curry stalls along one side of the night market.

One of many delicious Thai curries.

I also found a dessert snack I had never seen before: deep fried toast with sweet toppings. Thai sweet toast is available everywhere, but I had never seen it like this on sticks. The chocolate and jam options were equally delicious.

I wish wish wish I had asked the name of this in Thai.

And of course, I had to have a drink to accompany my curries. Here I found some more authentically Thai shakes, with yoghurt, jam, and sweet combinations available, ready-selected in their cups. I played it safe with an Oreo Banana option, which was delicious, as you can see from my face.

Delicious fruit (and less fruit) shakes!

The night market was only a three minute walk from my hostel, so to avoid being glared at when I brought in outside drinks, I decided to walk a long-way round to my hostel. I had only strolled about one hundred metres when I found myself approaching yet another night market. This was the third I had discovered in this town of only 50,000 (the second I had not photographed as it looked singularly dejected and forlorn, and did not make me want to eat there).

Not another night market?!?!?!?!

This night market focused more on tourist souvenirs and clothing, but there were still ample food stalls, including the ubiquitous 5B sushi stall (I swear they are all franchises/branches of the same company; they are identical, completely identical). After walking by the sushi stall several times, and coming to the decision sushi really would not compliment my shake, I ambled home.

Of course, a mere few hours later, I was hungry again. Now, this is a small town; there can't possibly be food available on the street after midnight. Well, you would be wrong; there are pancakes available.

The pancakes were freshly made in front of my, and delicious. On subsequent days I also found Pad Thai and noodle stalls hidden on various street corners of the city. However, I was too hungry and lazy ill to take photos, so my word will have to suffice.

When I was not trying to eat my own body weight (I've seen the scales, that a lot of weight), I did attempt to explore the city. Often, however, play was suspended on account of rain.

No one wants to go walking in this.

However, after a few days of rain and misery, the weather improved enough to allow some exploring, and I found Krabi to be a slightly scruffy, but very friendly Thai town. I say friendly, as all of the locals were very friendly (tuk-tuk drivers are of course exempt from that statement - they can go to hell). Stall holders remembered me, and smiled and said hello even if I did not buy food from them. I found this all the more amazing as this is firmly a tourist town, and there were plenty of farang wandering around the town. But I felt genuinely welcomed by the local Thai people, and it has made me want to come back and spend more time (in a better season for weather) in this town.

Scruffy yet friendly.

In addition, the town was keen to remind visitors that some of the oldest hominid remains were found in the province. This was there not-so-subtle homage to this discovery at the central traffic intersection.

As subtle as a self-immolating monk.

I also feel the city planners did not properly understand what a 'zebra' crossing is. It does not mean paint a black and white zebra across a street (though in their defence if you took the name literally, this is more correct than our western interpretation.

During one of the rain storms, I spotted a temple at the distant end of a rain-soaked road, and promised to visit it in better weather. It turned out to be pretty, but the white-grey temple did not photograph well against the white-grey sky, so I quickly gave up with the camera.

You can just see the temple in the distance.

Pretty but very very grey.

What else did I do whilst in Krabi? To be honest, not a lot. I am really stretching out these two days to fill a blog. 

I mostly just ate food and drank shakes, you know, to keep my strength up. The awful weather did not make me any more inspired to leave my hostel either.

However, by the end of the second day of illness, I was showing signs of improving, and weather was improving too, and the combination of improvement allowed me on my final day to take a cheeky private boat trip into the mangrove swamps around Krabi. 

But that will be in the next blog.

Just messing about in boats.

DSP

Useful Information:

• Do not go on a boat trip in the rain...
• The night market that I frequented most often was on Maharaj 10, just along from the 'Prehistoric Man' traffic intersection. There are plenty of sit down food stalls, as well as take away fruit, shake and snack options. A meal can easily be found for 40B, and can be got much cheaper.
• There is a weekend night market one street south of this night market, which was bigger and busier, but I am unsure which nights this is open. I would presume Friday and Saturday.

Krabi Part 1: Wet weather, wet me, brooding islands, turquoise sea.

16th June 2015 - yeah, I am still behind. Birthday and general amusement distracted me somewhat.

Remember about three or four blog posts back, I recounted my day trip to Kawthieng in Myanmar. Well, finally I have caught up with that post, and what happened after it.

After one night in the very friendly town of Ranong, complete with a brilliant hostel, I clambered aboard a bus bound for the seaside Thai town of Krabi, five hours and 250km away. I searched out my hostel, and after settling in, I excitedly consulted the pamphlets stacked in reception for what island-hopping tours I wanted to do. I eventually decided on a tour to Koh Hong National Park, which left the following morning. I wanted to do more tours, but decided to just book one, and see whether I enjoyed it before booking more.

I passed the evening in the hostel, eating Mexican food and playing video games in my room.

The following morning I woke up twenty minutes before I was due to leave, and walked downstairs to reception to the sight of rain.

Great!

However, the receptionist said the trip would still be running, so I gamely waited as close to the entrance as I could without getting gusts of rain blown at me. Before long, a sorgnthaew pulls up in front of the hostel.

It had open sides, and leaks in the roof.

I had to get in, and avoid the gusts and drips as best as possible.

After a thirty minute drive, we arrived in Ao Nang, where all the passengers were organised according to destination, given stickers, and left to wait...in the rain.

Then after around fourty minutes of waiting for the remaining passengers to arrive, we got onto another exposed sorgnthaew, and drove ten minutes to the boat terminal, which turned out to be a muddy riverside by the sea.

Guess where we were left whilst our guide fetched our boat and driver...

Yup, in the rain...again.

I suppose I can understand how there is no provision for wet weather. I mean Krabi is in a tropical country, where there definitely is not a distinct, wet monsoon season that lasts for four months of the year...

Eventually our boat turned up, and of course, it was open sided, and we were going to get very wet aboard. By now, I regretted not buying a poncho, as I was already getting cold wearing just a vest and swim shorts.

On the plus side, the boats lined up in the harbour produced some pretty, if heavily edited (to compensate for the dull light), photos.

I took some small comfort from the fact that the tour guide looked even less impressed with the weather than I felt.

We headed out of the bay, and onto the rough sea. The waves pounded the side of the little boat, and several times the driver had to stop the boat because of the size of the waves. I worried we would be forced to return back to the muddy port, but we persevered in the little, easily-sinkable wooden boat.

After around thirty minutes, small islands appeared on the approaching horizon, which signalled we had reached the archipelago of islands that make up the Than Bok Khorani NP.

The islands were incredibly reminiscent of those that lay scattered in Halong Bay, in northern Vietnam, but these islands instead stood isolated in a relatively empty sea, which made their impact up close all the more impressive. They stood at odd angles, and their sheer, stony sides seemed to lunge out of the surf in contorted and hunched shapes, part obscured by the rain and sea mist which were both out in force that morning.


The boat's nose turned towards one of the larger islands, which is Koh Hong. The word hong in Thai means room, which is in reference to the sheltered lagoon which lies in the island's heart. We skimmed over the rough seas until the prow turned towards the island, and before our eyes a hidden gap between the sheer cliffs opened up to reveal a passage into the island.

As you can see, the weather was still rubbish. 

Inside the passengers on another boat were going swimming, but those on our boat were a rather stoic group, and did not want to swim (or they did not understand the guide's roundabout English). I was wet and cold enough without needing to swim, so I was content to photograph and eat crisps.

The boat turned back out to sea, and we jetted through the karst islands towards 'Paradise Island' where we would be having lunch...in the rain. To be fair, Paradise Island was fairly beautiful, though again, I did not feel inspired to swim in the cold, wet weather.

Before lunch, the weather eased, and the tropical storm was reduced to a tropical drizzle, which made the remainder of the day much more enjoyable. Whilst enjoying the occasional ray of sun piercing the still-menacing clouds, I caught sight of these two:

I did not understand in what possible way a poncho was required whilst paddling in the sea. It had been raining, but had all but stuttered to a stop by this point. Were the ponchos a precaution against wayward waves? Were they a fashion statement, or a substitute for a coat against the non-existent wind chill. I did not understand, and still do not. 

I eventually shrugged, and put it down as 'silly Chinese tourists' , before going exploring down a dirt path, where I found my own miniature beach all to myself. There I quickly ate my lunch before the motor was fired up and we left the island.

By now the weather was really improving, and when we arrived at Koh Hong beach, we found it illuminated in sunshine. It was not bright sunshine, but it was a vast improvement over grey rainclouds.

I jumped off the boat, and hiked ahead, and thus had the beach briefly to myself.

The masses were advancing...

Paradise just for little me. 

I found a secluded spot to leave my valuables, and waded into the beautiful, empty turquoise water. I swiftly gave up on snorkelling, as the visibility had been rendered non-existent by the heavy rain. Instead, I just bobbed around in the shallows, keeping one eye on my bag, and the other on the bizarre antics of the tourists who kept arriving by the boat load. This is how the beach looked when it was time to leave.

The strengthening sunlight convinced me to have a snooze on the sand before I was due to return to the boat, and the afternoon all round had been very much improved by the improving weather.

Before long, it was time to leave, and head back to the mainland, the journey to which was wet and cold due to the spray from the waves. I jumped onto the muddy shore in Ao Nang as wet as I had been when I came out from the sea in the picture above...

Goodbye beautiful island.

Back on the mainland, I had to once again endure being organised into various buses which would take me back to my hostel. I was told to return in fifteen minutes, and then thirty, and then forty-five minutes, as we waited for other boats to return with their passengers. I was irritable and cold, and drank a mediocre banana shake in silence in a restaurant which looked indignant that I was taking up one of their tables. In my bad mood, I really did not give a f**k.


After around ninety minutes, we were finally able to proceed back to Krabi town, and I jumped off just down the road from my hostel, and headed in for a hot shower and a warm drink.


That evening, I knew I had overdone it that day with the cold weather. I went to a nearby cafe, not feeling hungry at all (always a warning sign) and forced down soup and coffee, before getting a massage in an attempt to relieve my aching back and neck.


Sadly it was all in vain, and by the late evening, I was feeling distinctly rotten, and I feel I may have alarmed the parents when I skyped them at 01:00am by just how ill I sounded. They probably thought I had malaria or similar.


I was slightly concerned I had malaria too...irrational I know...but I was ill and therefore allowed to be irrational.

After I had finished coughing and mumbling at my mother and father, I staggered to bed, wearing all my clothes, under a blanket and sheet.


I spent the majority of the next two days in bed or eating food so I could return to bed.


But that's for the next blog entry.


DSP

Useful Information:

• I stayed at the Good Dream Guesthouse 2, and paid 200B per night for a (very small) single room. The hostel was clean, and staff friendly, but it really lacked atmosphere, and I spent 4 very lonely days there without meeting anyone.
• The boat trip by longtail boat to the Hong Islands cost me 700B. They picked me up at 09:00, but I was not on a boat until after 10:30. Similarly, though I got back to the hostel just before 17:00, I left the boat at around 14:30. There is a LOT of waiting around.
• I had dinner at May & Mark's House, a cafe near to the nightmarket on Maharaj soi 10. The pumpkin soup is very good, as is the Jasmine Tea and Baked Beans on Toast.