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.