Krabi Adventure 1: Arrival

Wow gentle reader(s), I'm fresh back from a fabulous 20 night exploration of the Krabi region of Thailand.  I hardly know where to begin so I will begin at the beginning:

Friday 12/15 was our last day of school before break and it was a short one with an "Arch Ceremony" in the morning and early dismissal afterwards but I stayed late dealing with the aftermath of a cheating scandal which had come to light involving some of my high school seniors and the Environmental Science term exam they had just taken.  I had made my plane and room reservations for the Thailand trip back in September and that's a whole side story (in short, I ended up getting charged for the plane trip 3 times because I tried to book it twice through a certain deal on Kayak and I never got a confirmation so I finally went with a less preferred price and time and trip but with a different seller and that one finally worked.  However, come to find out the previous two attempts had actually resulted in charges: one on my Wells Fargo credit card and one on my local Shinhan Bank debit card.  Well, happily it all ended well and I was able to dispute the charges on the credit card and get a refund on the charge on the debit card but only after hours and hours over the last several months dealing with Air Asia support.  But all's well that ends!)

So, for various reasons, I'd had it in my mind that I was leaving on 12/16 (Saturday) and I was leaving just after midnight.  So my plan as I went back to my room on Friday was to relax for the evening and spend the next day preparing to head to Thailand.  But then I thought, "hmm, just after midnight, on the 16th... what if that's tonight?" which it turned out to be.  So I had a mere hours to suddenly pack and prepare to be gone for 3 weeks and get to the airport.  But it worked out.  Glad I checked though!

I only took my large daypack (no checked baggage) but I had to wear some fairly warm clothes for the walk to the subway station as it's below freezing here these days.  So I wore jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt and a hoodie over that and I wore a winter hat.  But of course I never needed any of that again until my return trip because I pretty much only wore one pair of gym shorts, my swimsuit, and various t-shirts and scrubs while I was there.

It was a pretty long flight to Bangkok (about 6 hours, I think) and I had a shortish layover there then a 1 hour flight to Krabi so I got in about 7:00 am Saturday morning. (Thailand is also 2 hours ahead of Korea).  After getting a shuttle to my hostel I arrived about 8:00.  It was a beautiful warm sunny day.

Krabi is the name of a province of Thailand and also of its primary urban area which is sometimes called Krabi Town to be specific.  It's much larger than a town though.  It's a small city.  So roughly halfway between Bangkok and the tiny village of Pranburi where I went with Darcy, Eddie, and the boys last year.  It's located on the opposite side of the long narrow peninsula which runs south from the asian mainland to Malaysia and a little further south than we were last year.  It's just east across the Andaman Sea from the party-tourist mecca of Phuket.  It was recommended to me by a friend/colleague here at school whose (English) name is Lester.  He's from China and taught for about 7 years in Thailand and has been to most other countries around here as well so he's a good source for info.  He recommended Krabi as being very beautiful and not as crowded as Phuket and after reading a bit about it on the internet I was sold, and it all turned out to be true.  Some of the touristy beaches became quite crowded after Christmas but I was always looking to get away from it all so I wasn't really impacted by that much.

I had found and booked accommodation at "Chanchalay Hip Hostel" in Krabi Town proper through Agoda.com.  The basic rooms with shared bathroom and a fan were about $10 per night and I upgraded to A/C for an additional approx. $4 per.  It was very clean and the staff were very friendly and helpful.  The location was excellent as it was near the center of both the touristy areas and the local downtown and also the wharf.  Everything was within walking distance.  My only complaint with my lodging turned out to be noise.  The construction was all hard materials such as concrete and tile and all the doors opened off the same hall so you would hear people's doors slamming (because you had to slam them a little bit at least if you wanted it to lock after you'd pushed in the little button on the inside doorknob) and echoing down the hall all night.  In fact, that turned out to be the exact same problem I have at my residence here at school!  After 2 nights I got my room changed to the end of the hall near the street thinking it would be less of a problem down there because the hall sort of opened up to the outside there and it was at the far end of the hall from the shared bathroom.  This room had a window which looked out on the main street and was nice for that reason but gave me much more exposure to the street noise, which often included revving scooter engines late at night.  Somehow I must have gotten used to it all though because it quit didn't bother me toward the end of the trip.

If I had it all to do over again I would make some changes, but all in all I'm quite satisfied.  First, I would only book a few nights at the first place and then look around the first day or two and decide where I wanted to move to more permanently.  There were tons of guesthouses in town, which I hadn't realized, because they didn't all show up on Agoda, and I didn't realize how large the town was.  I had imagined it was going to be another sleepy little fishing village like Pranburi.  Since I had already prepaid for my entire stay I didn't worry about it but talking to another person near the end of my trip made me realize that there were potentially much better deals to be had, not only for the price but certainly for the noise.  Secondly, I don't think I'd stay the entire time in Krabi Town proper.  I'd probably stay there about a week.  I enjoyed taking my time settling in (2 days of just walking around and getting my bearings) and there was enough in that vicinity to keep me occupied another 3-4 days, but other than that I mainly wanted to be on the coast, which was about a 30 min scooter ride away from town.  So for the second week I would probably move to one of the scads of lodging options over on the coast, probably not near the main party-tourist beach Ao Nang but closer to the less developed area of Klong Muang.  With a rented scooter (about $5-$6 per day) you can go wherever you want, as I did, but you can cut out the "commute" between city and coast.  And lastly I'd probably spend the third of three weeks on one or more islands just for variety.  It turns out to be very easy to get around and find lodging and rent scooters so in hindsight I didn't have to have everything figured out and paid for in advance.  Be that as it may, I am completely satisfied with how things worked out for me and what I was able to do.

And that includes the weather, which started out sunny but became increasingly overcast due to some typhoon action away east in the Philippines (I'm glad I didn't go there! - not that I would have anyway since I'm boycotting the Philippines in protest of their trumpish president Duterte).  But cloudiness has it's advantages too, such as less need for sunscreen, and it makes some pictures look nice though it's detrimental to others and to snorkeling.

So on my first day in town I couldn't check in right away (it was too early) so I changed out of my jeans and hoodie and sneakers into shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops and went on a long walk around town to case the place.  I was also shopping for sunscreen, which I eventually found at a 7-Eleven.  Yay, I managed not to get a sunburn on this trip!  However, I did develop some sort of shin splint that first day on the outside of my right calf.  Reading up on the internet about that a bit I decided it was because I took a long walk wearing flip-flops.  I've certainly done plenty of walking and that walk wasn't sooo far but I realized that when you wear flip-flops you have to do a little thing with each step where you "flip" (is that were they get the name?) your toes up so the front of the flip-flop doesn't get caught on the ground and fold under during the next step.  At least I do, and maybe that's because my flip-flops are pretty big and floppy.  More flip needed to balance out more flop.  So I think that's what irritated those shin muscles for me.  After that I switched back to sneakers and though I still felt it it wasn't getting worse despite doing some pretty aggressive hiking.

So I spent the first two days exploring by foot and finding my favorite coffee place and locating many nice-looking restaurants which I pretty much never got around to going to because the street/market food was all so good.  On the third day I took a short river tour which included mangroves, a cave, and a floating Muslim fish-farming village.  Speaking of Muslims, there are a lot of Muslims in that area, and besides being noticeable due to head coverings, it's also apparent because when you get too far out in the country (away from tourist areas) you can't get beer or liquor.  So you have to bring your own and find a secluded place to enjoy it.  Luckily you can buy it at Family Mart and 7-Eleven but only from 11 am - 2 pm and 5 pm - 12 pm each day so you have to plan ahead!  And out in the real rural areas they don't have those types of convenience stores they only have little private ones which don't sell it at all so you really have to plan ahead when going to those areas.  See how much I learned!

On the 4th day I rented a scooter for 5 days.  I had planned to explore first by foot, then by bicycle, then by scooter, but I skipped the bicycle step because almost no one was riding bikes there except locals who were doing it as a sport, just as you'd see anywhere, all dressed up in the colorful Lycra bicycling outfits.  I wasn't looking for that action (and it was hot and humid, and actually pretty far to where I wanted to go) so I jumped straight to the scooter.

I was looking for the best scooter deal I could find (they're advertised for rent Everywhere!) and I found one for 150 baht per day.  It was a slightly older style with a manual transmission (but no clutch, you just throttle down when you want to shift) and a kick starter and I got it for 5 days for 700 baht (a 50 baht, or about $1.50 savings!)  And it had a basket on the front, which I liked.  I mention all this because after I took a short break later from scooter adventures to do some island day-tours (with snorkeling) I went back to the same place and hoped to rent the same scooter but it was gone and I had to get the more standard electric-start, automatic scooter for 200 baht per day.  Tragic (not really).  But the second one didn't have a basket.

Getting the scooter was quite liberating and I reflected on what it was like to get your first bicycle, then car.  At first I was a little worried about driving not because traffic was crazy (which it wasn't) but because the law is that no foreigners can drive in Thailand, and my boat tour operated had advised me against renting a scooter saying that the police were cracking down on foreign drivers.  Well, luckily I didn't let that stop me.  I generally wore my helmet (I got one that fit this time) in town and on busy roads but took it off when I was "in the country".  It was beautiful driving on the local roads and I was able to explore some really out-of-the-way places thanks to my "Maps.Me" offline app which I have used now in several countries since I discovered it.  It really saved my bacon several times on this trip when I was lost, and without it I just couldn't have found many of the isolated and private places I was able to explore.  It also pointed out to me many attractions which I wouldn't have known about without it and would have missed as well, because I never did find a handy printed tourist map like we had for Pranburi.

The first day I scooted I was trying to go to the main popular tourist beach Ao Nang, but though I'd checked the route on Maps.Me in advance, I kind of misremembered it and of course you can't look at it while you're riding so I had already turned off the main road prior to the most direct route and ended up exploring an area I hadn't even intended to go to but it was lovely and fun and interesting.  That's generally the way it went: I either had an idea of where I wanted to go or I saw something labeled on Maps.Me and I'd start off for it but between being in awe of the scenery I was driving past (which unfortunately, of course, I couldn't document with pictures because I was riding on a moderately busy road) and making "wrong" turns (some of the side roads are so small they're hard to spot) I would often end up, temporarily, somewhere completely unexpected.  Eventually I'd get where I wanted to go, though, usually happier for having taken the long way, and once I was off the main road I was free to pull over to the side and take pictures sometimes, though of course, one of the drawbacks to anything but walking is that once you get going you are often disinclined to stop and some sights just miss getting their photo taken.  I think you'll agree, however, that I ended up taking plenty anyway.

Eventually that first day I did make it to Ao Nang which was enough to convince me that I never wanted to go back there again (to a crowded strip of t-shirt shops and crowded restaurants) EXCEPT for the southern-most end of that beach, which was less crowded, had some natural shade, and was only accessible by vehicles if you found a special road I found after I went looking for it when I had initially walked down there on the pedestrian walk and seen there was a parking lot nearby.  And in fact, I did end up going back there one more time for my penultimate day at the beach in which I revisited some of my favorite spots before spending the final two days in town again.

In between those bookend scooter trips I hiked, swam, snorkeled, caved, kayaked, beachcombed, scootered, road on boats, got massaged, ate and drank like a king, read, marketed, and took about a billion pictures.  At one point I dropped my phone (a Nexus 5 which I've had about 3 years or more and really like) on a rock and though it didn't break immediately (which I was happy about) it slowly disintegrated (which I was sad about) to the point where it was freezing up and showing me a screen of pink snow and I had to replace it, which required a trip to Tesco (kind of like Walmart) to see what the options were, then back home to do a little research, then another trip to Tesco to buy one.  The one I got (a Readmi Note 4) was supposed to have a good camera, which it does, but I hadn't considered it wouldn't have all the special photo modes of my previous camera, which included special things like a (I don't know what you call it) "two-way panorama" and a fish-eye mode.  I don't so much use the latter but I did really like the former.  Now I only have a regular panorama feature and it works a different way that I'm still getting used to.  However, since leaving the old phone off for a while it's started to come back to life for longer and longer periods so I may still be able to use it for pictures at some point in the future.  As tRump likes to say "we'll see."

Okay, I guess that's most of the overview of my trip.  Most of the time I was by myself but I did meet some people at dinner and on the boat trips.  There were very few "Americans" by which I mean people from the United States.  When people ask where I'm from I usually always say "United States" or "U.S.A." but then they look at me funny until I say "America" and then they know what I mean.  So though it makes me feel presumptuous toward Canadians and Mexicans (and everyone from South America) I'm getting more comfortable just saying "America".  Anyway, I ran into almost none of them.  A couple at the end of my trip.  And a Canadian or two.  But it seemed like most (white) people were from Europe or Russia.  There were other Asians there as well like the Malaysians I talked to on one of my island tours and who gave me ideas about where to go for Lunar New Year, for which I have a week off and which is coming up soon.

Alright, let's get to the pictures!  I'll add any other asides which occur to me as they come up.  I do have just one more general note though which is to say that when my camera broke at first I wasn't really disappointed because I felt like I'd already taken all the pictures I could possibly take and anything else would be a repeat.  That didn't turn out to actually be true but it could have been.  Also, I didn't photograph All the food I ate because it was all really good.  But I did take a couple of representative examples.

The first picture I took in Krabi, Day 1, from the river walk, looking north.  The two closest hills will be visited on a river tour on day 3.  The Golden Temple/Tiger Cave (which I don't actually have any pictures of because my camera was broken at that point, but it was pretty spectacular, is on the second set of green hills in the distance.  The furthest mountain (bluish) may or may not be where I went on a second cave tour and a scrambling hike to a viewpoint.

Day 2 I had noticed a bar with 2-for-one happy hour specials so I went there before dinner and was happy to find a cat sleeping in the chair across the table.

I was able to entice the cat (in the usual ways, such as scratching gently on the fabric of the chair) to come over and let me pet it.  The cat and I were the only ones in this place.

Then I went around the corner to the river market for dinner and had a delicious red snapper grilled with garlic, with a side of sauteed morning glory with oyster sauce and in the process met these nice two German women (Sezen and Alex) who spoke excellent English so after dinner I took them to see the cat and we had a few after dinner drinks at that same bar.  They had walked all the way to the Golden Temple that day (about 10 km) as well as climbed to the top (1237 steps to ascend 278 meters - Is that all?  It sure felt like more.  I just looked it up on Wikipedia) and they were the first ones to warn me about the monkeys.  They had only been in town 1 day and were planning to leave for an island the next day and couldn't believe I was planning to spend 3 weeks in Krabi.  They said they found it dirty and smelly and lacking of things to do.  But they only had a week total vacation.  For me, I was happy to take a couple days to relax into vacation mode and ultimately happy to be in the same place so long and get to know it so well, as I've said above.

Wandering around some more on day 3.  Looking south across the entrance to the bay.

In the evening of day 3 I took a tour of the river by boat.  I couldn't find anyone to go with me so I got a private tour.  This is looking upriver from the boat (duh).

Looking back at the wharf we'd left.

Approaching those two -- I don't know what you call them -- monuments?  Like little vertical mountains?  They're everywhere and the river, for some strange reason, flows right between these two.

Me and my boat driver.  This trip cost me 500 baht (about $15).  One of the more extravagant things I did.

I really can't figure out why the river would go between these two hunks of limestone.  If it had eroded the channel between them like the Colorado river eroded the Grand Canyon, then why did everything else on either side of them erode as well?  Perplexing.  But we're going to dock at a little side channel next to the one on the right.

Approaching the dock.  Oh, by the way, these traditional style boats are called "Longtail boats".  They have this distinctive upthrust prow, which to me is the defining feature and I was trying to decide why it was called "longtail" when this thing is in front.  Then I realized that maybe what they're referring to is the extended propeller shaft which sticks way out behind the boat and is mounted on a swivel system so the driver can lift the propeller out of the water and swing it way over to the side to steer.  Owen and Max will remember those from last year's trip.  Still, that must be a fairly recent modification, it seems to me, so I wonder how they used to propel these boats prior to gas engines and if they used to call them "Longtail" boats even before then, and if so why.  I suppose I can Google "Longtail Boat" when I get done with this post.  Note: did it, results here, but inconclusive as to history prior to auto engines: interesting! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tail_boat)

To get onto the shore I had to get past this monkey.

My skipper stayed behind as I followed a path to a cave.  On the way I past the first of many overhanging limestone icicles I would see, which are iconic of this region.

I would become much more intimate with this type of limestone geology in the next couple of weeks as I kayaked, swam, and hiked in and around and out of it.

After climbing some flights of steps and following a short path I came to a cave, much like the one Darcy, Max, Eddie and I visited last year which had a temple in the middle of it and opened to the sky at the far side.  This one too opened to the sky at the far side but had no temple, but did have other displays.

Looking back down into the cave from the "far side" slope approaching the opening.

To get to the opening (and over the lip to the far side to enjoy the view and drink my beer) I had to use this rope.  Going up was easier than coming down!

...but I made it.

Back inside the main cave I checked out some of the displays which explained how the cave had been used throughout time, from paleolithic peoples through Japanese occupiers.

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There were also some skeletal remains.

This is looking down a hole which was an alternative way to exit which I did not choose to take.

Looking across the river at the "monument" on the other side.

This is the ladder I would have ended up coming down if I'd taken the alternate route out of the cave.

Next stop was the fish farm.  This guy is showing me a puffer fish which he let me hold.  My boat driver is in the background.

There were several holding tanks like this, rectangular, with boardwalks separating them, and dining tables set up nearby if you wanted to order dinner!

As you can see from the pictures, this day was turning cloudy in the evening and we motored back to the main river channel and across it to the pier with the threat of rain.  I think this evening I ate at a place near my lodging which had fresh coconuts available.  There were lots of places to get fresh coconuts, during the day, just stands by the side of the road, and I really enjoyed them.  After you drink the water you can scoop out the meat with a spoon. So I was attracted to this particular restaurant because of the coconuts but I don't remember being terribly impressed by whatever food I had so I didn't go back.  That's not to say it wasn't good: I never had a bad meal in Thailand, it's just that some were better (and/or cheaper) than others.

But that was the end of my third day, and the next day I began my scooter adventure, which changed everything.