Krabi Adventure 2: Scooter Time

Here's something I think I forgot to mention in my last post regarding foreigners driving in Thailand: As I said, I generally wore my helmet in town (at the suggestion of the guy I rented from) to minimize myself as a target for getting pulled over, and I never did get in any trouble, but I did have a couple humorous incidents.  The first was when I was going "downtown" one time and made a left onto a one-way street going the wrong way.  As I made the turn I heard these two local guys (taxi drivers sitting on their scooters at the corner) yell at me and I turned to look at them as I went by but I couldn't understand what they were saying, though it became clear momentarily when I noticed the white arrow painted on the road in my lane pointing the opposite direction I was going and a car approaching right behind it.  So I made a quick U-turn and only then noticed a traffic cop watching me.  He didn't say anything, and I was glad to be wearing my helmet to show what a responsible driver I was.  I waved and thanked the two locals for the tip as I went by them again.  "Kob khun krop!"

The second incident happened as I was heading to the coast one day.  There is pretty much only one way to go if you don't want to go way out of your way and as soon as I'd made a left onto that road I saw a police traffic stop/checkpoint set up.  I was nervous but I got in line and hoped that I'd just get to go by when my turn came, but as I was waiting in line I saw one of the officers looking at me and then he motioned me to come over to him at the side of the road, which I did.  He asked to see my license, which I showed him, and he asked me where I was from, and I said America, and then he pointed to a guy standing by the side of the road and pointed down the road and held up two fingers and said "2 kilometers".  It took me a second to catch on but he repeated himself and I finally realized he wanted me to give this guy a ride 2 km down the road, which I was happy to do!  So that was my consequence: being pressed into service as a taxi driver for a short distance!  The guy got on behind me and we road on down the road and he tapped me on the shoulder when he wanted to get off and we both smiled a big smile at each other and said "Kob khun krop!"

Other than that, scootering was a breeze, literally!  Not only did it allow me to go places and explore (by which I mean go places I didn't know I was going) but it was fun just getting there, except for the "commute" part which got a little old after awhile.

My first sighting of the ocean.

This was at an area called "shell fossil beach" because it had a bunch of fossilized shells visible in the flat layers of rock which made up much of the shore.  I did not go swimming here for some reason.  This is looking northward along the coast.

Looking southward along the coast.  If you followed the coast and turned left at the river mouth you'd get back to Krabi by water, but by land you have to go inland then south again to get around a big mangrove swamp, one of many in the area.

However, if you go south by land and turn toward Krabi you can explore the mangrove swamp and eventually come to this nice restaurant at the end of the road.  I got here about 10:45 am and they didn't open until 11:00 but I was able to get a nice cup of coffee and look around a bit.

Next I retraced my route to the shell fossil beach and continued north along the coast to parts I hadn't been to yet.

The general theme is nice wide sandy shallow beaches interrupted by "ramparts" (mountainous ridges sticking out into the ocean) which generally had a river flowing out on one side or the other, which was usually used as a harbor, and often had a pier sticking out into the ocean as well.

Here I'm walking out on one of those piers and looking back toward land.

If you look where the water meets the shore in this picture, right in the middle, you can just make out a tiny beach which is where I'll be taking a selfie from a few pictures from now.  Because as you drive along the coast you get to these ridges and then you can't go anymore in that direction and you have to go back inland and get around the ridge and come back down to the ocean on the far side.

One last look toward the south back at land from the end of the pier.

At the end of this road is the little beach I mentioned a couple pics back.  Here I had to turn around and work my way around the big ridge sticking out into the sea.

This is the thing I have to go around, for obvious reasons!

Having made it around that ridge, part of which you can see on the left of this picture (though not all of it because this particular ridge is part of a fairly large peninsula which has a couple beaches on it which can only be accessed by boat, called Railey beach, which is the beach most famous for all the rock climbing possibilities) I arrived at the tourist/party mecca Ao Nang (Ao is Thai for 'beach' and is pronounced "ow" as in "ow I stubbed my toe!").  At this point (maybe about 12/19?) it was not very crowded.  This is looking south.

And this is looking north.

I decided to take a walk along the strip (many souvenir shops and restaurants) so I took a picture of my license plate in case I had trouble finding my scooter again!

After I had some lunch at a fairly forgettable restaurant (nothing wrong with it, but nothing exceptional either), I walked down the pedestrian-only section of the beach which runs south from where the road first comes to the beach.  You can drive to the north, and eventually continue at the far end around the next ridge and to the next beach, but to the south from where I'd parked you can only walk.  This section of the beach has many exclusive resorts and many concessions such as kayak rentals and massage businesses.  The woman on the right, in pink, was trying to get me to sign up for a massage with her and she gave me some fresh pineapple as an inducement.  Her name is Sanya.  I told her I might come back another time but for now I was exploring.  Later I did consider going back to her for a massage but it never quite worked out.

When you go as far south as you can you pass over a little effluent stream and come to a small national park beach.  I liked this beach both because it was less crowded and also it had some nice trees growing right on it which provided shade.  You can actually go to another little beach just south of here (around the rocks blocking your way) by going up some stairs and along a boardwalk and back down the far side on a path called the "Monkey Trail".  And at low tide you can even walk around those rocks to that beach.  I ended up coming back that way on my final beach day after a swim around the island you can see in the center of the picture above with the phallic monument on it.  But that's all far in the future.  For now I decided not to take the monkey trail and to camp out in the shade and finally get in the water!

Looming over you at this beach.

Looking back north you can see the little stream estuary (which smelled horrible, like raw sewage, because it probably was) and beyond it the main Ao Nang beach stretching up to the next ridge of rocks sticking out into the sea.

Here I've walked all the way down to the north end of the beach (I forgot, I hadn't gone swimming yet, I don't think, because my scooter was still parked on the main strip and I had noticed a dirt parking lot behind the southern end of the beach so I knew there must be a way to drive there and I wanted to take my scooter down there before I settled in) and am looking back the way I came.

And this is why you can't go any further this way without getting wet.

Another view back to the south.

Now I've returned to my scooter and driven to the dirt parking lot near the national park beach, which wasn't as easy as it sounds.  First I tried following a delivery truck down the pedestrian-only strip of beach but was waved off by a guard.  I guess it's only for delivery vehicles.  So then I retraced my route arriving at the beach and checked every turn-off from the main road which went in the direction I wanted to go until I finally found the right one which I knew had to be there.  At last I had my scooter nearby and I was ready to relax in the shade and get ready to go in the water.

This guy was selling huge ears of corn which he grilled up right on the spot for you.  Delicious!

It's getting later in the day now and the tide has gone out quite a bit so I'm standing out here where it used to be covered in water looking back at the shore.  That's the same limestone cliff I said was looming over me a couple pictures back and at the base of it, on the sand, you can see the trees I was using for shade as well as the raised walking platform which leads to the stairs of the Monkey Trail which are just starting to go up to the right.

As I said, there's another beach (monopolized by an exclusive resort, but you can go if you stay on the beach) just around that outcropping of rocks on the left and I could have walked there in the water at this point but I was nervous about leaving my backpack with all my stuff in it on the beach (actually I'd put it up in the branches of one of those trees).

 Here are some panoramas from that spot:

This shows the tree I was under, with the raised boardwalk running past it.  North to the main beach is on the left, and south toward Railey beach is on the right.

I'm not quite sure why this is labeled a panorama in my photos but it gives you a good idea of the Monkey Trail boardwalk.  I had left my towel (borrowed from my hostel) to dry on the rail of the boardwalk and unfortunately forgot it there.  I went back the next day to look for it but it was gone.  I fessed up to the hostel owner and she charged me 200 baht, which is about $6, the same as a day of scooter rental or a pretty good meal, which was more than I expected to have to pay.

Sun is going down.  I'm nervous about driving at night so it's time to head home.  But how will I ever get to see a sunset?

On the way home I decide to visit a temple I noticed on Maps.Me and took some lovely back roads to get there.  In the next series of pictures I'll be climbing up those stairs and looking back this direction (north).

Starting to go up.

Getting higher.

Still higher!  Do you see the elephants from the previous photo?

The elephants are way down there now!

And this was my last picture this day.  From here I went back down the stairs to my scooter, then north along that road to the little market which you can actually see at the end of it where I got a couple skewers of meat.  The skewers (satay) were 10 baht each and since I had a 20 baht bill (about $0.60) I handed that over and grabbed two.  One was chicken, and the other I expected to be pork.  And it may have been pork, but if it was it wasn't part of a pig I wanted to eat.  In fact, it could have been from any animal and I wouldn't have wanted to eat it.  There were four "pieces" on the skewer and I grabbed the first with my teeth and slid it off and started chewing it and noticed how tough and rubbery it was and looked closer at what was on the stick and decided each "piece" looked peculiarly puckered and I remembered the vendor's quizzical expression when I selected that skewer and decided this was probably not my favorite part of whatever animal it was.  So I had another and it was just as unpleasant to chew so I actually threw away the last two, probably the only time in recent memory I've actually wasted any food.

Wow, that was only one day of scootering but I'll give you and myself a rest at this point before rolling on.  Ciao!