We set off for Krabi in what turns out to be another big adventure – more on that in a minute…

Krabi is one of the southern provinces in Thailand on the western side that faces the Andaman Sea.  It is directly across a large bay from Phuket, and many people come here from Phuket via boat.  The coast here is a little more rugged and mountainous than any of the other spots we have been so far, and this is where a lot of rock climbers come from around the world to climb what is regarded as some of the best.  Krabi is also the name of the largest city in the province and historically has supported a fairly large fishing industry.  We will be staying in Ao Nang, which is a beach town about 20 kilometers from Krabi town.

We head down to the travel agent the day before to look into our travel options.  After our interesting journey to Ko Samui from Phuket, we are looking for some better info about what we are getting into 🙂

We had at one point thought we hooked ourselves up with a private car for about 4000B ($110 USD) but that deal mysteriously falls apart (maybe the price was too low) and now the agent tells us we have 2 options – Option 1 is for a private car, the car will take us from Samui all the way to Ao Nang and to our destination hotel for 7000B (about $200 USD).  The other option is to take the regular tourist transfer for about 3000B ($90 USD).  Having been down the transfer road before we ask more questions this time……  The package takes us from our hotel to the ferry by van where we will transfer to an air-conditioned bus across the ferry and then to Surat Thani where we will transfer to another air-conditioned bus for the trip from Surat Thani to Krabi.  Finally we would take a taxi form Krabi to our hotel in Ao Nang.  We double check the facts, and Mrs Columbus says it’s half the price and a nice bus all the way so we should take the transfer vs the private car.  We did not really stop to process the fact that we were really talking about the difference between $100 and $200 to move 6 people around – but I guess this is the way we learn lessons.

So 8am rolls around and we climb into the van to go to the ferry where uneventfully we transfer our baggage to the bus and board the ferry.  After the crossing we travel the hour or so to Surat Thani and get dropped off at a restaurant/transfer station and are told it will be about a 20 minute wait for the bus that is going to Krabi.   After a short wait we are herded off to a tuk-tuk to go to where the other bus is waiting.  Here is where the adventure goes a bit sideways…..  The bus we board seems relatively new, and air-conditioned and we load our bags and settle into some seats, and then we wait, and wait, and wait.  All the while more and more people are getting on the bus and after about an hour and 20 minutes the bus is full and finally departs.  Much to our surprise though the bus stops frequently on the way out of town to pick up even more people, and soon the bus is completely full – including people standing in the aisle and anywhere there is a spot.  It turns out that this is a local bus that is going to Krabi, but not via an express route, and going through a bunch of samll towns along the way vs going along the freeway.  So instead of the short 2 hour ride were were expecting we hunker down for a much longer time – the one saving grace is that we all have seats vs the people standing.

After a 10 hour journey (that is only about 5h including the ferry if you go direct) we finally arrive at our destination, and after getting our bags stowed away in our rooms we grab a bite to eat and call it a night.

For anyone who is interested I have posted a few GPS tracks of some of the ground we have covered while here – you can look at the maps here

We spent our last 2 days on Ko Samui going at a little slower pace.  We are moving on to Krabi on the 11th and needed to do some research for transportation and a place to stay, so with that on the agenda, we set off for breakfast.  One of the staff at the hotel turned out to be a great source of information, and he told us that there is a store called The Big C that has free internet (we have been paying for access from here, and the performance is not fantastic), with this info inhand, we headed out after breakfast for a little shopping and some free WiFi.

The Big C is sort of like a Target or a Fred Meyer maybe but it also has some ‘common’ areas where other merchants have stores and booths setup so I guess like a cross between a Fred Meyer and a mall.  They have a food court, and that is where the free WiFi is – it is easy to figure this out, because the place has a bunch of people (mostly tourists) all sporting their laptops 🙂  We spent a few hours here doing some work, and some research on our next location, and then went shopping for some snacks for the road, and a look around the mall.  One of the booths in the mall area was a big tank where you could put your feet in and have these little fish eat the dead skin off your feet – it was bizarre to watch as hundreds of these little fish attached themselves to your feet and needless to say we only watched and did not partake.

For our last full day we got up for a late start and decided to see if we could find a car and driver to take us around the island.  We have been here for a handful of days now, and have not really seen much beyond our hotel and Chewang Beach.  It would be a shame to come this far and not see at least a little more of the island, so off we go to one of the ‘travel agents’ to book a car.

We are really glad we did this, as our guide turns out to be really good, and there was a lot of interesting things to see.  He takes us to the highlights of the island, and at each stop he provides some background about the place and answers any sort of questions we come up with.

We stop to see several beaches – Lamai, Mae Nam, Bo Phut, Nathon, and also a couple of temples.  Normally I would have passed on more temples thinking I had seen enough already, but each of these seems to have something new or different to make it worth while.

The first temple we stop at has the mummified body of a monk in a sitting position enclosed in a glass room.  Apparently the monk was quite well known in Samui, and his last requests included a wish to be posed sitting up and available to the people.  It looks a little creepy, but how often do you get to see a real mummy.

The other temple we visit has a large Buddha statue and is up on a hill overlooking the north end of the island.  The view was impressive, but the thing that made this temple different were the monks that were at the bottom of the shrine.  They are collecting donations for additional temple buildings and maintenance, and so we make a small donation and get to place our names on another tile to be used on the structure.  In addition each of us receives a blessing from a monk and a hand-made braided (Sai Sin) bracelet for good luck.

We also stop at one of the waterfalls on the island – we had wanted to see one while we were on Phuket, but were told that because it had been so dry lately the waterfall was not much to see.  So we were pleasantly surprised with what was in store for us here.  After a very short walk up through the foliage it opens into a little river with a 100+ foot rock wall at one end with water streaming down and a nice pool at the bottom.  Rachael and Jackie thought ahead enough to bring their swimsuits and were able to enjoy a refreshing dip in the cool water and we sat for a few minutes and just enjoyed the surroundings.

We end the day back at our hotel for a dinner in the restaurant, and then it is off to our rooms to get packed up and ready for tomorrow morning.  We are leaving at 8am for our journey to Krabi.