Jan 20 2014

Thailand Day 9: Down for the count

Remember how I said that the spicy basil chicken was a bad idea? Well, it was a lot worse that I originally thought. I was up most of the night last night with food poisoning. 🙁 After a night of sleeping in the bathroom tub, I was finally able to get back into bed and rest for a bit. I ended up sleeping most of the day, because it’s really all that I had the energy to do.

Deb spent the day at the pool, and reading outside on the patio, so she said it wasn’t all that bad of a day. I just wish that I hadn’t wasted the day, especially with so little of the trip left. Unfortunately, though, it was really out of my control. Lesson learned: don’t eat lukewarm food from a street vendor.

I started feeling a little bit better in the early evening, took a shower, and headed out. I could only stomach a little Jasmine tea at first, so that’s what I had. After walking around a bit longer, I thought that I might be able to eat something. I had a pizza, and that seemed to be okay with my stomach. Overall, though, I didn’t really get to do much today. My only hope is that tomorrow will be better, since we are scheduled to go on a private island-hopping tour!

Jan 19 2014

Thailand Day 8: More beach relaxation and the Krabi Night Market

After a really good night’s sleep at the Mercure Krabi Deevana, we woke up and just lounged about for most of the morning. We sat outside our room by the pool, and just soaked up a bit of sun. We checked out of the hotel right before noon, took our luggage, and began to walk toward the next hotel (which was on the other side of the main Ao Nang strip. On our way, we decided to take a tuk-tuk since the bags were becoming quite cumbersome.


Amazing pool-front room at the Mercure Krabi Deevana, Ao Nang
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When we arrived at Aonang Phu Petra, it was well before check-in time, but fortunately, we only had to wait about 15 minutes for the room to be cleaned. They also upgraded us to a poolside room, and gave us free breakfast tickets at the hotel restaurant! Though the pool is quite small, and the resort has some really quirky rules in place (pool closes early, shuttle doesn’t run very late, et cetera), the room is massive and quite modern (especially the bathroom).


Outside the bungalow at Aonang Phu Petra
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The enormous bedrom at Aonang Phu Petra
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The modern, luxurious bathroom at Aonang Phu Petra
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The cliff-side pool and view from Aonang Phu Petra
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We unpacked our things, and headed down Ao Nang to the beach. We also stopped in at Tandoori Nights for lunch. I got chicken hawa with some naan, and she got chicken korma with puri. Both of the meals were nice, although a little expensive.

After walking around the beach for a bit, we went to the bus stop right outside of Nanta Restaurant in order to catch a tuk-tuk to Krabi Town. That’s the only place to catch one that will offer a decent fair (60 baht per person instead off almost 500 baht elsewhere). We went to Krabi Town in order to see the night market.


The affordable tuk-tuk to Krabi Town – outside Nanta Restaurant (very close to Ao Nang beach)
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The Krabi night market (which is right behind Vogue Shopping Centre) was pretty neat. It was filled with vendors selling everything imaginable from food items, to clothes, to trinkets. I ended up getting some spicy basil chicken and rice, which turned out to be a very, very bad idea. Not only was it incredibly spicy (to the point where even I didn’t like it), but it really upset my stomach.


The night market in Krabi Town
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The spicy basil chicken that I bought from a street vendor – wicked hot
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We headed back to the hotel, grabbed some fruit juices, had a couple cocktails, and went to bed.

Jan 18 2014

Thailand Day 7: Mangroves and back to Ao Nang

Well I THOUGHT that we were going to get some rest before today’s activities, but I was mistaken. It was so blasted hot in the tent, and loud outside (with the various animals making noise, and the heavy winds), that I don’t think I actually slept at all. We went up to the reception area for breakfast, which was primarily a western-style one, consisting of pancakes, waffles, cereal, et cetera.

After breakfast, we took a bus about 45 minutes away from the camp, and spent a little bit of time in a local market. Deb was able to buy some new shades at a Tesco Express, but we got a little ripped off. The tag said that they were 135 baht, but the cashier charged us 199 baht. Eh, no big deal; I’m cool with a couple extra dollars. 🙂

After the market, we took the bus a bit farther to the pier in Khao Sok, and hopped on a speed boat. The speed boat took us through the mangroves, where we saw some a couple species of snakes, some birds, and even some monkeys! We headed out into the Andaman Sea, and got off of the speed boat and onto a Burmese junk boat for lunch. The captain made some green curry, but made it wayyyyyyyy too mild for my liking.


The mangroves in Khao Sok / Takua Pa
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A Mangrove Snake hanging out in a tree in Khao Sok / Takua Pa
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After lunch, we got off the Burmese junk and spent about an hour on the beach of a deserted island. Some people were soaking up the sun, some were swimming, but I was more interested in taking some photos. In particular, there were a ton of little hermit crabs running along the shores, so I tried to capture pictures of them. They were really fast, so it proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated!


Trying to capture (photograph) a hermit crab on Koh Phra Thong
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After the beach, we headed back to Elephant Hills. If we had stayed, we would have had similar activities to the night before and dinner thereafter. However, Deb and I agreed to pay some additional money to have the minivan take us back to Ao Nang a day early. We had slept so poorly the night before that the day’s activities weren’t really even that fun. Our next hotel (Aonang Phu Petra) didn’t have the additional night available, so we ended up going back to the Mercure Krabi Deevana for another night (which turned out to be excellent after all).

We were upgraded to a nicer room since it was technically our second stay. The room was right off of the pool on the first floor, and much closer to everything. Though it had a bit more noise, it was great all around. We walked to the little shops nearby, and picked up some Stoli vodka to make our own drinks. We sat our on the porch that led directly into the pool, had a couple cocktails, and called it a day.