We woke up early again this morning, and packed up the last of our things to get ready to depart for Krabi. We headed down for the breakfast buffet, looked at the pool one last time, and then hailed a taxi for the airport. At the hotel’s recommendation, we paid the taxi a flat-fare instead of using the meter. It was 400 baht, and only took us about 25 minutes to get there.
We were a bit worried that our luggage was over the allotment for Bangkok Airways (which was only 20kg [44 lbs], as opposed to the international flights which were 50 lbs). Luckily, though, the representative didn’t charge us for the extra weight, and just let us board the flight with the carry-ons as well! Though the flight was delayed by about 45 minutes, it went very smoothly, and we landed at Krabi Airport. We took this shuttle to the terminal building, but it seemed silly since it was only about one minute away from the aeroplane. We gathered our bags, and paid the 600 baht for the taxi to Ao Nang.
We checked in to the Mercure Krabi Deevana hotel, and it was fairly nice. I don’t know that it is really a five-star hotel, but it was great nonetheless. The only problem that I saw was that our room was fairly far from the rest of the hotel. The rooms are in separate buildings, and we were in the farthest one from the lobby. The pools, however, were beautiful, and wrapped around all of the buildings.
The room at the Mercure Krabi Deevana hotel
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Beautiful cliff view from our room at the Mercure Krabi Deevana in Ao Nang
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We decided to just go see the surrounding areas, and walk to the main Ao Nang strip (with all the shops and restaurants, et cetera). The walk was quick, and enjoyable, especially with the nice breeze that was blowing most of the time. We stopped in at Ao Nang Haven in order to schedule our massages for the next day. I booked the Adventurer’s massage, and she booked the After-Beach massage.
The main strip of shops in Ao Nang
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With that task out of the way, we were both getting a bit hungry, so we went just up the road to Ao Nang Boat Noodle restaurant. I had heard good things about this little, unassuming eatery, and thought that it would be a good place to have our first meal in Krabi. We started with some spring rolls and fried tofu, which were both excellent. The fried tofu was especially good, as it was prepared differently than I had had before. This batter was really light and almost fluffy. For dinner, I ordered spicy basil with chicken (medium heat), and she got mixed vegetables with chicken in a medium brown sauce. Both of the meals were great, and we finished off with some interesting ice cream. I chose the Rua Mit flavour, which I had never even heard of before. It was basically a sweet cream ice cream with some candied fruits and vegetables in it.
AMAZING dinner of spicy basil chicken, some fried tofu, and spring rolls at Ao Nang Boat Noodle restaurant
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After dinner, we walked along the beach back to the hotel. We started off in the Kingfisher Restaurant by ordering a couple drinks. After realising that they were just going upstairs to the bar to get the drinks, we cut out the middle man and went up there ourselves. They had half-priced drinks for happy hour, so we ordered some of them. They weren’t very good at all, but it was the nice end to the evening.