Time for some beach action!
Trip Start
Mar 11, 2008
1
27
38
Trip End
Ongoing
Krabi,
Thailand
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Bar the afternoon I arrived, the last couple of days have been a bit of a wash-out as far as sunbathing is concerned, but it's been good to chill out in Ao Nang & have some reading and admin time in any case. Ao Nang itself is a bit touristy- lots of rip-off surf shops, pricey cafes & even a McDonalds & Burger King (heaven forbid!), but that hasn't been a bad thing given the weather. It doesn't take much effort to escape to commerce and reach paradise in any case.. it's just a 10 minute hop by longtail boat to the stunning Railay peninsula: long white stretches of sand backed by limestone karsts and tropical rainforest. We made the trip yesterday, hoping for a long afternoon soaking up the rays and snorkelling in the bay, but the sky turned overcast not long after we arrived and we were forced to take shelter a number of times as squalls of rain blew over the bay :(
Given the unpredictability of the weather and the roughness of the seas we've decided to pass on the longtail trips out to some of the nearby islands (including 'James Bond Island' where Man with a Golden Gun was filmed), but couldn't resist the lure of sea kayaking
A sunny afternoon (shock horror!) on Ao Nang beach
. We took a trip out to Ao Thalane (Muddy Bay) this morning [glorious sunshine- yay!] and spent a fantastic 4 hours or so pottering round in our kayaks, weaving our way through mangroves swamps and round karst formations, surrounded by mud skippers, monitor lizards, kingfishers and troops of longtail macaques, loads of which(/whom?) had teeny, mohicaned babies - just 2 weeks old! - slung across their bellies. Many of the kayaking guides obviously feed the monkeys to get them to come down to the boats for the tourists (ours didn't) so they're pretty bold and cheeky. I can't say I approve, but the experience of having the monkeys jump onto your kayak and travel along on the prow (or even on your knee!) was pretty awesome! Guttingly my camera chose this morning to start playing up (not detecting any of the 3 batteries I had with me!!) so I wasn't able to capture any of this for the blog, but the memory will certainly be one of the outstanding ones of this part of my trip.Having missed out in Bangkok, I've also taken the opportunity whilst in Ao Nang, of going to watch some Muay Thai (Thai kick-boxing)- basically a load of wiry, surprisingly young boys getting greased up and trying to beat the sh1t out of one another, and involving lots of up close and personal grappling - all somewhat homo-erotic to the idle observer! Not sure that I would rush back to watch another match, but one more 'must-do' ticked off the list in any case...
Keeping everything crossed that the sky gets this rain out of its system overnight tonight and the next few days will bring some sun for our time on Kho PiPi!!
