June 11 2008

This morning we finished packing up and booked our flights to Australia.  It had been raining all morning, but it stopped as we headed downstairs.  We were sad to leave Surin Bay Inn, the food is so good and the staff is super friendly (with the exception of one "attitude" chick).  We claimed our included breakfast and checked out.  We threw on our packs and walked down the street to greet the tuk-tuk mafia.  We got them to 420THB to the Phuket bus station, such a rip off.  But we grit our teeth and jumped in.  The drive went pretty quick and we were dropped off right at the station.  A woman greeted us and asked where we wanted to go, she said there was a bus headed to Krabi in 15 minutes.  We found out that it was a mini-bus, aka. Van, which we didn't want to jam into.  So we decided to wait until noon  for the big bus.  It cost us $10 for both of us for a 3 hour ride.  Its so interesting that a 30 minute tuk-tuk ride costs $15 and a 3 hour a/c bus ride costs $10.  Jes spotted a bus with Krabi on it and asked a guy working for the station if that was our bus and he said yes.  So we waited near it til 11:50.  Then the driver showed up and we threw our packs in the bottom and claimed some seats near the back.  The rain soon started again and continued. The drive ended up going pretty quick, with only a few stops to let people on and off.  There was a lot of water on the roads, hydroplaning in a bus isn't that fun.  2 Hours into the ride our bus pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.  The ticket guy got out and went to the back of the bus, then the driver, we couldn't see what was going on.  The ticket guy came back on and said something in thai, everyone stood up and started getting off the bus.  So we followed suit and grabbed our bags in the pouring rain.  There was another bus stopped, we hopped on it and got stuck with some seats on the lower level.  We both kinda passed out for the rest of the ride, but soon the woman on the bus told us we had arrived.  They shuffled us off the bus,  in the pouring rain.  We grabbed our stuff, while I was trying to keep the laptop bag covered.  A guy came over and told us to come into his tourist office, but we went over to where the taxi trucks, or songthaews, were.  A guy asked us where we needed to go, so we told him, he said he knew and took us to a truck.  The seats were wet from the rain, but we hopped in and hung on.  I had my pack on the whole time, so I had to sit sideways with only one cheek on the bench, holding on for dear life so I don't fall out the back.  It was a bit of a ride to our guest house.  We hopped out and paid the driver 100THB, which would have been 500 in Phuket.  We were greeted by the woman at the desk and she took us to our room.  Our room is cute, the bathroom is outside, with a roof over the sink and toilet, but a open shower.  Only fan and cold water, a bit basic, but cheap.  We laid down and recovered from the excitement from the trip.  We were both soaked, as well as our packs, thank goodness for fast drying clothes and waterproof backpacks.  Jes went down and checked us into the guesthouse.  After a bit we decided to go wandering in the rain a bit.  We found the Rasta Family bar and had some cheap drinks and very yummy curry while waiting out the rain.  We found some information about Krabi in a magazine, we didn't know much about it since our guidebook is so lame.  It was about 5pm by this time.  We thought we would go walk around a bit since the rain had lightened up.  We spotted some prospects for breakfast and checked out some tour places.  It is amazing how hard it is to find a map of this place.  We found a supermarket and picked up a few necessities.  We then thought we would stop in at another restaurant and have a drink.  It was interesting to do some people watching, as usual.  There seems so be such a laid back feel here, almost too laid back.  There was a really cute little girl at the restaurant who was really into everyone, petting one girl, stealing another's umbrella, trying to take Jes' money.  When her dad arrived she was screaming with glee and laughing.  It was funny to watch.  After a bit we decided to head back to the room.  We prepared ourselves for an interesting night, since the blanket was just a bit towel and didn't cover both of us.  Yay!  Ciao for now!

Our room

Zoe

The bathroom outside