Krabi

Trip Start May 29, 2008

102

Trip End Dec 19, 2008

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Flag of Thailand Krabi, Thailand
Friday, September 12, 2008

Krabi was our next stop as we had been recommended to go here by a couple of people during our trip. We didn't originally plan on it and decided to forego Phuket for more time in Krabi. After arriving in Krabi, we thought that we should have spent more time in Phi Phi Don. It reminded us of Phuket. Many vendors harassing you to buy their food, trinkets, and it seemed like everyone and their dog sold tailored suits. We had to find our own accommodations, so we asked our taxi driver to take us to a few hotels, which were mediocre at best. They wanted to charge unreasonable prices and so we thought we were stuck as we waited at the last hotel. The manager that had shown us around said that they could get us a better price if we ditched the cab driver. We knew something shady was going on and the taxi driver was only taking us to the places that would pay him a commission/finder's fee. We said the heck to both of them. I walked down another block or two and found this nice hotel probably the tallest on the island and before entering thought it would be out of our budget

Our Kom Loy

. It turned out that they had the same price as the last roach hotel but with triple the amenities and five-times the comfort level. Obviously, we had to stay here. After checking in, we went to their restaurant, which was beautiful and was right on the ocean and provided a nice sunset. At night time, we walked on the beach promenade area and checked out some of the shops in the area. Rachel was able to buy some awesome, comfortable shorts for about $3/ piece. She had to get the "Xtra-large" shorts because she's considered "big" in Thailand.

We also saw a vendor near the beach that was selling kom loys, which is a cylindrical candle balloon. It was a real cool touch and Rachel had been dying to do it. Rachel wrote "Rachel + Tony" on the front of it with a marker, light the candle inside so it could float like a hot air balloon, and then let it off. It was pretty romantic as it fluttered in the night sky for almost a half an hour. Well worth the experience and made Krabi just a little bit better of an experience for us that night.

The next morning we had to hire a long-tail boat driver to take us to Railay. Railay was really the whole reason we came to Krabi island, as it was supposed to be secluded and a beach-strewn island. It was low season so it was really hard to find a driver that would take us the whole way

Railay, Krabi

. We had to wait for 5 others to join before we could make it over. When we arrived we were not overly impressed. The rock formations surrounding the beach was impressive, but we think we were just spoiled in staying at Phi Phi Don. We walked around the island for a little bit asked people if this was it and experienced some of it. We had lunch at a pretty nice restaurant overlooking the water and pretty much near the side of the mountain where the mountain climbers would be climbing. We also walked through the hippie village during the day when all of the hippies are passed out. It was pretty much a Bob Marley oasis with rasta bars, African flags, bamboo loungepads, and we heard that they openly sell pot in these bars at night. After leaving that jungle of a place we went to the other side of the island which had a pretty nice beach. It was a little overcrowded for our spoiled tastes with about 40-50 people on the beach. Any other person coming here would feel like it was a bare beach, but after coming from a place where we were pretty much the only ones on the island, it felt like Venice Beach. Thereafter, we had to hitch a long-tail boat and were lucky enough to find a few people already going that way so we hopped on.