03 august 02. saturday. day one.
9.20am flight. too early for a previous late nite out. uneventful 1 hour 30 minutes flight to phuket. from the airport, we took a minivan to phuket town for 80 baht. from there we spent 150 baht to take another minivan to krabi town, journey was about 2 hours. krabi town proved quite unexciting, and we discovered there was no boat to railay from krabi town. so we took a 50 baht songthaew to ao nang mao where they have longtail boats leaving for railay. ao nang beach actually looked quite bad, the beachfront was under some sort of construction. 30 baht longtail boat ride went into a storm, and we were drenched by the time we reached railay beach. so we just stayed at the first place we arrived at: yaya bungalow on railay east for 250 baht per night. had lunch in our wet clothes while waiting for the room to be ready. walked around the island, and discovered beach on the other side (railay west) which was really pretty. had dinner along beautiful beach, under stars filled night sky, and walking on the beach after.
04 august 02. sunday. day two.
breakfast at viewpoint, i had banana pancake. real pancake this time, usually it's more like crepes. after we went to laze at beautiful beach with sarong and nick hornby. waves were huge, and we tried to catch some surf. walked out to rocky portion of beach, perservered till quite far out and returned with several cuts on our feet. ouch!
**let me just say here that this part onwards is continued on 14th september saturday. more than a month has elapsed since krabi, and my memories of this trip has faded somewhat. this is where my recount is rather hazy, pieced together from my fallible memory.**
so i think today we found lodgings on the side of the beautiful beach (railay west), abit more expensive but the luxurious looking rooms look too good to resist, so we booked to move over for tmrw morning. rest of day was spent in happy anticipation of nice room tmrw. and at night we had dinner at yaya, and watched fire dancers performance till late. there were a couple of backpackers who seemed to have been following this group of fire dancers around on their performances coz they had performance slots too. so it was pretty fun. hmm, now i remember by this time we have oredi moved to the other side of the beach with the luxurious looking rooms. so we must have done the move this morning. so happy anticipation of room was yesterday, not today. i remember coz i thought of my long walk back to room while waiting for the fire dancers to begin, and i had to walk by the cyst pool on my own. (cyst pool was in the middle of railay east and west lodgings area, walking to cyst pool marks the beginning of the other side) we also bought a samsong drink, which is coke and samsong in a bucket of ice, topped with red bull. it was 2 very happy and carefree wy and yy drinking from the bucket. we understood then mel's craze with drinks in buckets when he returned from his thailand trip. we oso overheard 2 french guys at the next table trying to pick up 2 american girls with no success. very amusing conversation, we were trying not to laugh. :p went to dance for awhile, and finally got back to room late around 3am.
05 august 02. monday. day three.
i got up late, dun remember how late. but as usual wy has completed her island exploration with photos to show. or maybe island exploration was completed yesterday? hmm. anyway, today we attempt to go to princess cave. today is our 2nd attempt, i remember now. we tried yesterday but had to stop halfway as it was beginning to get quite dark. and i had so many mosquito bites yesterday from going in my swimwear, not very wise of me i agree. so it was yesterday where we already went to the princess cave beach and had our swim after the climb. always always a good idea to go for cold swim after hot sweaty activity like climbing in forest. i digress, anyway we went again today. this time we got to the muddy part. oso coz it rained last nite, worsening the conditions for our climb. there were parts where it was very steep, and we had to do our ascents and descents finding and gripping onto handholds in the rocks. it was dangerous at parts and we had to go cautiously and slowly. wy was extremely enthusiastic during the entire climb, unmistakably. coz she scrambles ahead and the entire climb was quiet except with her in front going 'wow, this is steep', 'hmm, how shall i go? ah i know, i shall put my hand here and my foot here. ok ok i am ok now.', 'hey this part is muddy but hmm.. still ok!', 'wow.. this is so exciting'. i think she really likes this stuff, not me. and i was too exhausted to complain, so i was having these 'not going to do this again' conversations with myself while she was giving everyone in the forest this running commentary of her climb. and my slippers died in this expedition. it happened at this part where i got stuck in the mud, and while trying to yank my feet out, my slippers gave way and there goes. left the mud covered slippers by a tree to commemorate, i hope no one thinks i am stuck in the tree. continued the rest of climb barefooted. actually safer than being in slippers. we got to this part where i decided not to go further, coz the handholds were too far apart for me to descend, i had to stretch quite abit to get a good grip so wy went ahead. i didn't actually miss any part of this climb coz she was doing her usual running commentary throughout. the princess lagoon, she said, was very pretty, but very far away and looked unattainable. and the skies again were starting to get dark, we dun pick very good times to do these treks. so she got to this point where she had a good view of the lagoon, and we made our way back. again we went to the princess cave beach for a swim, this is the only reason why i agree to this exercise. then back to room to shower and dinner. now i start to wonder if the fire performance was tonite instead. argh..
06 august 02. tuesday. day four.
today we do rock climbing. as in real rock climbing with the professional rock climbers, with all the gear and stuff. very cool, we took a few pictures, check it out. so basically this is what we do. we had a guide, think his name was nan, and he brings us to these places to climb. apparently they are all graded by levels of difficulty, so being beginners we began with the easiest. so nan goes up first, and sets the path for the safety ropes. we are geared up, with a partner belaying on the ground, we climb all the way up, and abseil down. so basically we did this 3 or 4 times at different parts of the rock, each time with increasing difficulty slopes. ok, so you can tell i am not a fan. we met 2 british guys, one of them with dreadlocks and more memorably from sheffield, that's where full monty was filmed. he said that is his only claim to fame. there was this other guy who was old, with a cambodian wife. we had cost of living discussions with her, she will tell us how much rambutans and durians cost in thailand vs in cambodia. amazingly cambodia is more expensive, i've always thought otherwise. anyway she brought so much food, so we helped her to finish it. at the end of the climb, nan told us there was this party at the top of the hill which we heard about as well. however we didn't go in the end. coz we went for dinner, then drinks, and decided to go back to sleep instead. we did however see how their free transport up the hill looks like. looks like the same vehicle that is used to transport garbage from various parts of island to disposal point. garbage truck masquerading at night as party truck. well, at least it dressed up abit.
07 august 02. wednesday. day five.
today we left railay for ko phi phi. 9.20am longtail and transfer to ferry. think it took about 2 hours the entire ride, and we got to phi phi about lunchtime. and it was drizzling when we arrived. we tried looking for francois, the birthday guy we attended the dinner of on the friday night before we left, and coincidentally he was coming to phi phi today. unfortunately he wasn't there yet, and the hotel didn't know anything except 'yes' so we went for lunch first at this italian restaurant by the pier. think wy was disgusted with the commercialised look of phi phi, and add on to that, our mushroom pizza was made with chinese mushrooms which she hates. so it was quite funny in a not so funny way. me laughing now, while wy grumbles. after lunch we went off to look for accomodations. most places were fully booked. we found ao lang dalam, and got this mid-priced beach hut. the really cheap and good place was fully booked, and the really luxurious place was too expensive (which mel informs was where sl & lg stayed the last time). continued search for francois but again unsuccessful, though now we have his bungalow number but he was not there. so we left a note for francois with the hotel and went back to our hut. took a walk at the beach. later met an old man in the hut next to ours and he recommended a few eating places. so we went to one of his recommendations in phi phi town, this place called garlic. unfortunately we had pasta where we ought to have tried the thai food that they are famous for, or maybe just anything with garlic in it. we oso booked sometime in the afternoon a full day snorkel trip for tmrw. before dinner we oso tried to go to this viewpoint area to see the sunset. however our way there was stopped short by a snake we saw on the path. our sceams brought along an amused security guard.
08 august 02. thursday. day six.
we checked out this morning, and left our bags at the shop where we booked our snorkel trip and went off for banana pancake breakfast. yummy. it was raining though, even when we got into the boat, the rain was still there. our boat had a mafia guy and his wife or mistress maybe, a danish couple, a belgian couple and us. 8 people to a boat. taking a small longtail boat out in the big sea and rain is a freezing experience. plus we were dressed in our swimwear does not help. we were trying to keep warm behind our thin layer of sarongs. first snorkel site was ok, not great. then the boat went through a storm to this island where we stopped for lunch. waited there under the shelter of caves for the rain to subside. then back to the main island to drop everyone else off coz they were too cold and wanted out, so eventually only the belgian couple and us were left. during lunch we were talking to the danish guy and he told us he wanted to have monkeys outside his beach hut which was why he came to thailand. he oso asked me whether there were monkeys in singapore, which was a strange question, not one i usually get in response to 'i am from singapore'. so the next island we went to after dropping everyone off was monkey island, and all of us immediately thought of the danish guy who was so close to seeing what he came all the way here for. we fed the monkeys some left over pineapple from our lunch, then to the next snorkel point which was very nice and we saw a water snake. supposedly poisonous but somehow i didn't remember that till after. it started to rain heavily again, and next stop the boat stopped at this area of rocks. we were shivering from the cold and told the boatman we will not get down. then he told us this is the way to maya beach, and we were instantly motivated to get out into the water despite the rain and cold. oh well, almost. it was freaking cold!
the way to maya beach was an adventure in itself. first we had to swim to the rocks. well, i waded my way there as much as possible. then we go from the rocks to this narrow cave which leads us to this path into the forest. then through this plantation, and to a view of the beach from the cliff, and then a descent down to the beach itself. all the while the rain was pelting on us, adding a sense of adventure to this whole thing. so after maya beach, we went back to the island. the belgian couple recommended us the guesthouse they were staying at, so we decided to follow them there to see if we can stay for the night. halfway through our brisk walk to the guesthouse following the belgian couple, we met francois and his frens! however, it was raining, and our bags were heavy so we told him we'll come back and get him when we are checked in. he began to say something in protest but i think we had walked off by then. so the place we went to was mr. jong's guesthouse, which was near to where we originally thought of staying, this really cheap backpacker hostel along the road. the room was nice and at a decent price, so we had a shower, put down our things, and went back to look for francois. he was still sitting there at the same place but his frens had left. think he waited more than an hour, so we felt very bad. especially after he told us he was too afraid to walk away to even go to the toilet, eventually he had to go but not without telling the waitress to look out for us. so we went to francois' bungalow, then to matthieu's hotel suite. we woke them up actually. we wanted to have champagne with them but think they weren't feeling too well. so we went for dinner first. we had seafood. (which reminds me that at railay, we had so much seafood that there was one day both of us woke up with swollen eyes. it was quite hilarious. and wy even managed to wear her contacts, all the while wondering why she was having so much difficulty putting them on.) after we went for a massage, the supermarket kind that everyone along the street can see you inside. then we went for a drink at the only disco pub on phi phi, then back to mr. jong's guesthouse.
09 august 02. friday. day seven.
checked out early morning and went to leave our bags at francois' place. then to do some last minute shopping. wy went for another massage, while i went back to ao lang dalam. we didn't have lunch coz we spent all our money on the samsong for lg, mel etc. then took a ferry to phuket, van transport to airport where we had a quick lunch with our remaining 90 baht of coins. nice sunset at phuket airport, and uneventful ride home. we took a long time to get out of the airport mainly coz i was stuck at the chocolate shop. shall learn to avoid the shop next time.