Travel Around Thailand 7 – Krabi and the Andaman Sea

My girlfriend and I arrived in Singapore a few days ago.  This place is pretty cool, but more about that later.

Last week we headed to the Hua Lampong train station in Bangkok and caught an overnight train to Surat Thani and transferred to a bus to Krabi Town in Krabi prefecture.  We didn’t stay in Krabi Town very long, but there doesn’t really seem to be much to do there except try to avoid the swarm of tuk tuk drivers that insist that you must obviously want to be anywhere besides wherever you currently are.

We found our way to Long Beach Krabi Villas, a great Ao Nang hostel, located just outside the small town of Ao Nang. The place is situated right on a secluded part of the beach with breath-taking views of the Andaman Sea.

In addition to that we also got to stay in a small thatch-roof bungalow too. A 5-night stay only cost a total of about $125. How cool is that!

The only potential drawback is that there isn’t any electricity during the day. It might be a bit irritating to some, but I found it somewhat nice to be disconnected for awhile.

The town of Ao Nang is very small. Parts of it are nice, but overall most of the people there are pretty annoying. The town only really exists as a tourist town, so every man, woman, and child is eager to get you on their tuk tuk / in their restaurant / in their massage parlor / in their Armani suit store (special price just for you: buy one get one free! Today only!). If you really want to avoid being hassled it’s best to just walk on the beach rather than the sidewalk.

Now most people go to Krabi or other areas of the Andaman Sea to do things like snorkeling, scuba diving, island tours, rock climbing, or all sorts of other recreational things. We didn’t do any of that, mostly because we’re running on a tight budget.

Instead we mostly just relaxed on the beach or took a quick trip into town. You actually have to take a long tail boat to cross a short canal to get into town from Long Beach, which is kind of fun (I guess that sort of counts as a tourist activity).

Me in front of some long tail boats

We were also the very first guests at Long Beach for this season. To celebrate the beginning of the season (and the end of Buddhist lent–3 months without alcohol) , the owner invited three of his best friends from school over to hang out for the weekend (and drink lots of Thai whiskey while singing karaoke). For whatever reason, they decided to invite us to party with them on one of the nights. It was fun to do something “real” that wasn’t some kind of polished packaged tourist activity (even though the English songs in the karaoke machine were extremely limited…).

We also made friends with some of the stray beach dogs that roam around. In some parts of the world stray dogs may be vicious, but overall stray dogs in Thailand are generally quite friendly since they spend most of their lives around humans.

A stray 3-legged dog we nicknamed “Sam” (the Thai word for “Three”)

So all in all, we might not have done much in Krabi, but I felt like I got my money’s worth. I enjoyed just getting away from the pollution and congestion of Bangkok and relaxing for a few days.

Other Popular Posts:

• Travel Around Thailand 1 – Preparation
• Singapore
• Travel Around Thailand 9 – Back in Thailand