My original plan was to travel through Laos after Vietnam but the more I had thought about it the more I wanted my last bit of travelling to be by the sea and not stuck on huge massive bus journeys. So I had booked myself a cheap flight from Hanoi to Bangkok. I landed in Bangkok at 1.30pm and shared a taxi with a woman I had travelled from Hanoi with into town. I carried on to the train station as my plan was to get a sleeper train down to Krabi.
My taxi took forever to get to the train station as it was avoiding the areas where riots were taking place. Traffic was awful and it took over half an hour to go 4km. Eventually I arrived at the station where I was told all the sleeper trains were full. I panicked but decided that this couldn’t really be true so I tried asking a random train station helper man. He took me upstairs to another office and I somehow easily bought a ticket. When the train arrived there was then great confusion as there seemed to be two carriages that were number 10. Some of us were moved about and I ended up in the unfortunate group of people sat on the floor at the side of the train whilst they tried to fix our carriage. I’m not sure what was wrong with it but it had no electricity and it wouldn’t stick on to the other carriages. After basically crashing the train a few times right in front of us in an attempt to force it together they eventually brought a new one. I was pretty glad about that and was finally on my way to Krabi. A Canadian guy called Brandon was sat opposite me so we had a long conversation about the bum gun and then went to explore the restaurant car. We sat in the extremely noisy car (it had no windows) and ate a really good Thai meal whilst shouting a lot to try to have a conversation. I was so tired and slept really well on the train that night!
I woke up on the sleeper train to the familiar drones of the orange juice lady passing through the carriage. “Orange juuuuiiiicccceeeee”. It was my dad’s birthday so I took a quick photo for him. I later found out it was also the King’s birthday and so many Thai’s were wearing yellow t-shirts as yellow is the colour for Monday and the King was born on a Monday.
I arrived in Surat Thani a couple of hours later than I was meant to (not a surprise at all!) and was dragged from bus to songthaew, bus to songthaew until I finally reached my hostel in Krabi. The only thing that happened along the way was that I found a bumbag in the toilet at a café I was waiting at. It had loads of cash, passport, cards, everything in it. I found the guy it belonged to and reunited him with it! I’d seen other girls use the toilet in between him and me though and none of them had picked it up.
My hostel in Krabi was amazing. It was called Pak Up and was school themed. Each dorm was a different school subject. I was in “Thai”. I ventured out to find the local night market, to get a pad thai and a coconut shake. Back at the hostel I met my roommates properly. Two of the girls, An and Andrea were going to go on a boat trip the next day so I decided to book on as well, as did our other roommate Alina. The weather hadn’t been great in Krabi but boats always seem to know how to avoid the rain so I figured it should be a good day!
Alina, An, Andrea and I were picked up at 8.30am for our four island trip. We were taken to Ao Nang beach where we were given pink stickers and we waited around for a bit for all the other pink sticker people to arrive. We headed out in a long boat to island number one – Tup and Mor Island. It is actually two islands but when the water is low you can walk across a narrow strip of sand from one to the other. We explored Tup Island a bit, drank coconuts and swam in the sea.
Our second stop was Chicken Island where we didn’t actually get onto the land as it was a snorkelling spot. The snorkelling was okay, it wasn’t amazing but we all enjoyed ourselves anyway.
We then stopped at Poda Island and had some rice, chicken and vegetables that was included in our tour. It rained for about 5 minutes but luckily most of the day was a bit sunny and still warm. There were lots of boats having lunch at the same time and I think there was too much litter and too many people for me to fully enjoy this stop!
Our last stop at Phra Nang Beach was lovely. We had lots of time to lie on the beach and relax. I swam out into a cave with a German girl called Sasha who we’d met on our boat. Once we were in the cave we could stand up and walk about which was cool. On the swim back she accidently swam into a rock when we were talking and cut her leg. It wasn’t too bad and we didn’t realise until we got out of the sea and the blood mixed with water was running all down her leg. Lots of people were just staring! She was fine though. It wasn’t that bad.
We soon had to go back to Krabi as it was the end of the day. I’d had such a great day with Alina, An and Andrea. We had a really great time together. That evening it poured it down so we ate in a nearby restaurant then went for a beer in the rooftop bar at the hostel with our other roommate Pete. We watched a Thai man on guitar try to start up the open mic night before we all went to bed knackered from our day of island hopping!
An and Andrea went on a day trip to Phi Phi Island. I had decided that I would probably hate Koh Phi Phi and Alina had been and didn’t like it so we headed to Railay Beach for the day. Finally the sun was shining again and it was so sunny out!
We had a late breakfast then we had to deal with Alina’s card being blocked but we eventually made it to Railay beach which was just incredible! We just sunbathed and I bought a new ring at the silver shop before we had to catch the last boat back.
That evening when An and Andrea returned from Phi Phi, we met our new room mate Ben and some German guys from another dorm and we all went down to the night market. We were joined by three Swedish guys and so there was a big group of us in the end. We had a good laugh and it seemed that quite a few of us were thinking of heading on to Koh Lanta so we figured we might meet there too.
We had thought about doing a day trip to Koh Lanta but it’s such a big island so instead we made the decision that as we were all getting along so well, Alina, An, Andrea and I would go and stay on Koh Lanta for a few days. We had one last day in Krabi so we just went back to Railay Beach as An and Andrea hadn’t been. Again it was just gorgeous! We met a Canadian girl called Jennifer on the boat there so she joined us on the beach for the day.
Andrea and I hired a kayak and paddled around the sea. Just as we were hiring it Alina had bought us all Magnums so we had to take ours with us but it was pretty awesome to just stop for a bit and float around in the middle of the sea having our ice creams!
We had a great beach day and that evening we met even more people in our hostel and went to a different night market where local children were performing on a stage in the middle. It was so cute! We all got split up but I am a good head and shoulders above the average Thai person so in the busy night market I could still see! We booked our minibus for the next morning to Koh Lanta and our hostel helped us to book an affordable bungalow that was in a resort so we would have a pool and be on the beach too. We were so excited!
dededos
blakekathryn
stormborns
pixelskylines
turnnoffyourmind
annaxmalina
germansingergirl