Ao Nang, Krabi Province, Thailand

29th June – 1st July 2018

After boarding our plane on time, we ended up sitting and waiting on the runway for a while, before take off. Before we took off, Joe was asleep, but that’s standard routine now. I waited until we were in the air, so that I could get my laptop out and do some work.

Despite the delay on the runway, we landed in Phuket on time, with no idea where we were going from there. We went through immigration and collected our bags, before making our way to the arrivals hall. When we got there, we found some information desks but with the language barrier, it was difficult to communicate. We knew that we wanted to go to Krabi and as the airport was at the northern end of Phuket, we thought it would be easy to just get a minibus off the island, over to Krabi.

Annoyingly, we couldn’t have been more wrong, and the only way for us to get to Krabi from Phuket airport, was a taxi, which would have cost us around £70. As we didn’t want to pay this much money, we decided to commit to the long route, and it was very long.

First of all, we had to get a public bus from the domestic terminal, into Phuket Town. Finding the bus at the domestic terminal was a problem in itself, but we found it and were happy that it was only 100 baht each (£2.30). The journey into town took around fifty minutes, and when we arrived at the bus station, we were ushered into a minivan, where we had to pay to go to Krabi. This journey cost us 140 baht each (£3.20) but it was a long one, going back up the roads that we had just come down from the airport!

After around 3 and a half hours, we arrived in Krabi Town. However, this wasn’t our end destination, as we were wanting to stay in Ao Nang, which is a town in Krabi Province. We asked for some advice and were told to get another public bus (similar to the jeepneys in the Philippines). We luckily could get one from where we got dropped off, but this then drove down into the centre of Krabi to do any pickups, before eventually heading to Ao Nang. We couldn’t complain too much, as it did only cost 60 baht each (£1.40), meaning the whole trip cost us less than £14 between us, which was a massive discount on the taxi prices, even if it did take us nearly all day.

After an hour on the jeepney, we finally arrived in Ao Nang, where we got off the bus and tried to find somewhere to stay. We had taken a different approach to accommodation this time, as we hadn’t booked anything in advance. We thought we would try this, as Nathalia and Jalal (who we met at AKD) told us that they do this all the time and often find cheap guest houses that aren’t advertised online. We weren’t fans of this method at all, as although we had done some research of cheap places, all the cheap rooms had gone when we got there. It was hot and too hard to carry our big bags around, looking, so in the end, we found a café with wifi and got onto booking.com instead.

Luckily, we found a cheap place to stay, although it was a little bit of a walk from the front. We thought that it would be okay though, so we booked it and set off.

A very hot and sweaty twenty-five minutes later, we arrived at our guest house for the night. Fortunately, we arrived just before dark, but as we were approaching, we both had the same worrying thought, as we passed the lake – frogs! We checked in and were shown to our room, in the depths of the jungle!

Once we had dropped our bags off, we had to go back to the reception area to get wifi signal to find somewhere for dinner. While we were sat researching, I could hear frogs, which was very off putting. I then spotted a frog on the back of a chair and freaked a little bit. The owner noticed and tried to scare it away, but as he did, the frog jumped so high and so far in one go, there was no controlling where it would go. That was the final straw for me, and I had to go back to the room.

Back in the room, we debated our options, as the wifi didn’t work, we didn’t have a clue where to go and I didn’t want to have to confront leaping frogs. In the end, we decided to get a takeaway, and the only thing that Joe could find that delivered, was pizza. It wasn’t the most traditional start to our Thailand adventure, but if we wanted to eat, we had no choice. Joe was back and forth to the reception area to sort it, making sure he kept the frogs out.

When our pizza arrived, we ate it in our room, while sorting other bits and pieces out. We then spent the night playing cards and sorting photos and videos, before eventually going to bed at around midnight.

The next day, we had no plans, so ended up having a bit of a sleep in. I got up around 8 and researched a few Thailand based journeys, as the wifi was working for me. Joe slept in until about 9, when I woke him, as I was hungry. We got ready and packed the day bag, before heading out.

We walked to the front, and then along the shops, looking for somewhere that did breakfast. We found a café and sat down. We both ordered croissants, but to our usual South East Asian luck, they were all sold out. While we walked along the front, we priced up, from different places, buses and boats to our next stop.

As we are in low season, we learned that there were no boats, which we ideally wanted, so had to book a minibus. It didn’t sound too bad though, as we got picked up from our accommodation in Ao Nang and got dropped off at our next accommodation in Koh Lanta. We didn’t book anything right away, we just wandered at first.

We went to the beach front along the first bit of road we were on, to enjoy the views, but we couldn’t get on the beach, as the tide was so high.

We guessed that the next beach would be the same, but we went to have a look anyway. The tide was high, but we tried to walk along the front away. We got splashed a bit, but it was fine. We eventually came to some steps, so went up them and seemed to be at the tourist strip of Ao Nang.

Thailand, at this point, was not as I expected it to be, but I couldn’t think why. Along the front, we had seen the typical Thai boats that appear on photos, and we looked out over the beautiful sea, at the islands and mountains, but looking behind us, it was just too holiday-like. There wasn’t much culture or natural look to it, as Burger King shone brightly on the front.

As the tide was so high, we struggled with finding something to do, as we had planned a beach day. We wandered in and out of the many souvenir shops, eyeing up possible patches, before we decided to head back to our room.

Our guest house had a pool, and we needed some wifi to book a place in Koh Lanta, before we booked a bus, so we decided to use the time wisely. Also, we had bought a six litre bottle of water in the morning, as it was so much cheaper than constantly buying smaller bottles, and Joe insisted on carrying it around, but it was getting too heavy.

When we got back, we spent some time by the pool, and in the shade looking up places and getting a few things booked, before we decided to head back out again. I was so hungry, as we hadn’t really eaten since breakfast, besides some really cheap bananas we had bought (a bunch of 13 cost us 20 baht, which is about 45p!) but they were tiny.

As it was a little too early for tea, we walked back along the front, as we wanted to go to the beaches again, knowing that the tide would have gone out. I got a cheap pineapple shake along the way to try and keep some of the hunger at bay.

When we arrived at the beach, the tide was far out, but huge black clouds had come over head. We took a couple of photos, before heading back towards our hostel, before the rain came down.

On the way back, we stopped in a restaurant for some dinner. The prices were so much higher in Ao Nang, than they were in Siem Reap, but we had to eat. We found one place and chose a table which was upstairs and under cover. There was nobody else in, but we put that down to us being really early.

Ordering the food was difficult because of the language barrier, but we got there in the end. The food took ages to come, and to say we were the only ones in, I don’t know what they were doing. When it eventually arrived, they didn’t tell us which was which, so we had to try and guess, but we had both ordered curry and both were hot, so Joe had the hotter, as his was called Hot Thai Curry.

When we finished, we had a little bell on the table to press for the bill. It seemed strange to us, but we pressed it anyway. Nothing happened, after multiple times of pressing it and so much time passed. The service was so bad, as we sat there for ages with no one coming to clear our plates, or coming to check if we were okay, they were all too busy chatting downstairs to care.

Eventually, we went down and paid, as we weren’t going to get served upstairs. When we left, we crossed over to the beach and sat and watched the sun set.

Once the sun had gone down, we decided to make our way back to our room. We felt very boring, but we didn’t want to spend more money when we didn’t need to, our legs were tired from walking so much, and I didn’t want to encounter any frogs in the dark, so we made a joint decision.

Back at the guest house, we played some cards, and chilled out in the room. Joe tried to get the World Cup on the TV, but had no luck, as the TV didn’t have many channels and the wifi was too poor. I caught up on some writing and video work, before we went to bed.

The next morning, we could have another lie in, as we weren’t being collected until 10. I woke up around 8 and Joe was awake just after. Joe nipped out for some breakfast, while I got ready.

When he was back, we ate our food, before finishing packing our bags and heading to the reception area. We checked out and waited for our minivan to arrive, to take us to Koh Lanta.

Ao Nang is not what I expected it to be. As it is the most recommended place to stay in Krabi, I think I thought it would have been more than it was. It was a shame that the tide was so high for the majority of the day, meaning that we couldn’t sit on the beach, but no one could help that. I guess it gave us chance to sort ourselves out a little bit, as we were in Thailand and knew a little more about the place. Let’s hope Koh Lanta is more beautiful – we’ve heard great things about it!

To travel is to live, Katie x