25th May – 29th May

Ending my time in Vietnam with a bang by eating a Beating Snake Heart, it wasn’t til later that another culinary delight presented itself to me at Hanoi Airport.

I didn’t eat it.

So where am I going? Well it’s off back to Thailand I go, to finish off where I haven’t been in Thailand. Namely the Andaman Coast. It was going to be a quiet few days as I needed to curb on my spending after Halong Bay so I figured I would just chill out there. I wish I didn’t.

The wet season decided to call in a bit earlier than usual. So like they say, rain stops play.

After a very long day of airports and nearly messing around with Ronald McDonald, I finally landed at Krabi and taken to Krabi Town after meeting an American in the taxi. It struck me that I’m now travelling on my own so I needed new travel buddies.

Arriving at Pak Up Hostel, I quickly fell into a deep sleep and woke to….rain. As I glumly stared out of the window sipping my tea, I tried to think of possibilities what I could do. The staff weren’t particularly helpful and spotting a break in the rain, I went for a walk round the centre. There was a really nice Wat and the harbour looked ok. The walk lasted half an hour. I wasn’t impressed. Particularly when the rain hit again, this time causing power cuts. See photos of Krabi Town.

So a day of reading it was! I actually enjoyed my reading and got to finish a book in one go. However, I managed to meet 2 English girls in the hostel who were in the same dire straits as me. We agreed to go out and try and make the most of Krabi when it finally stopped raining. We went to the floating restaurant on the beach while there was a power cut going on, and then headed towards the walking market and helped ourselves to fried ice creams yum yum! They left the next day to Ko Samui.

The next day, I booked myself to go on a rock climbing day morning at Railay Beach. (see next post on this)

But as I was hoping to stay in Ao Nang, up the Andaman Coast later that day, my hopes got dashed when the rain absolutely chucked it down spelling the end of my desire to get out of Krabi Town. I could have gone there but it would have meant wandering the streets of Ao Nang trying to find a decent hostel in the down pouring rain. So back to Krabi it was. This time I didn’t stay at Pak Up Hostel, I ended up staying at Good Dreams Guesthouse down the road where the staff was very nice and helpful. I ended up that evening watching films and reading.

Then I hoped to go to Ko Phi Phi the next day, but again my hopes were dashed thanks to the rains cancelling the boats to go there. Again, another day of reading and films. Could I go the next day? Nope, it was still raining.

Finally having enough of Krabi, I booked my bus ticket to Phuket. It wasn’t the place I especially wanted to go but at that time, I was willing to go anywhere that had no rains and Phuket seemed to be the option.

So lesson learned. Do not go to Krabi in the wet season.