A Step Off The Beaten Path

Squeezing into a taxi car for the 3 hour trip to the Thai border. Now that’s family togetherness!

A number of you brought it our attention that we haven’t posted in a while. I could offer up a number of valid excuses, but the truth is that we’ve been pretty lazy of late. At the end of the last post, we mentioned how the lovely beach at Otres 2 in Sihanoukville, Cambodia had sucked us in. Well, we ended up staying there for 6 days before finally deciding it was time to make our way back to Thailand. So, we took a taxi north to the Thai border, crossed over and made our way to the sleepy, somewhat artsy town of Trat for a few days. Amazingly, Trat has an airport with one runway, and we used it to fly from Trat (Eastern Thailand) to Krabi (Western Thai peninsula). This saved us loads of time that it would have taken us to travel by bus all the way around the Gulf of Thailand.

Boarding a plane from Trat to Krabi. Such cute little airports!

Once we landed, I think the first thing we noticed was that everything is more expensive here. The best places to eat (and eat cheaply) are the markets. They are a wonder of colors and tastes and smells. Even though we can’t identify half of what we’re looking at most of the time, we’ve always been able to find something tasty to eat.

Krabi is known as an embarkation point for other destinations and boat tours. But it also has a pretty terrific night market. Even so, we only stayed 2 days before taking a longtail (a long wooden boat with a motor whose propeller is at the end of a very long axle) to Railay Beach, known as a kind of mecca for rock climbers. We could see why with all the craggy limestone cliff faces and karsts. But it also has some spectacular beaches. There’s nothing authentic about Railay beach. You’re surrounded by resorts and guesthouses, restaurants, bars, and tour shops that cater to tourists. Yet, the feeling there is laid back and relaxed. Book a tour around the beautiful islands that dot the horizon or spend the day lounging on the beach. We did more of the latter, especially after we discovered Hat Phra Nang, among the prettiest beaches I’ve ever seen! Unfortunately, we also experienced our first real wave of sickness. Something (a virus? possibly food-born illness?) tore through 4 of us and lasted about 3 days. Here’s a few pictures pre-illness 🙂

Hat Phra Nang beach and Princess Cave in the background. You can actually swim into the caves and climb through to the other side!

Our first sunset at Hat Phra Nang beach. I know . . . we’re too dark. Someone please teach me how to take a sunset photo using an iPhone!

We did do one boat trip around the various islands. And I took the opportunity early on our last morning to do a little rock climbing. The trail to the beach has a rock wall that leads to a Viewpoint that overlooks Railay Beach. It then splits off and leads down to a “secret” lagoon.

Catching the sunset from a sand bar between 2 islands. At high tide, the sand bar disappears.

West and East Railay Beach from the Viewpoint overlook. Wow!

Secret Lagoon at low tide. When the tide rises, the whole thing becomes an inviting (and magical) swimming pool.

So where are we right now? We’re in south Thailand, relaxing on the island of Ko Yao Noi in the middle of the Andaman Sea near Phuket (a famous island just west of us). Koh Yao Noi is a nice place to hang out and do nothing. In many ways, it’s lacking the “Wow” factor that Railay and some of the islands have. But the feel and the pace seems to suit us just fine.

Happy 16th Anniversary! This pic is from today’s outing – driving around the island. Note the cute longtail boat in the background.

Getting a little work done along Pasai Beach on Ko Yao Noi island. It’s low tide. Good time to catch up on some school work . . . and this darn travel blog!

What’s next? I think we’ll travel to Phuket for a few days. Then it’s time to make our way up to Bangkok. We really want to see the floating markets and give the big city another chance to wow us. Admittedly, we were a little too shell-shocked the first time we were there to appreciate it. Believe it or not, our time in southeast Asia is almost up! We leave on April 11. More on that in future blog posts.