what we did

Day 1
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reached Krabi at night time. After we reach the hotel Krabi La Playa located at end of Ao Nang beach, we check out the room and was delighted to find the room was indeed connected to the pool with own jacuzzi. We aren't sure if the agent was able to book us this type of rooms. The agent in Singapore was not very familiar with this hotel as it is rather nice.

we went out around 9pm to check out the streets. Its surpising quiet for a beach resort. When I was in Phuket or Bali, the streets are always noisy and full of people. We are happy to note that the human traffic is light and the locals very friendly. There are massage establishments every 5-6 shops and majority of shops are selling the same sort of stuff in between the various resort/hotels nearby.
Had dinner at a small place called Mother House. They have nice food and give complimentary fruits after dinner. :)

Day 2
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This morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we went on the island trip that was included in the Free & Easy package. This is kind of a pleasant surprise as this was not mentioned in the brochure which we refer to when we book the trip with the Singapore agent. The island tour took us to the 4 islands nearby, namely Tup Island , Chicken Island (snorkel nearby, but didn't land there), Poda Island and Phranang Bay (cave) on longtail boats (not speedboat)
I attached a typical brochure for this tour for your easy and convenient reference, especially for Danny.. hehe, since u are going in July mah... think the typical price is abour 350baht or 850baht, the price vary i think according to the type of boat.




The box lunch provided was fried rice with a fried egg, soaking in oil..... but still nice.. (oily thou.. lol) .. we ate on Poda island.. the view is fantastic, the water crystal clear and sooooooo warm...........

oh, did i mentioned that the foot of my slipper broke? ro i had to wear my BF's slippers the entire trip :P lucky he brought a pair of dive booties, so he lent me his slippers.

I cannot remember where we had dinner, but it was not very nice. Think it was one of the the by-the-sea restaurnat, the first one.. the BBQ fish we ordered was actually cooked in aluminium foil and not really BBQ-ed.. and it didn't even taste like garlic and pepper (like how we ordered), the shrimp cakes was some factory product and not nice too... the tomyam soup was a bit too sour and too much tomatoes in it.. The dinner costs us an unhappy 580baht..

I bought a pair of fake diesel slippers for 150baht. Quite comfy.


Day 3
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we did nothing much today.
we ate breakfast, I think the lady at the eggs sections was not taught how to cook. the oil was not even hot when she broke the egg.. and I stand there for a few seconds, watching the egg slowly turn white.. soaking in oil...

we walked a lot that day, i think. I noticed that most shops sells fake Billabong and Diesel stuff. I can't really find a Krabi souvienir t-shirt even! Also, lots of stalls selling beaded accessories, but i find their prices expensive compared to those I bought in Bangkok. But because i got sunburnt on my shoulders and most of my clothes i brought were singlet with the exception of my House Rabbit T-shirt, I had to get one more t-shirt that can cover my shoulders during the day. I paid 220baht for a fake oakley pink t-shirt... :(

We had lunch at a place where it was swamped with people that nite before, but the tomyam soup is so oily and full of tomato taste.. yeeks.. the noodle soup my BF ordered was so salty!! my cheese burger was only so-so.. the patty looks dried up and disgusting :(! I wonder why it was so crowded?

We also spend the day wondering what to do for the next 2 full days. We were studying the few standard brochures all the tour agents are carrying. As we are all burnt... we are trying toa void more snorkelling. Me being a big chicken opted out of sea canoeing... also, that will mean, being burnt even more!! I would like to visit Phi Phi island, but its mostly all snorkelling trips so we eliminate that idea. Anyway, i was there a few years back and have visited all the islands that are covered in the tour anyway. In the end, we decided on the 1 day Phang Nga Island (8.30am - 4pm) tour. We book the tour after we had dinner.

Here's a glimpse of a standard Phi Phi island tour.


We had dinner at nana resturant near our hotel. The green curry is very watery and tasted too much of coconut milk.. its very disappointing. The chicken with cashew nuts was too sweet. We were of the view that we must be cursed to visit so many not so nice eating places.

Day 4
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we waited and waited at the hotel lobby.. the van to pick us up from the hotel for our day tour did not arrived. The pickup time was 8.30-8.45am. We asked the hotel for help, to help us call the agent at 9.15am. The hotel reception came back and told us, the agent said "they are on their way".. hmm,. i really got rather pissed off.. i frankly dun believe the "on their way" bullshit, but decided to give them the benefit of a doubt... at 10am, it was the last straw, we asked the hotel for help again, to call the agent to cancel and get a refund... which the hotel reception was very helpful.. we got it arranged and we went to the agent's office to get our refund. The lady at the agent explained that they were there and picked up 2 persons at our hotel which was not meant to be on their list... meaning the agent driver pick up the wrong folks and the folks went up the wrong van.. i also dunno to believe or not.. Didn't really care at that point, BF got the full refund and we have to re-plan the activities for the day. We decided to make a trip to Krabi Town cos we got tired of the beach at this point and thought maybe check out what the town has to offer. The standard fare to Krabi town by taxi is a mean 400baht PER WAY.
Meaning a 2-ways trip will set us back by 800baht... phew, that was bit expensive!
while traveling to the town, I suggested to visit the Fossil Shell beach which is on the way back, for the detour, the driver is charging us extra 200baht... that total 1000baht is roughly about SGD$42..

We reached the town in about half an hour and headed to the pier but noticed that the scenary was not as nice. There is only one shopping centre there so we headed there to check out the food & shopping choices. Thank god, i found Boots pharmacy!!! I spend 2150baht on toiletries and comestic.. hehe.. I like the Vit C range of products that they got.. the prices are very reasonable. My BF bought 3 polo shirts for his dad... As i mentioned before, it is hard to find non-surfing type clothing in Ao Nang beach area.. hehe. We found the ideal weating place under the shopping centre at the carpark!! There are 2 stalls selling rice and noodles for the people who works nearby. We order rice noodle soup (for me) and fried rice (for him) at 30baht each.. and we had coconut drink too! I loved that noodle soup!! except it was a bit too oily, but i didn't care. I truly enjoyed it. But its wierd sitting amongst rows of thai ladies, these 2 foreigners eating there.. we got some curious looks.. but that cannot be helped.

After the town, which we only spend 2.5hrs, we headed to the Fossil Shell beach. This is an area where the ground is nothing but shell fossil... its amazing HOW much shells there were!! The scenary is rather nice and the wind is cool. Even on the ao nang beach itself, there are lots of little clam shells all over the beach!!

hehe.. this night we ate at a place that is always crowded with white people.. I played safe and ordered a Calzone..he ordered tomyam soup, fried beef and rice.. his beef were WAY over-cooked... urgh...

So, we still wanted to do our Phang Nga island tour, we decided to ask the hotel to help us book. The hotel staff are so lovely, always very courteous and helpful.


Day 5
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Today, the transport right on time.. we started our tour.
First, we were brought to a places where the local sell their tapped liquid rubber to a household to gather it all togther to sell to factories. I didn't know that rubber is so stinky.. yucks. We had to wait there for a while as we are expecting 2 more persons to join us from here, so we were checking out the houses of the local people. We even saw somelemongrass bushes!.. heheh... there was some commotion at the house across the road, where an old lady discovered a snake hiding under her lemongrass bushes. It was pretty tramatic for me, cos they killed that snake... by stabbing its head with something sharp.. eeks... its gross!! and the head almost came off... but the poor snake is still alive.. I wanted very much to get out of there!!

lucky the other 2 girls arrived soon.. and we went off... we are the only asian in the vans.. the others are from Austria and Denmark. We stopped at a place (? where,i duno) and walk to the small pier where we board a longtail... we cruised along the mangrove area and slowly into the open sea... into the kayaking area, went under a cave and pass the floating village at Koh panyee and stopped at Phang Nga island, the island they fondly called James Bond island, cos the film The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed there (did u watch that movie? i did not). It is small place, I seriously thought it was bigger... hha.. and it was CRAWLING full of tourists... I was disgusted at one particular asian lady who opening threw her rubbish on the floor when the rubbish bin is like 4 feet away from her. I hope she gets diahorea that night. We bought some grilled cuttlefish from one of the stores.. it was heavenly... the dried cuttlefish was toasted on charcoal before being rolled flat.. hehe. Other that the 2 cuttlefish stores, the same range of shell souveiners are on sale there...

We proceed back to Koh Panyee to have our lunch which is included in the tour at the Panyee Resturant, the food was disappointing. urgh. Not nice and not enough to be shared by 6 people (By 4pm, we are starving.)

After lunch, we went to a temple located in a cave. it very cool cos there are so many bats above!! and lots of monkeys outside. It started raining at 2.30pm.. we continued to the last leg of our tour which is to visit a waterfall.. which is rather small and bit of a disappointment.. hehe.. nevermind.. none of us wanted a dip cos the water did not look too inviting...

we decided that since, it is going to be our last nite at Ao Nang, we do not want to risk having lousy cooking. We went back to Mother House and ordered a lot of food. Masamam curry, pandan leaves chicken, tomyam soup (yes, must try everysday) , steam curried seafood (otak otak in a bowl).. ah...their food is nice... and we happily parted with 610baht


Day 6
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After breakfast, we make our last trip to Phranang bay where we went on Day 2. We stayed for an hour or so, before booking a longtail back to the Ao Nang beach area. The thing is the minimum pax for the boat to take off is 5 pax and we need to go back so we had to pay the boatsman 300baht just to ferry the 2 of us to the beach where our hotel is located. We bought some street food to eat back in the hotel. We waited for 25mins or so, for 4 BBQed chicken wings... haha.. its a long and sweaty wait under the hot sun. The 4 chicken wings cost 50baht.. and were VERY nice..

we have to rush like mad while packing and trying to eat cos the pickup van arrived 20mins too early... haha, I guess there is a first time for everthing.


After thought: I thought I might have diahorrea if i eat the street food cos I do have quite a weak stomach, but hey. No tummy ache, so they are very safe to eat!! even for weak tummies! Pictures up soon.