AoNang, Krabi

A very early start for the next leg of our journey, up at 6am to catch the first ferry from Koh Samui to Don Sak. 2 hours later we hit the mainland, then followed by a 2 hour wait and a 3 hour bus journey to Krabi town. The final leg was much easier, a half hour taxi to our hostel in AoNang and we were finally there. The hostel was ok, not the luxury we'd been used to in Koh Samui, but it was nice enough. It had a very good location aswell, a 2minute walk from Aonang beach and right opposite a 24hour McDonalds and the view from the hostel was amazing.

We stayed here for 5 nights in total but really just 2 or 3 would have been enough as there's not a great deal to do here. Our first day was wasted really by all the travelling but we did get to the beach for a little bit. It was a lot less touristy than Lamai which was good, but the water was no where near as nice and clear. We spent the next day just exploring the area. We were trying to find the Krabi Tsunami Memorial but because of the tide we couldn't get far enough along the beach but we did come across the 'Shell Cemetery'. It seemed like it was only accessable when the tide was out as it ran between 2 small islands. It was just like a small beach but instead of covered by sand it was covered completely by shells! They weren't just broken up little shells either, there were the sort that you'd actually buy in the souvenir shops, bright orange ones, gold ones and lots of starfish too.

Out third day we decided to go to a Thai cooking school. Fist, we prepared all the dishes. We got to do 5 altogether, chicken soup, panang curry as a side dish,pat thai noodles and chicken as a main, a noodle and seafood salad and a banana smootie to wash it all down! Once all the ingredients were prepared we started cooking. One by one we did our dishes, which were really easy to do. None of them took more than 10 minutes start to finish. Once cooked we moved from the kitchen to upstairs where we got to sit with a view of all the mounains and eat our dishes. They were all lovely, especially the soup and the curry. Our least favourite was the salad as it just tasted of noodles in ketchup with a bit of a fishy taste! Other than that it was a great meal, which I'm sure Simon is going to be cooking for everyone back home!

On our fith day we got a long-tail boat across to Rai Leh west, which according to Lonely Planet is one of their favourite beaches in Thailand. It was a really nice beach, the water was crystal clear and it was lined with palm trees, but unfortunately the weather was against us on this day. After about an hour it was pretty obvious we weren't going to get a day swimming in the sea and exploring the coves. Tropical storms quickly came and we ended up having to sit in a resturant eating ice cream and playing cards for the next 2 hours. Luckily the boats were still running to take us back, as the sea was getting very rough and Rai Leh is only accessable by boat. So after a rough ride back we got back to AoNang completely drenched, but it was a good day despite the weather. We spent our last evening in a lovely resturant before heading home to pack ready to leave for Phuket the next day!