When we arrived at Krabi airport we decided to go to Ao Nang rather than Krabi Town as it is supposedly nicer it is also a 20 min long tail boat ride rather than a 45 min ferry. However at Ao Nang we decided that it was a fairly standard mainland seaside town and we therefore jumped straight in a long tail boat around the headland to Railay. Railay is also mainland Thailand but it is isolated and no roads run to it due to some enormous sheer cliffs. The only way to access Railey is by boat so it has an islandy feel to it. It is also a very small place with only a few places to stay. After arriving we met up with my old university housemate and went for an explore which involved a long walk through the jungle and over some steep rocks to reach a different beach. I would love to say the effort was worth it but I cant! After that we stayed out on the other 2 beaches which were easily accessible. We stayed in Railey for a few more days and as Paul had already been there a week and the weather was unreliable we decided to catch a boat to Ko Phi Phi. We really enjoyed Railay and had the weather been a bit better we could have stayed longer. Once in phi phi or P P as it is known we caught a long tail boat to long beach which is a beach a little way out of town which was reportedly a good place to stay, unfortunately the prices for anywhere reasonable were a little out of our price range. So we walked back all the way to the main town and ended up staying in a hotel about 50m from where the boat had originally dropped us off. Whilst in pp we visited Maya bay which is on an island where they filmed ‘the beach’ to get there you could either get your boat driver to take you right round and land on the beach which cost around £4 per person or you could drop anchor around the other side of the island, swim to the island climb up and over some rocks walk across the island to the beach this route you avoided the fee. Being the avid adventurers (and tightwads) we are we decided this was the way for us it was quite difficult but also fun! Once at the beach it was undoubtedly beautiful but no more or less than many of the places we have visited so far. On the way back to the mainland the driver stopped a couple of times and allowed us off the boat to do some snorkelling which was fantastic with hundreds of different fish and even a sea snake swimming around. I was also very happy as Kate really enjoyed the experience as well as it was the first time she had been snorkelling or swam under water after her laser eye operation. The following day Paul was going to begin his Diving course so we decided to move onwards towards Malaysia. We caught a ferry back to Krabi Town where we had to spend the night before catching a bus to Satun the following day. In the morning a minibus turned up at our hotel and we went out to see the driver to see if it was for us. We showed him the ticket and he gestured for us to get on which we did. We then drove off to the town centre and got out of the bus ready to get on another. At this point when we showed our tickets to the next person they said we were in the wrong place. I had had a funny feeling that we weren’t in the right place on the way there so was already a little on edge. I went in to see the person in the office who told me to wait and someone would take us back to our hotel. Bearing in mind that it was now 10 mins past our pickup time at the hotel and the man in the office seemed a little too relaxed I got quite sharp with him, this seemed to do the trick and then he phoned our hotel to tell the owner what had happened. We were then taken back to our hotel and dropped off without a hint of an apology he even seemed a little bit put out that he had to take us back! The rest of the trip to Satun went smoothly and we arrived at the port with time to spare for a cup of tea. The Ferry to Langkawi was also smooth and we found a nice guesthouse almost immediately. Over the next few days we took it easy and hired a scooter and spent quite some time going to different ATM’s as the only one in the town we are staying was broken and so after an hours riding and six different tries we called the bank who told us they were updating the ATM’s and also they had frozen our account as it was being used in a strange place even though we had rung them before we left telling them exactly where we would be! So eventually we got out our money and went to the night market for dinner where they had the best chicken satay we’d ever had!
Which brings us to today where we’ve mainly been on the beach and as soon as we got there we went straight into the sea and I (Kate) got stung by a jelly fish on my back and wrist which hurt! So I spent most of the day on the beach away from the sea whilst Alex made man traps in the sand for me to test! Tomorrow we are getting the ferry to Penang and so our exploration of Malaysia continues………