After a sleepless night on the bus we found somewhere to stay in Krabi. We started the day off with a full English breakfast! We felt like we were in holiday mode since the boys had arrived. Especially being in the south of Thailand, which is just amazing!!
Rich, Beth and me decided to hire out mopeds to explore Krabi. Steve went back to the room for a well earned nap!
After we'd got used to the mopeds and the ways of the road (luckily they drive on the left hand side so it didn't take too much getting used to, and there wasn't much traffic around so it was quite easy) we head out into Krabi to hunt down a beach! Krabi is so beautiful! It's full of long, winding roads with limestone rock formations. It was obviously quite difficult to take pictures of it when we were going along on the mopeds though!! Although there were signposts to various beaches we later found out that none of them can be reached by land and you have to catch a boat to get to any of them. We still enjoyed riding round the island though. We thought we'd found a beach at one point but its access was cut off by a large tree which we assumed had been there since the tsunami. There were lots of evacuation signs up all over the place as well in case of another tsunami.
We were all up fairly early the next day after a good night's sleep and took the mopeds out again in the morning sun, Steve came with us too. I managed to burn my legs on this trip, I can't believe how strong the sun is out here! We located a beach and Rich showed off his David Hasselhoff impression by running into the sea! Actually, he ran half the way and then gave up cos the tide was quite far out! It was entertaining to watch though! While this was happening, some weird guys tried to steal our mopeds! Luckily Beth was sat on hers and noticed what was going on! There's quite a hefty fine for not returning the bikes as you'd imagine!!
We caught a longboat out to Railay beach after the moped trip and it is just amazing there! I can't describe how idyllic the place is! We'd been told that we would be seeing the best beach in the world and it didn't disappoint! We were all straight in the sea, which was sooo warm! Unfortunately Beth was a little too hasty in her run to the sea and managed to go in wearing her money belt with her passport and money in! Oops! It soon dried out in the sun though!
It was the first day of our trip that we could actually sunbathe and we made the most of it! The longboats run until about 5 o'clock but we decided we wanted to stay later so that we could watch the sunset, so we persuaded one of the drivers to take us back a bit later. We watched the sunset from the other side of the island and it was stunning! We didn't get to see it set completely as we had to go and catch the boat. As we were waiting to get into the boat, one of the other drivers kept wishing us luck!! This worried me a bit! It wasn't something the Thai people normally say! Anyway, we set off just as it was getting dark. The trip should take around 30 minutes but we had to drop another couple off on the way. The driver didn't really appreciate this as he had to manoeuvre the boat past lots of rocks in the dark! We continued for about another 10 minutes when the engine cut out and we were met with the words "boat broken" from the driver!! We all thought he was joking at first but it turns out, he really wasn't! This is why the guys had been wishing us luck! It was pitch black by this point, and to add to the situation there was a storm brewing!! The driver said he'd get one of his mates to come and pick us up, but we figured it would take a while and didn't sound entirely convincing!! We were a bit worried being stuck in the middle of the ocean, with no lights and no boat engine!! Luckily, just at the right moment, a boat passed in the other direction so we flashed the torch at it and it stopped!! The people were so friendly and took us the rest of the way even though they'd been heading in the opposite direction! Our driver had to leave his boat in the middle of the sea!! It turned out to be quite a funny moment, and "boat broken" has become our phrase of the trip so far!!