Ao Nang is a fairly large town in Krabi Province. Our main reasons for visiting were to find a cheap room with a hot shower (fail) and to go on a 5 island tour (pass). The 5 island tour was via long-tail boats which you will have seen in many of our pictures. Our first stop was a small sand bar island, very small but picturesque. Next up we visited 'Paradise Beach' (Thais always seem to name their beaches and islands in such terms... It was a very nice beach but if that's paradise it might be time to consider atheism!)

We spent a while snorkelling here but the visibility wasn't too great. We ate lunch on the beach and then headed to our final stop, Hong Island. (Budding mathematicians amongst you may have noticed the slight discrepancy between paying for a 5 island tour and only being taken to 3 islands - but we weren't being ripped off as such, all the agencies visit 3 islands. Apparently renaming the tour hasn't crossed their collective minds. Hmmmm.) Hong was beautiful. First we toured a hidden lagoon in the boat and then headed round to the beach. It stretched for about 1 km and was the whitest, most perfect sand I've ever seen. It had the consistency of flour, lovely. At one end of the beach there was a large bay, shallow and full of coral and rocks and thousands of fish.

We headed off the beach to see a bit of the island and came across a huge monitor lizard ambling through the undergrowth. It was amazing to see such a huge creature in its natural habitat. It didn't seem at all perturbed by humans gawking at it. Just as it disappeared out of view, along came another one! This one came even closer and munched away on some vegetation for a while before following the first into the undergrowth. What an amazing experience, one of the best things we've seen in Thailand. Later we headed back to the beach and spent an enjoyable five minutes snorkelling before Katie freaked out 'at all the fish' and left me to fend for myself! It was a great place to snorkel though, lots of shoals of fish darting all around you.

The following morning we departed for Railay, a couple of kms up the coast. You have to go by boat to get there. There are a few beaches on the peninsula, all are framed by huge jagged limestone cliffs. Apparently it's one of the top climbing destinations in the world, and we could certainly see why. Accomodation choices were limited, to say the least, but eventually we found a hut for a rip off 400 B (but cheap for the area). However, the mosquitos were a nightmare and the holes in the mosquito net didn't help! Plus there was thumping dance music (the best kind for keeping you awake, dontcha think?) all night, so by the next morning we had come to the unanimous decision that it was time to move on. Destination - Chiang Mai. There was only one problem. A distance of over 1000 miles to traverse by bus on Thailand's extremely bumpy roads. Oh dear.