We landed into Hat Yai, as we hadn't been sure where we wanted to go when we booked the flights so again we did this a little sideways!!! Once we got there and got our minibus transfer booked we had a bit of time to kill so we headed to a lovely little place...where Shane got his first taste of Thai Spicy!!! The dish had a little pork, and at least 5 chillies of different size, shape and heat, much to his delight!!!The sweat was pouring off him like never before!!!

The first major place we visited in Thailand was Krabi Town, not a huge amount to do here but it did give a hint of the spectacular scenery that was to come in Ao Nang, where we moved to. Here you could fully appreciate the huge limestone cliffs. We got a great deal on our room, due to it being low wet season...(for us that meant half an hour of rain over the 3 days we were there!!! How terrible!!)

Up first was a cooking class so we could try to learn to recreate some of the tasty food we have been having. Unfortunately it wasn't as good as we had hoped (even for Phil, the non chef!!!) The lady running the course seemed in a hurry and flew through all the dishes...on the plus side we did learn how to make a good papaya salad, and a great masaman curry....on the downside she used ketchup to make her sweet n sour...that's just not right surely??!!!!

Next up for us was a daytrip out to the islands off the coast in a long tail boat...seemed a good idea at the time, but what we didn't realise was that sitting on a speaker in a nightclub would actually be quieter than sitting in the boat with the crazy engines that they had,...think our hearing is just about back to normal now a week later!! Luckily that could not take away from the beauty of the islands. The height and the sheer cliffs in the area are breathtaking....although the same could not be said of the snorkelling where we really were not impressed! There was very poor visibility and not that many fish, after about 5 minutes we decided to just have a bit of a swim and then go back on board!!! The highlight was definitely Railay beach. This is known as a rock climbing heaven and you can see why - it's all caves and spectacular cliffs. We spent a bit of time here admiring all the over hangs and caves.