Farangy: Island Beach Vacation- Krabi, Koh Phi Phi, Railay

At Krabi

Last month, between the 2 school terms I got 14 days off to travel. My friend, Kira, and I went to south Thailand. The bus trip was long and grueling but totally worth it. We left Surin on Wednesday night October 10th on the 11:25 night bus to Bangkok. This trip was smooth and relaxing and took 6 hours, arriving in Bangkok at 4:30am. In Bangkok there are 3 major bus terminals, one that serves the north and east of Thailand, one that serves the east of Thailand and one the serves the south of Thailand. We needed to take a van from one part of Bangkok to the other, about an hour drive. We arrive in the southern bus terminal around 6:00. We walked inside thinking the ticket sellers would be closed but to our surprise they were wide open and ready to sell us tickets. We were able to get a 7am ticket straight to Krabi (the town we needed to get to take the ferry). All goes well and we arrive in Krabi around 8pm.

Krabi Pier

In Krabi we stay at a great hostel called Good Dream. The service was great, the rooms were clean, shared showers but they were heated and good food. We ate dinner and fell right asleep after sitting on a bus for over 18 hours. The next morning we wake up for a leisurely French toast breakfast and head down to the dock to get a boat over to Railay Beach. Krabi is a nice sleepy town and mostly just a passing through point for tourists.

Our boat trip to Railay Beach was slightly delayed. We thought it would be easy to get a boat but because it is low season there are few people leaving from this particular dock. We needed at least 6 people to get a reasonable price so we had to wait until about 1 o’clock before 2 more people showed up and the boat staff decided to take us with just 4.

Railay Beach is a peninsula between Krabi and another town called Ao Nang. Though it is attached to the mainland there are no roads and therefore the only way to get there is by boat. It has beautiful beaches and is a quiet area to relax. It is most famous for is rock climbing but I did not attempt that. We spent 3 night/2 days here just relaxing on the beach, hiking the view point, exploring a cave, and swimming.

View point at Railay

After Railay we were headed to island of Koh Phi Phi. In order to get to this island we had to go back to Krabi town and take a ferry from there. We spend the evening and night in Krabi and book a ferry for 9am the following day. We find Krabi to be a nice town and very similar to our home Surin. We eat our favorite soup noodles that are also served in Surin and head to the night market. It’s a big market and has lots of everything as typical in Thai markets. This market even has a live band with tables and chairs set up in the center of the market. This is different to the setup of other markets I have seen and been to and this is the first one with live music I have seen.

The next day we take the ferry to the island of Koh Phi Phi. It is located between Phuket and the western Andaman Sea coast. It is one of the most popular and touristy islands of Thailand. It’s known for its beautiful sunsets, snorkeling, scuba diving and filming of the movie “The Beach”. We did not reserve a hotel in advance. Since it off season we were informed by others that it would not be necessary to book a place. This was true and lots of hotels had openings but we wanted to find the cheapest. After maybe 45 minutes of asking about 20 different places we decided to bargain with the next place. It was called Heaven House. They told us 400 baht as many other places already had and I said can you take 300baht. They immediately said yes but don’t tell any other customers. We were fine with that and wished we’d thought to bargain much earlier. 300baht a night is about $10 for a double fan room and shared bathroom. It was a great deal. That afternoon we went exploring, shopping and in search of good western food, Pizza!! In Surin Pizza is very expensive and only served in 3 restaurants. In Koh Phi Phi they have huge slices for sale for just $2. Due to the amount of tourists that come through they are able to sell much more pizza and therefore sell it at a cheaper price. (This is my personal theory anyway).

Fire Twirlers

That night I went to watch the famous fire show. It also happened to be a Black Moon. Thailand is famous for is ancient full moon parties that have now turned into nightly parties with the full moon just being more popular and more crowded. At these parties there are talented fire throwers. They also have games for the tourists to participate in such as the limbo with a flaming fire stick, jump rope with a flaming fire rope, and jump through a ring of fire. I did the limbo and the hoop of fire. The jump rope looked a bit scary. (All very safe I’m sure with all fire codes followed).

Fire twirlers

The following day we went snorkeling. We visited the location of the film made in the year 2000 called “The Beach” unfortunately the producers tore down tree’s and planted non-native palm tree’s so it would look more like the book. We stopped by monkey bay to see lots of monkeys swimming and playing on the rocks and trees. We also floated past “Viking Cave” which is a unique location protected by armed guards where bird’s nest soup ingredients are protected. If you thought Shark’s fin soup was cool, birds nest soup is another Chinese delicacy. The birds around Viking save build unique saliva nests which are used to make the soup and are one of the most expensive animal products in the world. The Chinese name is yàn wō meaning swallows nest. A bowl of bird's nest soup can cost about $100. A kilogram of red nests (the nests harvested only in Thailand) can cost up to $10,000. The other type is the white nests which are about $2,000.

The beach from the movie "The Beach"

The next day we hiked to the top of the view point on koh phi phi. It was about a slow two hour hike in the blistering hot sun. Getting to the top was completely worth it. It was beautiful and you could see the shape of one side of the island. The water was a gorgeous shade of blue, glistening in the afternoon sunlight. The landscape has rocky limestone cliffs and green plants.

A monkey swimming

The next day was scuba diving day. Both Kira and I are certified so we both were able to go diving together. There must have been over 50 diving shops on the small island. We ended up going with Viking Divers mostly because the staff was nice and they left the earliest in the morning for best diving potential. All the prices were set across the island. It was an awesome experience. We saw one sea turtle and followed it for a while. We saw an octopus. There were hundreds of fish. At one point I turned on my back to stare up through the ocean and see all the fish in the sunlight. We saw trigger fish and a scorpion fish. I have no idea what the others were called but we saw a lot. We spent one more day on Koh Phi Phi relaxing and shopping and enjoying good food that we can’t get in Surin. Then we headed home. Back to Bangkok 12 hours and back to Surin 6 hours. On the way to Bangkok our bus got a flat tire. Then later it was overheating but the driver did not seem to care and just kept driving. We were grateful to finally make it to Bangkok and when I got my luggage out of the undercarriage compartment the strap was melted from the overheating bus. Glad we got off that bus!

View from Koh Phi Phi viewpoint

We spent one day in Bangkok, I got a manicure and pedicure and a really delicious garlic shwarma! Went back to work on October 24^th. It was rough getting back into the swing of things but the routine is nice and I’m already adjusted!