Wednesday, January 29, 2014

กระบี่ Krabi travelogue: Day 2

Rise and shine in Krabi! Had a pretty good sleep the night before (less the "imaginary bat" hanging on our ceiling, LOLOLOL) and woke up early on day 2 as we had to prepare our breakfast and wait for the tour van to come fetch us for our Phi Phi island tour. As i mentioned in the previous post, we booked a phi phi tour for Day 2, and the 4-island tour for Day 3. Pretty much spending our Krabi trip out in the sea. visiting the beautiful beaches and swimming with the fishes.
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Camwhore early in the morning while waiting for my turn to use the toilet. #selfies
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Prepared our own breakfast with the microwavable food that we got from 7-eleven the night before. Was really surprised by the ham and cheese croissant and the hot dog cheese bread. SO DELICIOUS OHMYGAWD.
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Shortly after our breakfast, a truck came to fetch us to Ao nang beach which is the starting point of our tour!
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The beautiful and probably the most famous beach in Krabi - Ao Nang beach.
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The night before we bought ourselves a Ocean pack each! Guess which colour is mine?
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Soon we were ushered to board the speedboat for our tour! Let the Day 2 adventure begin!
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First stop: Bamboo island! (if i remember correctly)

Took about 25 mins from the beach to arrive at your first stop. I think the island is called Bamboo island, probably because there's lots of bamboo growing in that forest you see in the above picture, but we never bother to find it out...
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Instead, we started looking for a nice spot to take photos and enjoy the beach, the sun and the waters!
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This is the getaway that i've always wanted. To just sit on the beach, without nothing much on the mind, look across the waters and let time pass slowly. But honestly speaking, time pass faster when you are having fun. Oh wells.
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Spotted a tiny white crab that is probably just the size of my fingernail!
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Love this photo! Endless blue green waters and waves
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Jing long brought his instax camera and we took individual/ group shots for keepsake!
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Soon it was time to leave Bamboo island and head to your next check point.
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Passed by the Viking Cave where swifts make their nest. The bird's nest are harvested from February to April by locals who use rickety bamboo scaffolding to get up to them once the birds have finished nesting. *ka-ching* $$$$$

Shortly after, we noticed how clear the water was and was told we arrived at "Phi leh bay" where it's time for us to get down into the waters to snorkel! Snorkeling is probably the main highlight of this tour, LOL Not my first time since i've been to this Phi Phi island tour when i visited Phuket the previous time, once in Brunei and also another in Adventure cove (if that is even counted, haha) Nevertheless, i was still excited to get into the water to see the fishes! :D
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Before we boarded the speedboat the Ao nang beach in the morning, we bought a loaf of bread just to feed the fishes! The only way to gather the fishes' attention and get them to crowd around you would be to feed them! HAHAHHAA
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Individual shots taken with the Polaroid underwater camera that i bought prior to this trip!
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Photos of us feeding the fishes! Once you take out the bread, all the fishes will just rush towards you and try to snatch the bread from your hand. Quite an amazing experience for those snorkeling in the sea for the very first time. The sea water was really really salty and thank god they provide sweet watermelon for us once we got out of the water.
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After snorkeling, we were brought to another island which was overcrowded with tourists!
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Even though we already dried ourselves from the snorkeling, we decided to head into the waters again!
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I have no idea what i was trying to do. Maybe trying to stay afloat? LOL
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The surrounding backdrop was really picturesque. Something that you can never find in Singapore.
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Finally we arrived at Phi Phi island where we had our buffet lunch and also an hour to tour the island. Honestly, there's nothing much to do on the island except to eat and take photos. I saw people doing para sailing (which i always wanted to try!) but we didn't have time. Oh wells. Phi phi island was the last stop of our tour and we headed back to Ao Nang, which took close to 2 hours i think. The ride was rather bumpy but i still fell asleep on the boat. Just too tired.
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Can you see where the four of us are sitting in the above photo?

Well, the truck that is supposed to send us back to our hotel was full so the driver suggested we sit on the roof. Without even thinking twice, the 4 of us just climbed up the truck and sat up there all the way to our hotel! #YOLO lol

Went back to the hotel to wash up and headed out for dinner! We were searching for a good place for dinner, preferably a seafood meal since Krabi is famous for its fresh seafood and we stopped by this Indian restaurant (apparently they won awards from TripAdvisor etc) and they offered us a seafood set meal at a rather good price.
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One whole fish, one squid, 1 crab, Prawns and a pizza for dinner. Looks amazing but the food was so-so with this Indian spice taste in all the food items. Everything was barbeque and not really well done. Totally not worth the price that we paid. We then realised the restaurant is a Indian restaurant which has seafood items as well. *roll eyes all the way back*
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But still, a group photo to commemorate our 2nd dinner in Krabi. LOL

Eating the crab was a challenge because of the hard shell and we were trying all sort of methods to try to get some meat. In the end we gave up and asked for those metal "pincer" which zi char stall always provide whenever someone order crab. The manager of the Indian restaurant had no idea what we wanted and in the end, gave us this:
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I seriously wonder where he got it from. The storeroom toolbox? Did not help much at all.

That's it for Day 2 in Krabi! Oh, remember i mentioned on top of the Phi Phi island tour that we booked, we also booked the 4 island tour. We figured out it would be rather much the same as the Phi Phi island tour (i.e taking the boat out to sea, snorkeling etc) so we went back to the tour agency and requested to change our package. Luckily they allow us and we changed our 4 island tour package to another package which includes White water rafting, elephant trekking and ATV! At least we are doing something totally different, LOL That's all i have, stay tuned for Day 3 in Krabi! :D



Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4

Thursday, January 23, 2014

กระบี่ Krabi travelogue: Day 1

It's been almost 2 month since i came back from Krabi and i'm finally done with filtering and editing the photos for this 4 day travelogue. Honestly speaking, i can't really remember the fine details of the trip like for example, the name of the islands i went etc but i'll still try my best! You might be asking in your head, why go to Krabi and not Phuket?

Well this trip was actually an impromptu trip. Ever since the start of the year (2013) i always wanted to plan a year end trip but since i was sent on a sponsored trip to Korea by KTO in October, i took it as the "year end" trip already... But the wanderlust in me took over and decided i shall go for another getaway! Wanted a really short and relaxing one and decided for Bintan but after calculating the overall cost, i was thinking, why not just go to Phuket or Krabi, for just like maybe a hundred bucks more? We still get to enjoy the beach, the sun, and the waters just that we will be taking a plane over. I've been to Phuket before and since we are looking at a short relaxing beach trip, we settled for Krabi.
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Fast forward, it was a rather gloomy day that afternoon, dark clouds threatening a thunderstorm...
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But still, what really concerns us is the weather in Krabi, not in Singapore! I always like to dress up a bit a.k.a airport fashion regardless of which country i'm heading too, don't really have to care about being judged by anyone, LOL
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My companions for this trip: Jiaqi, Meldric and Jing Long! I'm not the only one in airport fashion! HAHAHA
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First time departing on a rainy day.
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Being in the aviation field, i know that once we get out/ or go above the the rain clouds, we will be clear of the weather! Soon, the skies cleared up and we were able to see the clear blue sky and pretty cloud formations.
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Then upon landing, we realised it was raining in Krabi as well...
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Another one of the few experiences whereby i had to get off the plane onto the tarmac and take a short bus ride to the terminal. The last time was in Hong Kong i think and this only happens to budget airline because of the aircraft size.
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Read online that there are 2 ways to get to the main areas of Krabi, one would be by bus at a much cheaper price and they stop you somewhere near your hotel (unless your hotel is those famous ones) or two, hire a car to fetch you to your hotel at 600 baht/ ride (est. $24). You will spot the counter to hire the car immediately after clearing the customs. We got really lucky and got a huge spacious van for the 4 of us instead of having to squeeze in a car!
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Miti Resort
262 Moo 2, Ao Nang soi 11 Maung Krabi 81000 Thailand

We got 2 deluxe room which was really huge, one of which was directly in front of the pool. Really spacious and clean i would say. Really worth the price at about $108/night. The location was not bad too, but it's quite a distance to the famous Ao Nang beach. 20 mins walk maybe? I think we walked too slowly but there were things to see along the way.
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By the time we settled down, it was already about 5pm and there's nothing much we can do so we decided to hire a car from the hotel to bring us to the famous Krabi night market (which was quite a distance away, 35 mins ride...)
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Arrived at the Krabi town night market and it was raining heavily! But instead of sulking at one corner complaining, we bought ponchos from one of the convenience store and went around looking for dinner! P.s: Actually we did check the weather forecast beforehand and indeed it states that the day we arrived would be a rainy day but the next 2 days would be a good and sunny one! So we crossed our fingers and hope that the next 2 days in Krabi would be good.
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Stopped by this stall where they sell oyster omelette and Phai thai! Seem like a pretty popular one with incoming customers for dine in as well as takeaway so we got ourselves a seat (still in our poncho, lol) and ordered our dinner!
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That night was the only night i carried my pineapple bag and it had to be hidden under the poncho! Now i look through all the photos taken in Krabi also don't have one with my pineapple bag. So wasted, i 久久一次 bring it overseas...
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Krabi night market was a not bad one selling a huge variety of stuff such as handicraft items, apparels, bags, souvenirs, and not forgetting food! It just like a pasar malam that only opens during the weekends. It was raining that night so some stalls were closed but later through the night when the rain got smaller/ stop, the stalls re-opened again.
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Beautifully hand craved soap by this lady in the market. She did it on the spot, so amazed by her skills.
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Cocktail in a bamboo shoot. Just order any cocktail that you want and you get to enjoy your drink in this cute bamboo shoot cup. Just in case if you are wondering if you can take the "cup" away or drink from it as you walk, it's yours :D
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As we were walking back to our hotel, we decided to drop by a bar to grab a drink!
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This roof top bar that we went to overlooks the "red light district" alley so we get to spot any action from the above! Mostly are the ang mos patronizing the bars. It's like a mini version of the bangla street in Phuket, HAHAHHA
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On the way back we spotted this road side prata store so we ordered their famous banana prata in chocolate sauce!
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Sitting by the road side in the middle of the night having banana prata. The real adventure starts the day! :D
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Dropped by the 7 eleven just right outside our hotel to find food for the next day's breakfast. Since our room has a microwave each, we bought all these microwavable food items like ham and cheese croissant, hot dog cheese bread,  fried rice etc for our breakfast! They are about 25 baht ($1) for each packet only! Why don't they have these in SG?

In the day before we headed to Krabi town, we went to book our Krabi tour packages for the next 2 days in Krabi. One advice is that, you DON'T book your Krabi tour packages at the airport because it's so much more expensive. You can get it at a much cheaper or even half the price at the main areas of Krabi. I learnt my lesson in Phuket the previous time, LOL and also, don't settle at the first stop, look around to find the best deal and bargain for a cheaper package!

In the end, we booked a day tour to Phi Phi island for Day 2 (which consist of a few island tours but the highlight was Phi Phi island, lunch and snorkeling) and the 4 island tour for Day 3 (which brings us to the 4 famous islands outside Krabi, with lunch and snorkeling included) That's all i have for Day 1 in Krabi! Do look forward to the next post!


Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4