I hope that, it would be a enjoyable experience for you reading my travel journal. Meanwhile, hopefully you would find some useful information for your coming trip too.

I will be going to Phuket in early March 2009. Hope to see you there soon!

[Chapters]

Day 1 – Krabi City tour

Day 2 – Island tour

Day 3 – Jungle tour

Day 4 – Back to KL

Bonus

Conclusion

Well, briefly, I explore and know a little bit about Krabi.

Thai massage!!

Massage, sometimes known as the lazy people yoga, is a manipulation of musscle and tissue for physical as well as psychological purpose. Massage theraphy helps to relax musscle, in directly helps to relax a person, emotionally. 

“Thai massage is a type of massage in Thai style that involves stretching and deep massage. It is known in Thailand as “nuat phaen boran” (Thai: ???????????, IPA: [nu?t p??n bora?n]), literally, the ancient-manner massage; or just “nuat phaen thai” (?????????). Thai massage originated in India and is based on Ayurveda and Yoga. It was believed that the massage art was brought over to Thailand by Shivago Komarpaj over 2500 years ago.”  from Wikipedia.

I really really love Thai massage. During the trip, we actually did Thai massage everynight available.  A rule of thumb to bear in mind is that, do massage an hour after meal, or have meal after 1 hour of massage. We went for Sunset massage center which located at the 2nd floor at the Sunset Hotel, Ao Nang.  It cost 250THB for a 1-hour session/pax.  Thus, it come to a total of 750THB for the 3 nights massage. After the massage session, they served us a warm drink which believe to help in blood circulation and calm down the mind. By the way, the center open from 9am to 12am!

Where is Krabi?

Let’s find out where Krabi located.

From the map above, we could see that Krabi was on the mainland of southern Thailand on the Gulf of Thailand.  On the left hand side of the map, we see Phuket Island. Zoom in the map, we see the Krabi more.

Air Asia will arrive at Krabi Airport. Krabi town is one of the place that we have visited, as one of the post that you read ealier. We stayed at Ao Nang.  

Day-tour packages

My experience on booking the day tour is, book with the agent on the spot when arrived at the hotel.  I have collected few day tour package brochures.  Although it might not be so much important, but it could give you some idea what type of day tour available.

1. Island hoping+snorkelling

2. Jungle tour

3. Adventurous

4. Horse riding

[Chapters]

Day 1 – Krabi City tour

Day 2 – Island tour

Day 3 – Jungle tour

Day 4 – Back to KL

Bonus

Conclusion

On the 4th day in Ao Nang, which is also the last day for the trip, we spent the morning walking around the Ao Nang beach area. We were taking the 1030am flight back to KL with Air Asia too.

Some notice near the beach

Photo before we left the Timber House Hotel

In the Krabi Airport, signboard “Seat for the monk”. Read more about the Buddhism in Thailand

Goodby Krabi, for now.

[Chapters]

Day 1 – Krabi City tour

Day 2 – Island tour

Day 3 – Jungle tour

Day 4 – Back to KL

Bonus

Conclusion

Hairy

Shene & me on the back of the elephant

I was riding on the neck of the elephant! It feel weary.

Group photo with Tim from Ireland and Linda from Norway.  I sent her some photos of the trip and she sent back some too. I love to make new friends this way!

After that, we came to the Hotspring of Klong THom, located in the middle of the jungle. It’s natural hotspring with streams of water coming from several unknown sources and the water fills the pool.  It’s  a natural jacuzzis to lift away tensions and relieve body and mind with the mineral enriched waters. A rule of thumbs when soaking in hotspring is, always soak below the heart and come out from the water every 10minutes.  When you feel dizzy, come out from the hot water too.  It is always easy to feel thirsty when soaking in hotspring. Thus, prepare some drinking water.

There is this board indicating the mineral of the hotspring.

Shene was enjoying the hotspring.

After some hot shower, we moved forward for some cold shower. Here we are, Emerald Pool of Sa Morakot! It’s a natural wonder where a pond of turquoise water with an aerage temperature of 30-40C, fed by a hotsping in the middle of the jungle.  The special characteristic for this pool is the water is emerald in color. Some people call it the emerald in the middle of the jungle. There are a numbers of Emerald Pool around the world and there is one in Krabi.  It’s a big pool that suitable for swimming especially for such a hot and tropical weather in Thailand.  For the local, it’s a great picnic spot too.

Beautiful Emerald Pool.

The color element that contributes to the emerald pool?

We left Emerald Pool at 4:30pm back to the hotel.  After shower and change, we carried on our exploration around Ao Nang as we did not want to miss anything fun and exciting.

A stall selling some gadgets.

Juin told me that, Taro pie is specialty of McDonald Thailand. Yes, I do not see this in Kuala Lumpur. How can I miss it?

Shene was amazed with the LV pattern of the bike seat.

Wow, another big dog.

Buddha statues can be seen in the shop.

Here there was a stall selling T-shirt with creative text or logo printed.

Pancake of Thailand. Although the tour guide told us that the pancake here is similar with what we have in Malaysia, but we insisted to try. It’s not quite the same actually.

Colorful soap carving.

Caramel Machiato of Thailand.  A must-try everwhere I go.

Finally, with a powerful yet comfortable sunset massage, we called it a day.

[Chapters]

Day 1 – Krabi City tour

Day 2 – Island tour

Day 3 – Jungle tour

Day 4 – Back to KL

Bonus

Conclusion

We booked the day tour when we arrived at the hotel the day before.  The tour guide June passed us a list of day tour which include water sports to jungle tour, price range from THB700 to THB 1500.  As usual, as we were in a group of 4 persons, there is some discount given.  We booked 2 day-tours for second and third day and paid only during the last day when we were transferred to the airport.

After the breakfast at the hotel cafe which was included in the hotel package, the tour guide picked us up from the hotel at 8:30am with the local tourist transfer vehicle which is call songthaew. Our hotel was the first station and following that, we went to other hotel to pick up other tourist too.

A sticker is given to us to indicate which group we were in.

For the full-day tour, we chosen the 4-island hoping tour which include Tup Island, Poda Island, Chicken Island and Phranang Beach.  The tour guide for the day was explaining to the tourist for the journey. As Krabi is a new travel destination, there are a lot of local tourist as well.

Phranang beach is our first station.  It is a secluded peninsular which is only accessible by boat, 15mins from Ao Nang or 30mins from Krabi town.  There is a Phranang cave which famous for rock climbing. Opposite Phranang beach is the Railey beach which famous for world rock climbing.

Phranang Beach

Phranang Cave has unique limestone natural setting.

A cafe at the cave

Next destination is Chicken Island. It is named after the shape of it’s unique limestone which looks like a chicken.  It is excellent for snorkeling.

Chicken Island, better known as Koh Pai

It is my very first time for snorkeling. Next will be Phuket this March!

After that, we had our lunch at Chicken Island at 1pm local time. Next station is Tup Island. But this time, we are not going by boat but we were going to walk through the sea to reach Tup Island!

Shene was standing on Chicken Island. Behind where she stood, you can see the white sandy causeway that joins to Tup Island.

We walked through the water towards the beach behind us. The water was at our waist level. It looks deep as we were jumping our step instead of walking.

Long tail boat

As you can see, people was walking in the water. This photo taken from Tup Island.

Group photo taken at Tup Island. The rock behind us forms beautiful background.

Our final destination, Poda Island

Recall what happened in 2004, Tsunami has caused big hazard to this island too.

She was excited for the fish by the beach of Poda Island!

Here come the evening that fill the fullstop for the island hoping trip.

[Chapters]

Day 1 – Krabi City tour

Day 2 – Island tour

Day 3 – Jungle tour

Day 4 – Back to KL

Bonus

Conclusion

For the first station, we came to Tiger Cave Monastery or the Thai call it Wat Tham Seua. Located 9km from the Krabi town, it is famous and interesting south Thailand jungle temple, as the monks live, meditate and worship within a maze of narutal caves in an overgrown jungle valley. Climbing the 1237 steps up a limestone tower to see the statue of the BUddha and the ‘footprint of the Buddha” embedded in the rock.

Path way to the Tiger Cave. There are many Buddha Statue in various size in the temple.

Limestone in the Tiger Cave. Many of the caves in South East Asia made of Limestone. For it’s interesting surface and structure, it has become one of my favourite photography subject.

Another temple near the Tiger Cave

Next station, we forwarded to the Krabi town! It’s a small and peaceful town. There is neither high rise building nor busy traffic in the town. The famous market place is the old Chao Fa pier where we have the famous best mango sticky rice. We did found some interesting scene in the town.

Peaceful Krabi town

Carrier

Top left: Chao Fa pier, the local market
Top right: stall that sell mango sticky rice
Bottom left: Juin & Shene
Botton right: Jerk & Tene

Wow, fresh and sweet mango with soft sticky rice. Must try!

Fresh reddish pomegranate

Pay THB20 for a washing machine service?

After that, we visited a Fish Farm near Ao Nang. It’s an initiative by the government for the environmental health of the fish living environment and to breed the fish in a control and safer ’sea’. The pool is made and decorated like the real sea.  This is to allow the fish to live in an environment as close as the real world for them.  They have various kind of sea water fish that I do not know most of the name of cause. But I saw Nemo and sea horse.

There are real big fish in the big pond where the people is pointing. It looks something like dugong or big dragon fish. As huge as a 150cm human.

Eel, looks bit scary. Japanese sushi use this eel? That’s why I do not eat.

Nemo the famous Clown

Beautiful sunset fish farm

After the visit of the fish farm, we headed back to our hotel in Ao Nang, Timber House Ao Nang, which located at Ao Nang beach. 20km away from the Krabi town, it is the most developed beach of Krabi with a long stretch of white sandy beach with linestone mountains as a backdrop. It has a wide range of accomodation, restaurants, bars, pubs, massage center, day trip tour center as well as dive centers.  Some of the famous one are like Starbucks where I had my favourite hot caramel machiato, McDonalds where I had the Taro pie which is not sold in Kuala Lumpur and my 3 days Thai massage was done here here in Ao Nang!

Ao Nang street at 630pm.

Our favourite Thai food. The orangish soup in the bowl is the famous Tom Yam Kung, spicy. This food stall is not far away from our hotel.

The local are selling some handicraft at the foodstall.

After the dinner, we walked around the street where the locals sell some craft and souvenirs. To call it a day, we had a massage at Sunset Hotel Massage Center where I am going to talk about in the latter post.

Ao Nang street at night.

Handmade jewelry by the local

Creative lattern gives colorful light. I bought 2 of these and it’s in my room now. Zoom in the lights from Krabi.

There was this annual dinner night for Sunset Hotel where some performance is going on.

We got up the bed early as the next day 8am in the morning, it’s going to be a fantastic full day island tour!

[Chapters]

Day 1 – Krabi City tour

Day 2 – Island tour

Day 3 – Jungle tour

Day 4 – Back to KL

Bonus

Conclusion