[Day 30-32] Krabi

My first few days in Thailand I spend in the town of Krabi, a riverside town not far from Ton Sai, my climbing destination.

When I got off the plane in Krabi, I was pleased to see my luggage had made it with me. I’m always a bit worried on multi-hop flights that it’ll decide to make a little detour. After 45 min of waiting the bus finally arrived, and I was off towards Krabi town!

Krabi's crab.

A mud crawler and a crab on the side of the river that flows through Krabi.

The first thing that immediately stood out, after spending a month in India, is how clean everything is here. No litter by the side of the road! And people drive in their designated lanes on the correct side of the road :).

They have some pretty weird notions about traffic lights here :).

I really like their sense of humor concerning pedestrian crossings!

Once I got settled into my hostel, Good Dream, it was time to get to the important stuff: food! Eating was definitely one of my main pastimes while in Krabi. In the evening, there’s a really nice market where you can order delicious food for low prices. Suffice to say I spend every evening there, stuffing myself :).

The evening market: delicious food everywhere!

My 2nd day in Krabi, I rented a scooter and drove over to the Tiger Cave temple. This is a pretty large temple complex, build on the side of a high hill. The real attraction is the temple on top of the hill which offers an amazing view over the neighboring countryside. It’s more than 1200 (high) steps to the top though, my legs were still sore 2 days later.

Quite a deviation in style from the Indian temples!

Little stupas (?) on the way to the top of the Tiger Cave temple.

Amazing view from the top of the Tiger Cave temple.

Definitely up there in the list of weirdest statues I've seen.

Up there, I met David and Vanessa, a Mexican and Spanish couple who had so far been touring around the north. We decided to go have a swim at the beach together. Somehow we ended up in Ao Nang,  local tourist hotspot, so not as quiet as we has hoped, but oh well. The sea is amazingly hot here, it’s useless for cooling off, since it feels like a warm bath. I’m not complaining though :).

Swimming with David and Vanessa.

A hermit crab that was taking a stoll on the beach.

Monkeys playing on Ao Nang beach.

The day after I spend a few hours figuring out which campervan to rent in Australia. Quite a costly affair! I got what seems to be a reasonably good deal though: ±2200€ for 6 weeks. The remainder of the day I spend strolling around the city and David, Vanessa and me did some more food sampling at the evening market.

Curry soup, I asked for it to be as spicy as they eat it here... It was spicy :)!

Grilled fresh red snapper with garlic.

Black egg, I should check, but I'm pretty sure it's similar to the Chinese 1000 year eggs.

Sticky rice with coconut sauce and mango. Hmm!

Compared to India, the people are really calm here. Meaning you can walk around in a shop without some guy hounding you and trying to pressure you into buying things. In India, I sometimes needed some time locked away in my hotel room just to get away from all the people-induced stress, but I feel that won’t be necessary here in Thailand.