Krabi #1
Krabi is one of the great attractions in Thailand. It is a small capital town of Krabi province sitting snug on the banks of Krabi river. One could hardly afford to miss out on its beautiful beach spot where the river mouth opens to the great Andaman Sea. Shallow waters, innumerable tiny islands scattered around with protected mooring bays for boats made it a haven for seafarers.
I hardly knew or read about this place until I came across a leaflet while in college a few years back promoting this beautiful place. Given slight background information about this place from the leaflet was enough to make me promise to visit this place a 'someday' back then.
Krabi has well protected bays and innumerable beaches with fine white sand and crystal clear waters on the shallow shore line. Numerous activities such as boating, rock climbing, kayaking, and snorkeling facilities are all thumbs-up activities one can enjoy! For the more adventurous, you can have the limestone precipices around on top of which you can have a good panoramic view of the surroundings.
Ever since the leaflet encounter, I have been vaunting non-stop of going to Krabi. So when Hobbit asked for suggestion, I naturally blurted out "Krabi!" while in mind thought that it's impossible for it to be too soon along. Well, weighing based on the chaos Songkran holiday can cause travelers, it wouldn't be easy to travel anywhere unless it is a short destination. Then we settled for Pattaya. Just about time that Hobbit wanted to arrange the itinerary in Pattaya, we thought "Oh wait! We were there last Songkran!" Now having cold feet for another boring place and with Krabi floating in our minds, why not!! When Hobbit blurted out a YES and arranged for everything, I could hardly hardly wait!
Friday noon right after school we set out on a taxi squeezing through the intro phase of the chaos Songkran traffic to the Southern bus terminal. It's a newly built terminal and it is 10x better compared to the old one we took when we visited Hadyai. Like any fancy private hospitals in Thailand well-known for indoor shopping malls, this bus terminal is no exception. 70% of it are places to shop and dine and there are not merely the 7-eleven marts (more than 3 inside), while waiting for your ride, you can enjoy authentic Thai massage, hair rebonding or get pedicure & menicures, chill at S&P, Auntie Anne, shop at Boots, Watson, enjoy sushi, get drunk with some boozes, do banking (check savings account), online surfing, games, buy new cellphones, stroll ala Platinum's kiosks, etc. It's almost a mini Pratunam!
We opted for the VIP tickets but all were sold out hot cakes. So we bought for first class seats instead. I still don't get the difference between VIP and first class but nevermind! The station was packed with people going home for Songkran occasion. Read about Songkran to understand why. People usually go home to ask for blessings or pay respect to their older folks. From children to adults to the disabled all going home to their respective hometown. Not many foreigners around. Mostly either left earlier to avoid the crowd or some opted to fly. We waited for 4 hours before we could board the bus. Meanwhile we enjoyed touring around the station, enjoyed carlifornia maki!
No complains about the bus just that we couldn't stretch our legs (even though they are hobbits') comfortably. It made one stop for 20 mins. dinner where we chanced on our packed Kim Chi rice. The rest of the journey was not bad--comfortable, bearable...
Normally it is a 11-12 hours journey. With the bad traffic it took us 13 hours.
