After a long journey and a really interesting, exciting and diverse five days in and around Bangkok, we headed for Ao Nang on the southwestern coast of Thailand. We flew into Krabi and were driven 30 minutes to our beautiful little hotel (called The Nine, because they only have nine rooms!) in this small, cozy little seaside village. Many tourists flock there since it is a terrific departure point for day trips to visit the many incredibly beautiful nearby islands. I had heard that the beach in Ao Nang is not really special, but when we first saw it I was blown away by the size of the beach, the beauty surrounding it, especially the numerous limestone mountains jutting out of Andaman Sea on the horizon, and the water temperature of probably 85 degrees or more! OK, it didn’t have the turquoise waters we would soon see elsewhere, but relative to other beaches I’ve seen, it was spectacular!
As busy and touristy as Ao Nang is, it is tiny relative to the size and extreme traffic of Bangkok and we enjoyed talking with fellow travelers and finding small friendly places to dine. At one small restaurant, The Family Restaurant, we talked with Losan, a waiter by evening and a mahout (an elephant handler) by day, who takes tourists on elephant treks. He was so warm and friendly; he mentioned that he and his brother collect coins from around the world and they had only one coin from the USA. I promised to bring him some coins and made a template of each American coin with their value in Thai baht…he was thrilled and so appreciative to receive it!
Over the next few days we took boats to various beautiful islands with gorgeous beaches, coves, and lagoons. Many beautiful spots were spoiled by too many tourists, but that’s often what happens when everyone wants a piece of paradise!
Our favorite journey was when we booked a private long-tail boat…these unique boats are a blend of an old wooden boat jazzed up with a car engine for propulsion. It is the primary form of transportation around here. There is a flat-rate fee to book a private boat and driver, which seats up to 6 passengers, so typical of me, I approached two strangers talking to the boat organizers and asked if they wanted to join us on a trip the next day and share the costs of a private boat! After a few minutes they were less scared of the “crazy” American lady, and agreed to our partnership! Rudy and Alex, a couple from Germany, turned out to be great company on our day trip, and we were totally in synch in trying to find more secluded islands and beaches…hard to find, but we tried! We had an awesome day with them and are looking forward to seeing the video that Rudy was making of our daytrip with his water-proof GoPro!
For a change from visiting beautiful islands and beaches, we decided to try some jungle kayaking! Although we had heard that it was the day of the Thai holiday, Loi Krathong, we didn’t know much about it. This beloved holiday is celebrated on the first full moon of the 12th lunar month, and it is intended to thank the river and sea goddesses for providing life to the fields and forests and to ask forgiveness for the polluting ways of humans. One aspect of the holiday involves creating small handmade boats (called krathongs) made from pieces of the banana tree trunk and its leaves, and flowers that are sent adrift in rivers and seas. When we arrived for our kayak tour we were given these beautiful krathongs which we sent adrift during our wonderful kayak among the mangroves!
Later that day we watched dozens of women and their family members making these krathongs on the sidewalks of Ao Nang and selling them. We were really excited about the events of the evening to celebrate Loi Krathong and watched as a stage was set up near the beach and enormous beautiful krathongs were arranged on the stage. The evening celebration, which we thoroughly enjoyed, included a concert of traditional music and instruments, and beautiful young Thai girls dressed up in full regalia performing traditional Thai dancing…it was magnificent and incredibly special to experience!
(I made a separate blog posting with some video of the Thai dancing!)
And the evening ended with hundreds of people (or more) sending their krathongs into the sea and many people launching fire-lanterns into the nite sky…watching so many of these large paper lanterns (actually miniature hot-air balloons) powered by a flame of a burning wax ring into the sky was a truly amazing sight!!
The next day I took a short trip on a long-tail boat (named as such because of the very long shaft that connects a propeller to a modified car engine) to a nearby town called Railay, which is well-known and very popular for rock climbing fanatics. The dramatic craggy rock wall faces are beautiful and watching the very skilled climbers was really fun! On my way back to the boat I came across a whole bunch of monkeys scampering around the trees and rock walls…they certainly didn’t seem intimidated by all the rock climbers in their vicinity!
It continues to be an absolutely fabulous amazing adventure!!