Krabi (15 Aug-19 Aug 2009)

flight no. : AK 804 (KULKBV)
depart : LCCT, KL @ 1235
arrive : Krabi @ 1255
~~my first flight from lcct after so many year. my second time boarding airasia. first trip with airasia was many years ago, to bangkok. at that time, airasia was still using klia.
this was our inaugural trip out of malaysia. a beginning, and hoping that there will be more trips in future. at least once a year, maybe?

#1 the happy team
~~touched down at krabi airport, we took a 9-seater van to our hotel for 600 baht. we could not fit in into a taxi, hence a bigger mode of transport. kc compared prices, so he said 600 baht was reasonable for a van. no objection :)
~~we asked the driver to drop us at tesco to shop for water & tidbit. but due to miscommunication, he stopped at 7-11. haha. we told him to go to hotel straight. but nope. he didnt! he drove us to a tour agency instead. ish ish ish...
~~we went down anyway, to check out the prices of their package. pearly & kc negotiated for the pacakages, while the remaining 3 just paid once everything has been finalised. it's a headache when too many people gave comments. pearly & kc were given the green light to decide for us. we have signed up for 3 days tour @ 3200 baht per person. all inclusive of hotel pick-up, lunches & drinking water.
1) kayaking
2) hot spring/emerald pool/elephant trekking/tiger's cave
4) island hopping
~~we stayed in aonang villa resort. kc booked the airasia package that consisted of accomodation & air tickets for 2. he booked 2 packages and 1 airticket since there were 5 of us. the 3 girls shared a room, with extra bed for 1000 baht per night. this resort is 30km away from krabi airport.
~~by the time we settled everything & checked in, we were so hungry. we have yet to eat lunch and the clock was almost 4pm, local time. headed to mcD, and tried their pork samurai burger, which we could not in malaysia. taste? hmm... so so lah. they said got porky smell... hahah. i dont know. i just ate. too hungry!

#2 : samurai pork burger
~~7-11 seems to be our favourite hangout place. almost everyday we went in to buy some food. there are so many 7-11 outlets in aonang street itself. the one that we went was just outside of the resort that we stayed. we bought all the different varieties of lays. it was one of the promotion items in 7-11. buy 1 @ 20baht, buy 2 @ 35 baht. so we grabbed 4.

#3 : i bought back home as souveniers for my sisters! kakaka...
~~after shopping, we took a stroll along the beach. almost sunset. we could see a mix of locals & foreigners by the beach. and i felt that we were being "stared". why? because we wore the happy t-shirt? not really.. i guess we were properly "covered" for a visitor. others were in tiny bikinis (ladies), while the men were topless.

#4 : let's go for a walk..

~~day 2 started early.. or should i say everyday we had to start early! different guides would pick us up at the hotel lobby at 8.30am-9.00am everyday. we just need to sit at the lobby, and wait. and to show them our receipt for confirmation or identification. hahaha. too many people going to the same place.

#5 : local guide trying to find his customer

~~our first day guide was Mel, from Krabi Cave Man (melcaveman@yahoo.co.th). there were 3 ang-mohs in his car when he picked us in his SUV (could not remember the car brand). the 3 squeezed in at the last row, while 4 of us in the middle row, and the biggest in front with the driver. size does matter when come to seating arrangement. :) off we went to Bhor Tor for our kayaking.

#6 : the calm water

~~in the morning, we would kayak downstream & in the afternoon, upstream. 2 in a kayak, and the ladies would be sitting in front, and the men at the back as skipper. as i was the odd one, i shared the kayak with the guide. yippe! less work for me & i could take photos!! if you dont know how to swim, a lifejacket will be given to you. no worry!

#7 : me & mel

~~off we went downstream, to enjoy the beautiful limestone caves along the river, and also the mangrove areas. the sun was shining very brightly. all of us were prepared, sunblock applied to prevent sun burnt! lesson learned from belum trip. we stopped at the Tham Pee Hua Toe at krabi national park to look at the many historical cave paintings. try to wear a pair of sandals instead of flip flops for easy walking. and also to prevent blister!

#8 : welcome to the cave

~~and then we kayak back to the jetty and had our lunch. fried rice with shrimps, tomyum clear soup & mixed vegetables. no siesta for us (as what Mel told us), as we continued kayaking after lunch. upstream this time. and once we were onboard the kayak, it started to rain! rain! it was cooling for us. but only for a short while. the rain stopped after 10 min, not heavy enough to drench us. hahaha. we stopped at anaconda's cave & eden's cave.

~~anaconda's cave was creepy! it was total darkness until we saw the light at the end of the cave. as for eden's cave, we had difficulty paddling our way in due to the low tide. mel has to push one by one to get us into the cave. beautiful! it was like another world inside the cave. lots of trees and also mud! fui hong got stucked when she went down for a walk. her white flip flops turned muddy.

#9 : eden's cave

~~after a day under the sun, mel drove us to a fresh water stream. we dipped ourselves in the clear bluish stream to cool us down. a very nice & quiet spot.

#10 : fresh water stream

~~once back to the hotel, we dipped into the chlorine pool! hahaha. the view at the coral pool in the resort was beautiful. limestone cliff as background, we dipped ourselves in the pool almost everyday!

#11 : flower by the pool (so hard to say no to this pool)

~~day 3, we went elephant trekking first. we didnt have a guide today. only a driver. he just drove us to our location, a brief instruction what to do, and we were on our own. my first ride on a jumbo, it was quite scary! 3 of us, kc, fuihong & me on 1, and pearly & kin on another. it was a bumpy ride, secured only by a seat belt. nothing much to see. oil palms, then secondary jungles, down to the stream, and then back to the sanctuary.

#12 : my first jumbo ride..

~~since the driver didnt say much, we didnt know what was next after the elephant trekking. the drive on day 3 seems to be longer as all of us dozed off and when we were awoke, we were still on the way. "are we there yet?" seems to be the famous question that day. and by noon, we were at the hotspring. 1 hour to enjoy the dip, and we were asked to meet up again for lunch, outside the hotspring's entrance.

#13 : the entrance.

~~it was a small hotspring. we found a small corner for us. the temperature was not too high. recommended to dip for 20mins for good health. we didnt spend that long inside, as we were looking for "emerald pool". we thought emerald pool was located in the hotspring area. we only knew it was not when we walked to the entrance for enquiry. we thought we were cheated! *paiseh*. didnt do homework before coming. hehehehe.

#14 : the small hotspring

~~when we met up with 2 austrian's couple for lunch, we had a small heart attack. the austrians told us that the driver would not be going to emerald pool after lunch. he would drive us to tiger cave and then back to the hotel. driver said emerald pool was not in the itinerary.

~~WHAT? we thought there was miscommunication between the austrians and the driver. but he gave us the same answer, no emerald pool. just tiger cave. many reasons give.

1) not enough money to pay for entrance fee.

2) if go emerald pool, then no time for tiger cave.

3) the boss didnt tell him to go to emerald pool... bla bla bla...

pengsan!

~~luckily we have the tour agency's number, we kept calling them. after 100 missed calls, she finally picked up. she said she was aware of the "situation" and told us that we would be heading to emerald pool as per schedule. no worry, she said. all done. and the driver received a call (dont know who called him), and we were driven to emerald pool.

#15 : happy to arrive

~~we walked quickly into the pool area as we were only given 90 minutes there. 800m from the entrance to the pool. sigh. but we were happy to be there. one of the MUST GO places in krabi. we were greeted by the greenish pool. so nice to be in the cooling water on a sunny day. we walked very carefully on the bank, due to the moss. very very slippery here! and there was no proper steps for us to go down or come up from this pool.

#16 : nice cooling water. but it would be even nicer if the water is chiller!

~~we "climbed" out from the pool, and walked to the blue pool. a long walk with minimum time to spare. and the pool was really blue! worth the walk? hmm... yes guar. we were not allowed to swim here. that's why the "guar". hahaha. but it was really blue blue pool.

#17 : as blue as monday blue? hehe

~~didnt make it to the tiger's cave. sigh.. will go again next time!

~~day 4, we went island hopping! barracudas tour was in charge of our last activity. we hopped into the speedboat and the first island was bamboo island. white sandy beach and less crowd. nice island to relax. but we were only given 20min. sigh...

#18 : sun sea sand

~~then we stopped in front of viking's cave for photo session. and after that lo sa ma bay. the boat stopped for about 20min at lo sa ma bay and some took the opportunity to snorkle. we went down too, but found the sea to be choppy for snorkeling.

~~we continued to ma ya bay, which was back-to-back with lo sa ma bay. ma ya bay, famous for the scene of the movie "the beach" was so crowded! and i thought it was low season now. instead of sun-bathing by the beach, we walked to lo sa ma bay. earlier when were in the speedboat, we saw a staircase that led to ma ya bay. so, we wanted to climb up the staircase that we saw earlier. it was a scary climb up. hahaha.

#19 : on top of the stairs!

~~back to the boat, and we headed to phi phi island for lunch. commercialised island. again, big crowd! we just headed straight to the restaurant, ate our lunch, and headed back to the jetty to wait for the speedboat. the souveniers were expensive there. so, no need to waste time shopping there.

#20 : we sat here throughout the journey. breezy and yet not sunny!

~~the speedboat stopped at the open sea and we were given 50min for snorkeling. much better compared to lo sa ma bay. the corals were not colourful. many fishes though. after a good 15min, we noticed the gloomy sky. all climbed back up, and we headed back to aonang. it was a bumpy ride back to the mainland. due to the rain, the wave was quite high.

~~the skipper has difficulty locating the way back. wah!!! no gps? no compass? no.. nothing.. just eyes.. and i was praying very hard, that we would be back to aonang safely. the worst part, i needed to pee at that time. but how to pee when the boat was moving? when we heard that the skipper could see aonang, part of me was relieved. but then i still need to pee very badly! and the guide said we were still 25min away from aonang. aiyor! how??? i almost wanted to fold my towel, placed underneath, and peed on it. of course, i didnt do it. i closed my eyes, trying to sleep with a full tank bladder.

~~all of us were so happy to be back on land! . i thought i could "do it" when we got off from the boat, and walked to the jetty. the sea water was only knee high. i have to squat down if i wanted to pee. i tried. failed. we rushed back to the hotel to settle it.

night time, we went out for our last minute shopping after dinner at a local food stall. i bought myself 2 waterproof bags. many souveniers, t-shirts, bikinis can be found in all the shops here. kind of hard to bargain. "take it or leave it".

~~we checked out the next day, headed to aiport by 9.30am. we have arranged with the same van to pick us. we spent quite some time at the small airport. nothing to buy nothing to see. some just dozed off to kill the time.

#21 : i'll be back..