I've been in Malaysia for a week now and internet access has been a bit harder to find than it was in Thailand. But I've got some time waiting for a bus to Jerantut and then a train to Singapore, so I'll try to get down what I remember of my post-Phuket experiences.
I visited Krabi town briefly - the whole area is called Krabi and the actual town is just a simple place about 15Km from the water. The day I arrived we visited several local beach communities and I liked Ao Nang the best and decided to stay there. I had planned to stay in Railey Beach, but it is only accessible by longtail taxi boat and it was raining so I took the easy (and dry,) way out. Shopped a couple of hostel/guesthouses and settled on a cheap one on a block full of similarly forgettable flophouses. Bed - lumpy. Bathroom - damp. Lighting - dim fluorescent. Ambiance - well.... Anyway, it was right next-door to a fun bar named The Irish Rover and that's what I remember best about it.
A quick check of the local dive shops revealed they dove mostly Koh Phi-Phi (which I dove from the Phuket side already,) so I decided to relax on the beaches and do some exploring.
During the days I visited up and down the coast, places with names like Hat Tonsai, Hat Rai Leh, Ao Phai Plong, and Nopparat Thara. All were seriously laid-back beach towns with amazing sand and water views, picturesque rock islands offshore and verdant cliff formations surrounding the bays. Tonsai is so overhung with rocky heights that it has become an Asian tropical mecca for climbers and there are schools and services everywhere for the vertical pilgrims.
At low tide, it was possible to walk around the rocky headlands to the next beach and I discovered a secluded beach resort right next to Ao Nang exotically named Centara Grand. It was a little larger than I like, but the location was perfect! Look it up if you are headed that way for a romantic getaway. I walked under the cliffs and had a drink at the beach bar, then cleared out before the tide's return closed off the way back.
Railey Beach (or Hat Rai Leh,) wound up being one of my favorites. It's actually two beaches (named East Railey & West Railey for the way they face,) on a southern trending spit of land that ends in another of those huge jungle-covered limestone formations. East is the backpacker side with funky places to stay, nifty restaurants and the nightlife. West is connected by a 150m footpath and is the home of the beach resorts, the boat taxi drop-off and a wide wide beach with amazing sunset views. The tiny town in between has cute little restaurants, a used book shop (got a John Irving - couldn't help it,) and two dive operators. On my trek across, I stopped to watch a local volleyball game and soon got invited in. I was the sweaty Westerner, but had a blast anyway and I'm now working on a theory of "volleyball diplomacy" that I'll expand on in a later post. After a spectacular sunset I caught a longtail taxi back to Ao Nang for dinner and to get ready to head off to Malaysia.
While in the area, my meals were mostly road-side stalls and carts (really a la carte!) which are one of the best things about Thailand. Great food, tons of variety, super cheap, and you get to order by pointing as you graze down a row of them. As I sat on a stool at a communal plastic table, I wound up talking to an English girl who has been on the backpacker trail for 20 months! For those of you who think I tell tons of stories (and even repeat myself a bit,) you will be impressed to know that I listened enthralled for a couple of hours at her tales of Australia (all of it - really,) North Africa, Nepal, India, China, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, and every part of SE Asia. She had a month or two left on her journey, but wow! What a trip!
Here's a funny dumb Clement travel story:
I was supposed to catch a 6:30AM bus to Krabi and on to Hat Yai and Sungai Kolok on the Malaysian border where I planned to walk across and catch local bus 29 to Kota Baru. When I got home from talking to the Super Traveller, my guesthouse office was locked up for the night with my important stuff like $$, iPod, and passport still locked in their lockers which were now behind a metal pull-down garage door. Security is a great thing, but they didn't open until 8AM so when my ride appeared, I was hopefully packed - but without a passport, I was stuck. They left without me and when the hostel opened at 9AM I rescheduled to the 11AM Bus. Advertised to arrive at the border at 7PM, reality was closer to 9PM when the border closes so I was stuck in the scariest hotel I've ever slept in for the night. It was 6 stories and I'm sure I was the only tenant. I've never seen a dirtier rug, the door had an actual fist-sized hole through it, and it took two hands to move the uranium density pillow. The one piece of art on the wall..., well you'll just have to check my flickr page for it. It's a classic. I crossed the border bright and early in the AM and caught a cab to Kuala Besut where the ferry boats to Pulau Perhantian Islands collect their passengers. I was lucky to find a cab at all since I had decided to enter Malaysia on the 50th Anniversary of their Independence, whoops! - Imagine trying to find a taxi in the USA at 9AM on July 4th! The cabbie had zero English, but that was fine, as I managed to get him to find me a place to change some money and used a map to point out where I needed to go. He was so nice that he played his one tape of western music for our 2 hour ride to the port city - I'll always treasure my new memory of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" (or as I sing it - "Hold me tight now, Tony Danza...") that we both sang at full volume down the coast road in sight of the South China Sea.
Very surprisingly, I was the better singer...
I visited Krabi town briefly - the whole area is called Krabi and the actual town is just a simple place about 15Km from the water. The day I arrived we visited several local beach communities and I liked Ao Nang the best and decided to stay there. I had planned to stay in Railey Beach, but it is only accessible by longtail taxi boat and it was raining so I took the easy (and dry,) way out. Shopped a couple of hostel/guesthouses and settled on a cheap one on a block full of similarly forgettable flophouses. Bed - lumpy. Bathroom - damp. Lighting - dim fluorescent. Ambiance - well.... Anyway, it was right next-door to a fun bar named The Irish Rover and that's what I remember best about it.
A quick check of the local dive shops revealed they dove mostly Koh Phi-Phi (which I dove from the Phuket side already,) so I decided to relax on the beaches and do some exploring.
During the days I visited up and down the coast, places with names like Hat Tonsai, Hat Rai Leh, Ao Phai Plong, and Nopparat Thara. All were seriously laid-back beach towns with amazing sand and water views, picturesque rock islands offshore and verdant cliff formations surrounding the bays. Tonsai is so overhung with rocky heights that it has become an Asian tropical mecca for climbers and there are schools and services everywhere for the vertical pilgrims.
At low tide, it was possible to walk around the rocky headlands to the next beach and I discovered a secluded beach resort right next to Ao Nang exotically named Centara Grand. It was a little larger than I like, but the location was perfect! Look it up if you are headed that way for a romantic getaway. I walked under the cliffs and had a drink at the beach bar, then cleared out before the tide's return closed off the way back.
Railey Beach (or Hat Rai Leh,) wound up being one of my favorites. It's actually two beaches (named East Railey & West Railey for the way they face,) on a southern trending spit of land that ends in another of those huge jungle-covered limestone formations. East is the backpacker side with funky places to stay, nifty restaurants and the nightlife. West is connected by a 150m footpath and is the home of the beach resorts, the boat taxi drop-off and a wide wide beach with amazing sunset views. The tiny town in between has cute little restaurants, a used book shop (got a John Irving - couldn't help it,) and two dive operators. On my trek across, I stopped to watch a local volleyball game and soon got invited in. I was the sweaty Westerner, but had a blast anyway and I'm now working on a theory of "volleyball diplomacy" that I'll expand on in a later post. After a spectacular sunset I caught a longtail taxi back to Ao Nang for dinner and to get ready to head off to Malaysia.
While in the area, my meals were mostly road-side stalls and carts (really a la carte!) which are one of the best things about Thailand. Great food, tons of variety, super cheap, and you get to order by pointing as you graze down a row of them. As I sat on a stool at a communal plastic table, I wound up talking to an English girl who has been on the backpacker trail for 20 months! For those of you who think I tell tons of stories (and even repeat myself a bit,) you will be impressed to know that I listened enthralled for a couple of hours at her tales of Australia (all of it - really,) North Africa, Nepal, India, China, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, and every part of SE Asia. She had a month or two left on her journey, but wow! What a trip!
Here's a funny dumb Clement travel story:
I was supposed to catch a 6:30AM bus to Krabi and on to Hat Yai and Sungai Kolok on the Malaysian border where I planned to walk across and catch local bus 29 to Kota Baru. When I got home from talking to the Super Traveller, my guesthouse office was locked up for the night with my important stuff like $$, iPod, and passport still locked in their lockers which were now behind a metal pull-down garage door. Security is a great thing, but they didn't open until 8AM so when my ride appeared, I was hopefully packed - but without a passport, I was stuck. They left without me and when the hostel opened at 9AM I rescheduled to the 11AM Bus. Advertised to arrive at the border at 7PM, reality was closer to 9PM when the border closes so I was stuck in the scariest hotel I've ever slept in for the night. It was 6 stories and I'm sure I was the only tenant. I've never seen a dirtier rug, the door had an actual fist-sized hole through it, and it took two hands to move the uranium density pillow. The one piece of art on the wall..., well you'll just have to check my flickr page for it. It's a classic. I crossed the border bright and early in the AM and caught a cab to Kuala Besut where the ferry boats to Pulau Perhantian Islands collect their passengers. I was lucky to find a cab at all since I had decided to enter Malaysia on the 50th Anniversary of their Independence, whoops! - Imagine trying to find a taxi in the USA at 9AM on July 4th! The cabbie had zero English, but that was fine, as I managed to get him to find me a place to change some money and used a map to point out where I needed to go. He was so nice that he played his one tape of western music for our 2 hour ride to the port city - I'll always treasure my new memory of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" (or as I sing it - "Hold me tight now, Tony Danza...") that we both sang at full volume down the coast road in sight of the South China Sea.
Very surprisingly, I was the better singer...
More on Malayisa very soon, I promise!
Buon Gia,
Clemenje
