Hello! It’s September already and I didn’t even write anything in August. I even forgot to post my Krabi post geez. Really sorry, but honestly August was great to me. I went to Jakarta for a family wedding and an interview with a Journalist, and also my commencement date to work from Jakarta office is finalized, finally.
Awesome news, I bought a ticket to Ho Chi Minh and I’ll be gone next week! With T and N, and N’s sister as well. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun, I can’t wait really! But I haven’t even told you guys about my trip to Krabi. Oh goodness, I am really sorry. For Robin, lol I didn’t mean to prolong this but.. I was lazy lol sorry babe. Let’s start!
Okay, so… My partner always wanted to go to Krabi, Thailand. She told me this quite a few times. At first I was like.. what is Krabi? Is it some sort of place where you can eat lots of Crab? Or Krabby Patty?
Turns out, the only thing that you can find alike between Krabi and Crab and Krabby Patty is… the sea. Ocean. Krabi is one of the nicest place where you can just chill and enjoy the sun by the beach. I went there last June, 23rd-26th, a week after I went to Yangon.
It was a “surprise birthday” trip for me. Bought the ticket in June 21st for SGD569.18 for 2 people, including return flights from Singapore and hotel for 3 nights from June 23rd-26th. We didn’t plan the trip at all. Bought it only because I didn’t want my flatmate to complain about my partner while she was in Singapore. Also, I think it’s kinda nice to have a nice getaway for us before Robin had to go back to UK.
Confirmation email from Expedia. I love Expedia because we can buy bundled hotel and flight package.
And so I asked her to go to Krabi with me. She said yes. I was so happy because it would be our first time trip to another country, like an actual trip we plan to go together, not just for visitation or helping each other to move lol.
So we flew with Scoot and stayed at Holiday Inn Express Krabi Ao Nang Beach. When we arrived I noticed that the airport is quite small. There wasn’t any other plane beside our plane, I think. Don’t forget to fill in your immigration card, and then you can leave the place.
After we got out, we decided to take travel shuttle that will get us to the hotel in Ao Nang. It was about THB150 (SGD6.3) for one person. Remember not to throw away your ticket because for some company (like mine, it was Pichet Transportation Co. Ltd), you can get special price for around THB100 if you take the same shuttle company to get you back to the airport. I now it’s not much but oh how I love discounted stuff lol.
The shuttle we rode. They gave us special price if we use them for return trip to the airport.
Then we bought SIM card so we could stay in touch with outside world while we were there. We got it from DTAC for I don’t remember how much hahaha so not helping.
After wait for a while until the shuttle is quite full, then off we went! They took turn and we were third. Man, I think we got a very nicely located hotel. We got the beach right in front of the hotel. Although we didn’t get the room with nice view but I don’t mind, really.
The beach in front of Holiday Inn Express Ao Nang. So close!
After that, we had a walk around the area. We were so hungry and decided to eat some local food. From what we gathered, the food is priced around THB50-100. Quite cheap, eh? So we got our first spring roll, pad thai, and green curry. Man that was amaaaaazing. I love Thai food.
Then we walked and walked and finally we decided to book a tour. There are lots of options actually and you can honestly bargain. We got it from a small stall, we haggled and got a 7 islands tour for THB1,000 per pax, with a big boat. There are two options for the boat, either you can get big or small boat. Robin said it would be better if we took the big boat because not very shaky, so we proceed.
So we had an itinerary for the next day. The tour would take us a day so.. after that we just chill and slept our day off. Lol I’m kidding.
We went to the bar by the beach and I got drunk for the first time ever lol. It was so funny because I ended in my room crying. Turns out, I went to the beach, swam a bit and then got back, took a shower, and slept. After that, Robin said I woke up and then I bawled, realizing I was naked, like.. wtf me? So first day ended with me got drunk!
Dry martini, long island ice tea, and a Idk what else, was enough to make me drunk.
The next day, we went for the tour. The tour fetched us using some.. sort of pickup car around 11am. They modified it so around 9 people can sit on top of it, without any safety belts to wear. I don’t mind really (I’m Indonesian, we give zero fucks for safety), but if you’re the kind of person that care about safety, this could be one hell of a ride lol.
After fetched some few more, we went to the pier and they gave us snorkeling tools. We still needed to wait for around 45min – an hour, to finally get on the boat because they had to pool some more people. While we were waiting, the crew somehow tried to get some more money from Robin and I. I honestly don’t understand why they only picked on us but maybe because we got like the cheapest one, or because we paid only half to the stall and half next day. Thankfully I got Robin which was very vocal about it and phoned the owner right away on the second time the crew asked us for more money. So, be cautious and know what your right are important.
The pier where we waited for the big boat for island hopping.
And so we went for the first island. The sand was white.. you can chill and of course you can swim if you want. There were lots of tourists in this first island. There was even a small booth that sold us instant noodles and cold drinks. So you can do whatever you want basically.
The sand is so white. Anyway this picture made me realized that I wore that shirt A LOT. Unconsciously my favorite shirt, must be.
What I remember the most from the island hopping tour is the chicken island, because we went snorkeling around the area. It was a nice snorkeling, saw a few fishes but also LOTS of sea urchins so you better be careful, not to get pricked!
Oh and the islands.. it’s so pretty and.. tall! It was more like cliffs all over the place and the water is nice and chill. If you’re a beach kinda person, you must like it. I quite like you can also enjoy the sunset and finally, at the last island we managed to get the food! It was buffet style so you can devour a lot of Thai food and the taste was amazing, I love it. I think green curry will be my top 5 fave dish ever.
Look at that! Massive.
Before we got back to Ao Nang, Robin, I, and another lesbian couple in the group insisted to swim and see glow-in-the-dark plankton. Anyway, I was so happy there were like 2 other lesbian couple in the group lol. Two couples, including us were asian and the other one, the one that swam to find plankton, was white. Yay! I think Thailand somewhat is quite open about it and I felt safe there, to show some skinship with Robin.
A bar in secluded island? Why the hell not.
After the tour was over, around 7pm.. and the guide helped us back to home. We were so damn tired but we decided not to sleep first but took a walk around the shops. Just to enjoy the night and then we went back for sleep.
Sunset at the beach.
Day 3. Robin and I wanted a chill kinda day and so we got up quite early for breakfast. Have I told you the breakfast at Holiday Inn Express Ao Nang was FABULOUS. I just never tasted a very fresh orange juice like that before. Ugh.. now I want to drink orange juice. I mean.. I love how we could get a nice place holiday for cheap.
But maybe it was cheap because it was low season? On day 3, it was raining from morning until afternoon. I was so thankful we went for the tour on day 2 because it’s not gonna be fun on the beach if it was raining, right?
Anyway, because of the rain, we decided just to walk around the area. I love that we picked Ao Nang because the beach wasn’t too crowded and there were lots of shops, not only souvenir and restaurant, but also bars and massage parlors. We decided to try the Thai massage, and I think that was the best decision in my life so far.
Ao Nang beach
A ladyboy (male to female trans) massaged me and boy, when she cracked my spine, man for a few second I think I could saw heaven? Not because it wasn’t good, but it. was. the. best. thing. I. never. knew. I. needed. You should definitely try Thai massage, if you’re into pampering yourself. It was cheap, for 1 and a half hour, I think we paid THB200 each? Must try. I definitely will go to Thailand and massage myself someday.
After the massage we went around to eat and then we decided to eat at a place called Tha*land*a, which T recommended. And the place was shit. We were the first two customers and they treated us like shit. The waiter not even ready and kept trying to watch a show on TV, we were treated like… invincible. But next, while we were eating and a bunch of whites came in and eat, they started the music and the place got livelier. Freaking racist. I hate that place and will never eat there ever again.
Food at that shitty place. Presentation was good but taste so-so and hospitality was terrible. Better to find other restaurant that is not overpriced and actually taste good.
The food was okay, not even better than the buffet we had day before. The mango sticky rice was too damn sweet, and I remember the waiter brought me wrong drink order. In the end, they wrongly charged us with 2x mango sticky rice. I was confused but decided to pay anyway, because I couldn’t wait to get out of that place but luckily they realized their mistake and charged us with the right thing finally. If you’re thinking to eat there, think twice.
After that bloody incident we walked around the area and tried the McDonald’s. The taste was so-so but the price is somewhat more expensive than local food. I think you should only go to McDonald’s for last resort. I tried something called buta so it’s definitely not halal. Oh, talking about halal I think Krabi is not very friendly for halal food.. although I saw lots of people wearing hijab/tudung.
I didn’t try to ride a tuktuk or else because I think it was quite expensive. Wanted to try rent a bike but then it was raining quite a lot so I don’t think that was worth the money. So that’s the end of my last full day in Krabi, I didn’t do lots of stuff, just smoking, sitting by the beach at night, bought some souvenirs (you can definitely haggle from the shops there) and I think that was perfect.
The next day was the end of our trip. We had to go back to Singapore. In the end, I think I had quite a nice experience in Krabi. The vibe sure is different with Yangon. Maybe next time I should try Bangkok or Phuket. I think I can even take my mom there as well. Ah.. anyway, now on to the next trip! Ho Chi Minh City!
