The True View Journals

The general consensus is that Krabi is a place to do for maybe a night or two at most. On the day we left for the 1.00pm Ferry to Krabi we found out about 11am that there would be no boat that day so instead we had to head further to Ao Nang and get a taxi down to Krabi. The boat ride allowed us reflect on our time in Lanta and look forward to getting back to Bangkok for some shopping before leaving Thailand…

The trip to Ao Nang turned out to be far more enjoyable than a direct trip to Krabi as we got to pass the very scenic Railay on the way which is a rock climber’s paradise…

The only way to disembark for Railay was by long boat as there are no roads into the place itself

Luckily when we landed in Ao Nang we managed to get a free ride into Krabi itself

On our first night in Krabi we got re-acquainted with the once ubiquitous rain that we thought we had left in Phangan. It didn’t last all night though and we got to head out and sample one of the Bazaars…and this night Market was pretty impressive…from sweets, to meats, to candies, to donuts, to cooked bugs and maggots to things on sticks…this place had it all, bright colours, great smells and a Thai concert going on in the background

We stopped off in the Irish Bar O’Malley’s on the way back to the hotel…little did we know we would be paying 5 odd euro for a can of guinness…to put that in context, in our time in Thailand we have had full meals + beers for less than that…bloody Irish…

The most expensive can of Guiness ever?

Once back at the hotel we decided to have a beer before turning in for the night…how strange that turned out to be. The hotel we were in seemed to be a sort of business hotel. On the largish stage in the bar was around 30+ young Thai women, all equipped with short skirts, high boots and turning in a semi choreographed way (the kind of semi choreographed way cattle move through a cattle mart) to the music of the DJ while each one took turns with the microphone doing a sort of karaoke…at this stage we were just confused…was it Karaoke? Was it some sort of act? We couldn’t really understand it…it was the sort of girls in school uniforms that the Japanese business men seem to be obsessed with but where did the taking turns in Karaoke fit into it? Just when I was going to try sneaking a photo they all started coming off the stage and only a few remained…was this the next round? What the fuck was going on? With the photo missed we got back to our drinks but then it was obvious enough when the girls who came from the stage all quickly got associated with any free men or groups of men in the bar…this is Thailand after all…I guess you could tell who the most successful business men where by the number of girls grouped around them. At this stage though there were still one or two reluctantly singing on stage…when a song finished, no applause, not even an acknowledgement…I’m still not sure where the bad karaoke fitted into this whole scene…there seemed to be some sort of method to the madness but I suppose it’s more subtle than just putting numbers on the girls and getting them to turn around on stage in front of drooling older Thai and International business men. After all this was Krabi and not Patpong or Pattaya…

Our plans for the next day were pretty much ruined by the non stop rain…so we did a small bit of shopping and packed our things ready for the flight to Bangkok. We managed to check out the other night market (during the day) and it was selling all manner of fruits and veg

We set off the next day, off to to Krabi airport which is nice and small…sort of like Cork airport…its new and getting through security checks and checking in is a breeze. If only all airports were like this. It didnt take long before we finally got back to the city they call Bangkok.