Krabi

Krabi is another touristy destination - this time on the mainland east of Phuket Island. I decide against the bus - by taking the ferry I get to see Phi Phi Island (normally an expensive tour).


Great scenery as we cruise across the bay. Lots of limestone islands - similar to Halong Bay but not the same scale.

My Krabi hotel booked over the Internet is a sharp contrast my Phuket one. To restore my budget I only have a fan, and share a (mostly) cold water bathroom. No worries - you don't travel to look at the inside of a hotel room.

I check out the tours available, and settle on a kayak/snorkeling trip to Hong and Paradise Islands.


Our companion longtail sets off...


and we get to Hong Is in half an hour.



Lovely beaches, but swimming comes later.


First activity is kayaking, but they're all double kayaks. I team up with Chandler from Montana in the States. She tells me she's coped with some rough conditions while whale watching. No kidding! No sooner are we in our kayak and we're half way round the island before the others figure out how to hold their paddles. We duck in to little bays while we wait for the others to catch up.

Great scenery - particularly the caves and tunnels where the water's eroded the limestone. At one point a small opening expands out to a mangrove lagoon tucked behind a little sandy beach.


After lunch we move on to more islands for swimming, then Paradise Is for snorkelling. A disappointment - low visibility and few fish. Either we were unlucky, or we should have chosen a different island. Chandler tells me about some great snorkeling in Borneo - another activity if I can get there to see the orangutans.

Krabi's a nice little town - nowhere near as commercial as Phuket, but with lots of tour options. And I hold the town's traffic engineer in high regard. How about this for a set of traffic lights?

These trolls are holding the lights in blocks of stone - another set of lights I saw used eagles. Why do we have such boring traffic lights in New Zealand? I like the enforcement connotations too - run these lights and you get clubbed to death by a troll. An interesting paper for your next traffic engineering conference, Chris?

A bit of a milestone at present. Fi flies home in time for New Year, and I'm catching the bus to Satun in southern Thailand and crossing to Langkawi in Malaysia. I feel as though my trip's nearly over! But there are a lot more experiences to squeeze in yet, and of course 10 days in Sydney from mid-January with Pauline. Roll on!