South Thailand! Surat Thani, Krabi

Sorry for the delay in updating our adventure…it’s been a few weeks I think. Our days have been quite busy, and eventful, and Lisa has been working a TON. Good news for us (Lisa Working), because that means we get to keep on travelling.
Our last post was about the “transit” city Chumphon, and the nearby beach, Thungwalaen. I say it’s a “transit” city, because it is half way from Bangkok to the far south, and most people rest there 1 night on their way south (or north). I’m very glad we chose to spend so much time there, it was brilliant!
After almost a week, it was time to move on. We were quite satisfied with the sun, snorkeling, and beach, so we contemplated heading north again. However further research made us aware of a smog advisory in North Thailand. With an air pollution rating of 180 in the Chiang Mai province (180 is pretty serious) until the middle of April, we decided to keep going south.
Phuket is a VERY popular region in the south, but we were concerned with both it’s overall popularity, specially because we were now used to enjoying Chumphon with almost zero other tourists. Also, Phuket has a well know reputation of being a heavy party destination, famous for its all night “full moon parties”. Not that that’s a bad reputation to have, just one that maybe Lisa and I would have enjoyed a little earlier in our relationship. So we decided to go to it’s neighbour to the east, Krabi.
Again, we were staying in Thunwalaen Beach, about 15KM’s from Chumphon. Had breakfast then were going to wait for the local “Bus” (a small pickup with 2 passenger benches in the back) to take us to Chumphon. The “bus” came every hour or so, we thought… When it passed by as we were eating we decided on a new plan. We started walking with our thumb’s out! Already 30+ Celsius, the girls started complaining about 10mins into the walk. Lisa and I have been steady in our efforts to teach them about positive thinking, and the choice we all make in our heads…”we can”, or “we can’t”…we tell them it’s really a simple choice, nothing more. State of mind is also a choice, happy or miserable. This was a good opportunity for Lisa and I to further our lesson to the girls. Finally, while sweating and red cheeked, the two girls agreed… Without exaggeration, the minute they said out loud “We Can!”, a passenger bus pulled off to the shoulder and asked us to hop in! He drove us right to the the bus terminal in Chumphon where there was a mini-van leaving in 5 minutes to Surat Thani, the next “transit” city on the way south, off we went.

We used booking.com to narrow the search of places to stay in Surat Thani, and ended up at “Hip Box 26”. A cool, budget, guest house which used shipping containers as rooms…hear me out. They turned each container into 2 rooms, fully renovated on the inside, complete with AC, TV, and modern furnishings. They painted all the outsides with an assortment of bright colours. In the middle of the rows of containers, was reception, a pool (pool # 9 so far), and a tiny exercise room/gym.

Although we had such a great time at the last “transit” city, Chumphon, we decided we would only stay here as long as we needed for Lisa to catch up on work a bit. We stayed 3 nights at the HipBox. The 2 girls and I passing the time by getting hair cuts, having delicious food, “home” schooling, and of course swimming. Lisa would join us for breakfast, and at least 1 night for some fun walking along the river, and enjoying the night market. Ellie and Isabel’s highlight of the night market was buying some plaster figurines along the river, and painting them as they saw fit. I’ve been working a lot with them with “ABC’s” and “123’s”, but this gave them a little art workshop which was great.

Once the weekend hit we decided to leave Surat Thani so we could make the final bus ride 3 or 4 hours to Krabi town where we stayed at a very budget friendly place with a fabulous pool (#10) called “Diamond Home Resort”. Still swamped with work, we spent the entire Monday to Friday living there like we would spend a work week in Toronto if I were unemployed, and the girls not in school. Krabi town itself is a very authentic Thai middle class town. Our favourite place for breakfast was a small Muslim restaurant where Lisa and I enjoyed steamed rice with a fried egg on top, and a delicious curry sauce to add flavour. The girls would have “Roti’s”…Unlike Caribbean Roti’s, these where almost like little pancake’s or crepe’s, sometime combined with broken egg and sliced banana. Ellie also liked roti dipped in the curry sauce, it really was tasty. For lunch, an authentic Thai restaurant where we had fried rice or phad thai with either “Kai”, “Moo”, or seafood (chicken, pork, or seafood). Dinner, straight to the soup restaurant where they served an amazing pork soup, with sliced BBQ pork, dumplings, and either white or yellow noodles (yellow the unanimous favourite).
We visited an Andaman Bead Museum, which believe it or not, was very interesting, continued “home” schooling, and explored the town. Every few nights, right across the street from us was a night market, where you could find everything from clothes, to water guns. Food which included everything from mini-quiche, to shoecrab. One day we took a taxi to Ao Nang, a nearby beachfront resort area where all the vacationing tourists stayed in 4 and 5 star resorts…couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

Friday came, and Lisa felt she had a grip on her workload. So we went for a walk along the river. We were approached by “Deedge”, a local water taxi driver who offered to take us to Railey beach for 600 Baht one way (about $20CAD), we negotiated down to 300 Baht, and an impromptu adventure had begun. We rode a longtail boat about 25min to Railey Beach. Although it felt like an island because it is only accessible by boat, it was not. The limestone mountains that surround it make it impossible to build roads leading to it, but it is so beautiful, that tourists and Thai vacationers alike flock to it by any means necessary. On the boat ride we met a group of vacationers from Poland. They were a little younger than us, but wonderfully friendly, and took to us immediately upon hearing our story. We went together to the cave beach, and had a great time. After connecting with them via email ect, they said that they would love to show us around their hometown in Poland should we stop there on our way through Europe…Hmmm…
Railey Beach is really an amazing place! The karst topography in South Thailand is one of 3 places on earth that has left such beautiful and puzzling landscapes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst). We walked underneath a limestone overhang until we met white powdery sand, looked out past the turquoise water, where huge limestone cylinders shot straight out of the sea…a sight impossible to forget!