Beautiful Beaches

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

There actually are beautiful beaches in Thailand despite our disappointment from the Ko Lanta beaches. We expected white sand, teal water and beautiful islands jutting out in the horizon and Ko Lanta fell far from that. This past weekend we went to Ao Nang Beach in Krabi with Daniel and Niamh, two other English teachers at our school. We took a two hour bus ride, which was fairly nice with AC, quality Thai music videos, and absolutely no shocks making for a bumpy adventure. Having arrived after dark, we did not know what to expect except something more or less like Ko Lanta. We checked into our hotel, which was a newly renovated place with 5 rooms and run by a spacy Calfornian. Our room was nice and big with a large contemporary painting of batman and catwoman kissing. We had AC, hot water, TV (with English channels), a DVD player and DVDs (including The Dark Knight), and a fridge!! Hot water being one of the most exciting points. Krabi is much more built up with restaurants, bars, touristy shops and LOTS AND LOTS of farangs. It was strange stepping out of our farang-free world of Trang into the farang hot spot. Pat said it was like being in the cool club and then all the sudden it not being cool any more. There were not the stares, hellos and honks that we were becoming accustomed to in Trang. Saturday morning when we could see the beach, we realized that Thailand does in fact have the beautiful beaches that you see in all of the guide books and all of the pictures ever taken of Thailand. Saturday we decided to go on an afternoon/evening snorkeling trip that was incredible. We hung out, shopped and walked around until 3pm when a longtail boat took us to a larger speed boat where our snorkeling adventure would begin. Niamh and I sat in awe at the front of the boat watching as the islands in the distance grew closer. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! The snorkeling was fine. The visibility was not super, but we saw several fish and corals. We stopped to snorkel at two different islands. We ate dinner on the boat and watch the sunset behind the islands. After it was dark, we headed to the darkest area we could find to go for a night swim and see the bioluminecense which were really cool!! As you splashed around, they would light up like glitter or fireflies all around you. We swam around with our snorkel masks on splashing around to see them light up!! The speedboat took us back to a longtail which took us back to shore and we wondered around Ao Nang shopping and eating a latenight snack at roadside carts. Sunday, after checking out of our hotel, we took a longtail boat to Railay, which is not an island, but the only way to get to it is by boat. Limestone cliffs surround the beach and only a few hotels are in the area. The limestone cliffs were beautiful, the sand white, the water warm and teal, and the islands sat beautifully in the horizon. After a few hours of laying out, swimming, and reading, we walked to a beach on a different side. As we approached the second beach, we were met by monkeys jumping all over the place and stealing trash and food. The second beach was just as beautiful and also crowded with tourists. We stayed for a few hours and then took the longtail boat back to AoNang and then a bus back to Trang.