Like Phuket, Krabi is a beach in Thailand. So since our action in Krabi was a bit limited, I would like to start this post with something that has been on my mind a lot since we have been in Thailand.
In the fall of 2009, I moved to Washington, DC to start graduate school. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, went to college at the University of Georgia, and then taught high school for three years in Arkansas and Georgia. The south is where I am from and what I knew.
A dear friend who is a few years older than me gently pushed me to apply to graduate schools outside of the south. Not because the south is bad or because I could never go back but just to get a little perspective and to try living somewhere else to see how it fit.
In my first month in DC, I went out to dinner with grad school friends at a Thai restaurant. I had eaten Chinese food occasionally growing up and sushi in college, but I had never eaten Thai. What does it taste like? What should I order? Will I like it?
The answers: Delicious, anything, and yes.
I share this because as I write, I have now spent over twenty days in Thailand. Less than ten years ago, I had not lived outside of the southeastern United States, and I had never tasted Thai food.
Life is long. The world is big. Given time and opportunity, people develop and change and grow in incredibly unexpected ways. There is no way that twenty five year old me ever could have imagined that thirty four year old me would love eating Thai food in Thailand and would travel to as many countries as we are going to visit this year. Thinking about that fills me with awe and gratitude as well as curiosity about what more the future may hold. Be patient. Give yourself and other people a chance. Possibilities are boundless.
Day 102: Goodbye, Phuket! Hello, Krabi!
Travel from Phuket to Krabi was the easiest. A van picked just me and Rich up at our hotel in Phuket, and three hours later, the driver dropped us at our hotel in Krabi. Amazing.
We spent the afternoon tackling a little work and planning out our next few days. We found a fabulous restaurant, Ton Ma Yom Thai Food Restaurant, for dinner and crashed hard.
Day 103: Work Out, Pool, Work
One of the advantages of staying in a hotel versus an AirBNB is having a gym. As we shared in our last thirty day post, our physical activity is WAY down in Asia, so we enjoyed a chance to get in a workout.
Another advantage of staying in a hotel, which may be at odds with the last advantage, is having breakfast provided. We went straight from the gym to the buffet, eliciting a few looks for being so sweaty, and enjoyed being able to eat as much as we want. These days we are not so much counting calories as counting bahts (the Thai currency) as food can eat (ha!) away at our budget quickly.
From breakfast, we showered and then headed to the pool for a couple of hours. Neither Phuket or Krabi had bookstores so I had been without any pool or beach reading for days. I decided to download a podcast to fill the void, and I landed on Slow Burn Season 1 which details how Watergate unfolded. I’m a nerd, but I thought the whole season was fascinating.
We got a bit of work done in the hotel in the afternoon and then walked on the beach in Krabi to get some pictures before heading back to Ton Ma Yom Thai Food Restaurant for our second night of delicious Thai dinner.
It started to rain when we left the hotel so our pictures have a slight melancholic feel with the boats and the rain. Still, the landscape was really beautiful and watching the boats return from the islands was neat too.
Day 104: College Football + Visit to Railay Beach
Go Dawgs!
The University of Georgia’s homecoming football game against the Vanderbilt Commodores was played at 7:30 PM in Athens, Georgia which meant a 6:30 AM start time for Thailand’s truest Dawg fans (me and Rich).
This was glorious! Instead of waking up at 1:00 AM or 3:30 AM, we we able to wake up at a time that humans are intended to wake up. We sipped our coffee, we ate buffet breakfast at halftime, and the Dawgs won. Brilliant.
Getting to RailAy Beach
We stayed in Ao Nang in Krabi. To reach the other nearby beautiful beaches, you take a quick 15 minute boat ride through the Andaman Sea. Rich and I had heard wonderful things about the beach at Railay Bay and decided to take a boat there for an easy day trip.
I had never been in a boat quite like the boat we took to Railay Beach. First, to board it, you wade about 3 feet into the water from the beach, and climb up a small ladder to climb in. That was new.
The boats are all wooden, and all look like they could probably lose a plank or two at any minute. I was giggling to myself that when we took the cruise across the Halong Bay in Vietnam every time we got on the small, sleek boats for an excursion, the crew insisted on everyone wearing life jackets at all times.
However, I had to look pretty hard to even locate life jackets on these boats in Krabi. I eventually found them, up front by the captain, neatly packed away out of reach. The captain didn’t exactly do a safety demonstration for us before jetting out across the sea! Thailand: not so big on regulation.
But I obviously arrived safely enough since I am here to write today. Being on the water was really pretty– Rich said the ride was one of his favorite moments of the whole time we were in Thailand!
Beach Day!
So we arrived, and Railay was, of course, beautiful. It felt like being in a Corona commercial.
One quick difference between Rich and me in terms of our beach going preferences: I could stay at the beach all day, without moving, and be the happiest. Rich needs a little action. “Okay,” he begins, “I think we apply the sunscreen. Then we lay for 30 minutes. Next we get in the water. After that we come back and towel off and eat our snack. Then we lay for 10 minutes, then…” You get the picture.
I should also add that the sun was HOT. In about 5 minutes of laying, we were both as sweaty as we have ever been in our entire lives. We are soaked, the towels are soaked, the sand under the towels is soaked. Puddles of sweat. You get the picture.
So we did a little bit of lounging, followed by some picture taking, followed by some splashing in the water, followed by some sand art, and then we retreated to the town for a nice, cold drink. We were on the beach itself for maybe an hour.
Railay Bay
Railay Bay is super chill as evidenced by every bar being named after or dedicated to Bob Marley. We wandered around, got a mango smoothie, and then found seats with a killer view of the sea to enjoy one iced cold beer. Heaven.
Then we waded back into the ocean, climbed in a rickety boat, and headed across the sea back to town.
We, of course, ate dinner with our friends at Ton Ma Yom Thai Food Restaurant for the third night in a row.
Day 105: NFL + Thai Massages
The Birds Lose.
The Philadelphia Eagles were not kind enough to start their game against the Minnesota Vikings at a normal hour in Thailand, so we were up at 3:25 AM to watch more football. They were also not kind enough to win. Watching your team lose before 8:00 AM is not the way to start your day!
We went to breakfast to eat away our sorrows and then went back to sleep. Rich and I love football and are passionate fans, but trying to watch all of the football we want to watch has really done a doozie on our sleep schedules. We can’t give football up, but I think we are both going to feel a little relieved– and a little healthier!– when the season is over. When we were working in the States, we loved college football on Saturdays and NFL on Sundays. Now it is brutal.
Thai Massages Are the Best Massages
If we made one mistake in Thailand, it might be that we only got one Thai massage. After our post-game nap, it was rainy so we spent most of the day working from our hotel room. In the late afternoon, we headed out for a glorious Thai massage at Massage Corner in Ao Nang.
Only getting one massage was a mistake because the massage was both wonderful and cheap. Of the 10+ massages I have had in my life, the massage I had in Krabi was a.) the best and b.) only 250 Thai Baht which translates to $7.69 USD. For one full hour.
Rich and I both felt gloriously zen when we left. A Thai vacation with ten straight days of massages could easily be in our future.
Closing Thoughts on Krabi
It is funny to me that the area is called Krabi because if we were anything in the four days we were there, crabby was not it.
Krabi was one of the easiest places to relax I have ever been. If conflict and overcoming challenges make for an exciting blog post, well, this one is probably on the boring side. We were total beach bums.
Several years after I tried Thai food for the first time, my best friend from high school, Alexis, visited Thailand. I thought she was super brave and adventurous to travel across the world.
I’m not saying now that she wasn’t, but I am saying that if you are reading this thinking that Thailand and/or Asia are outside of your travel comfort zone, I really think you could do it too! Imagine: great food, affordability, beaches, massages, paradise, etc.
Sometimes a nudge to step past your comfort zone pushes you way farther than you could have ever imagined. Consider this my paying that nudge forward. Trust me, after the best massage of your life, you’ll thank me.
Love you!