Glad you’re back for another blog post. In this episode, I discuss Krabi, a place crammed almost to overflow with potential, most of which we weren’t able to tap into.

We stayed in a comfortable hotel, central in location right in the heart of Krabi Town. Outside of our window, a dreary parking lot by day, transformed overnight into a bustling night market. Outside our doorstep were stalls sprawled across the street filled with so much delicious food I could never have eaten it all. But boy did I try. Mornings were filled with mango smoothies and fresh donuts. A cute and cozy cafe across the street served up pancakes superior to IHOP with ease, if I ever got tired of paradise and wanted a side of bliss instead.

Krabi has a beautiful balance of city and town with bustling streets and street markets which coexisted so seamlessly that it felt natural.  We stayed extra nights for this street food, the metallic meat markets lit up the street like Christmas trees glittering in the dark, clean tables shadowing underneath like presents just for me. Krabi Town is right next to a pier, and every night the pier is packed from top to bottom with street carts carrying mouthwatering fish.

Our journey isn’t a journey without ups and downs, the beginning of which was our experience in Railey Beach. Overcrowded on a cloudy day, “the most beautiful beach in Thailand” as reported by numerous sources was nothing more than a sandy pain in the ass. The beach itself was lackluster and completely overthrown by tourism; resorts walling us in like jail cells, their prices murderous and not worth a fraction of the cost. The boat ride was an experience I’ll remember though, the harsh waves and rocky ride completely washed away by our confident captain standing powerfully on the head of the boat as though time waited for him and no other man. Without the company of Babs and PJ, we probably would have left much earlier than we did. I even dared to have one of my favorite pasta dishes thinking if anything could remedy this massive disappointment it would be a nice Carbonara. Wrong. Too creamy with barely any pasta to speak of. I guess I’ll have to wait 5 more months to have some of Sam’s custom pasta deliciousness.

Lucie and I learned again how old our souls are in Krabi. There was a time when 5 beers was a standard night time snack for me, but those nights quickly faded from existence along with college and regretting my life choices while hunched over a toilet. Now I just feel 23 going on 40 with no interest in drinking or staying up past bed time, and I think Lucie feels the same. Our ideal night is milk and cookies, a comfy bed with covers pulled up over our heads, and a nice movie/book. Be that as it may, we had so much fun with Babs and PJ. Prowling the bars and loosing at pool, drinking the midnight oil or sipping it slowly depending on how tipsy we had already gotten. Genuine conversation seemed to roll off of our tongues like water and it was so easy to keep it going. True friends like these are so hard to find and we hope to join Babs and PJ in Belgium if we can keep our money in our wallets for the next 5 months.

We also learned how tourist traps work in Krabi. The day before our move to Khao Lak we examined the bus market in hopes of finding a deal. Lucie had researched the acceptable rate we should be looking for, but everyone we went to was charging double, our hotel triple. We had two options: Give into the obvious extortion and pay double, or put on our grown-up pants and walk the hour to the bus station and save. We decided to walk the line. An hour became and hour and a half with about a two hour wait for the bus but we saved about a days worth of expenses so it was definitely worth it. The bus carried us right back to our hotel, picking up tourists who hadn’t bothered to walk- for double what we paid along the way and I will admit we felt pretty damn good with ourselves. The system was designed to up-charge farangs. Bus drivers take off from the public station with local passengers and then pick up cash from various tourist services and hotels along with duped travelers. I would be mad- I should be mad, but we weren’t farangs anymore.

TLDR; Krabi-town is full of delicious food, especially near the pier.  Railay beach isn’t worth it, and walk to the public bus station!!!