The trip from Koh Phangan to Krabi was pleasant except that the bus dropped us off at Krabi’s “bus depot” or a dirt patch off a highway in the middle of nowhere without a taxi or tuk-tuk in sight. We had reserved a room at a hostel in Krabi the previous day and, with the help of Megan’s phone and google maps, we made the roughly one mile walk to the destination google picked out for us. Unfortunately, after getting help from a nearby travel agency, we realized that google had no idea what it was talking about and technology had pointed us in the wrong direction. Luckily, we had amazing Thai hospitality on our side and the women at the travel agency insisted on giving us a ride in their car to their guess on where our guest house should be located. After driving us around for the better part of an hour, stopping frequently to ask businesses and hotels if they had heard of “Boss and Benz” guest house. Nobody had heard of it and since Megan’s phone was on the fritz and we clumsily forgot to write down the phone number of the guest house, we were out of options. Finally, defeated, the two women apologized for not being able to help us and recommended another guest house for us to stay at, dropped us off and wouldn’t take a single penny for all their troubles. Random acts of kindness have been quite common throughout our SE Asia travels but never to such profound ends. Anyway, the place they recommended was fantastic; it was clean, in a good location and we slept on a mattress and pillows so perfectly plush that we fought the urge to stay extra nights just to sleep there. The next day, we caught a boat taxi to Railay Bay, a world famous rock climbers paradise and home to stunning beaches hugging towering limestone karsts. The ride took nearly an hour over glassy, emerald green water between networks of mangroves and shallow sand. From far away in the haze, the huge knobs and karsts look like an natural urban skyline. When we arrived, the whole boat was so in awe of the scenery that we nearly all walked away from the taxi without paying. The bay itself is spectacular; there is one main beach flanked on both ends by mammoth karsts with vegetation clinging to its vertical faces like moss on a tree. In a few places, the high rises eagerly call climbers to scale them and repel by simply leaping off into the water. We did the usual routine of sun, shade, reading and I went for a swim that ended abruptly when I witnessed a jellyfish (or a small plastic bag) and hastily made my way back to the beach. The sand, which when kicked up produced a fine dust, was all over our bodies and we were anxious for a cold shower upon arrival to our room to rinse that and the low tide muck on our shins and feet. As the hours went by, the tide dropped and shady spots along the beach gradually faded motivating us to make our way through the little resort town and to hail a boat taxi near four o’clock.
Our next stop in our quest for the perfect Thai beach landed us in Koh Phi Phi; many fellow travelers named it their favorite Thai island and we were eager to see what this tiny island had to offer. The ferry dropped us off on a long sturdy pier in a big bay rimmed with lush limestone peaks and high tide shallow beaches lined with longtail boats. After paying the 20 baht tax to enter the island (to ensure the continued beauty of Phi Phi islands), we wound through the narrow, pedestrian and bicycle only, streets up to the Tara Inn where we paid for three nights. Because there is such limited developable areas on this picturesque island, the main town is very tightly packed with guest houses, restaurants, bars and shops catering strictly to tourists. Honestly, on the island itself, there is not a lot to do besides eat great food, journey to find the ideal beach, and drink the night away (it was just too expensive to dive here). However, the sheer beauty of this place is undeniable and the island has gone through a lot of rebuilding since the 2004 tsunami struck this little gem. The best day here was our last when we decided at the last minute to join a cheap snorkel tour of the one of the other Phi Phi islands. It was an OK last minute because it seemed the weather could change any instant from partly cloudy to dark and stormy and just OK because of the intense crowds at Maya beach (where scenes from “The Beach” movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, were filmed) and the snorkeling could have been better. We made a pit stop to a cove littered with monkeys and I was pretty appalled (but not surprised) at the behavior of Thai tour leaders who were eager to please their boats by tossing heaps of bananas at the monkeys despite a large warning sign that read “DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS” in clear Thai and English. After a couple of delicious meals and cheap Muay Thai boxing matches we saw all we needed to see here. The size and scarcity of transportation on the island makes for higher prices for everything, driving us away from the island faster than I would have liked. That, coupled with dodgy weather, drove us to Koh Lanta fairly quickly.
Lanta was everything I hoped it would be and everything we were promised it would be. A quiet, relaxed island filled with more chill traveling couples than full moon crazy partiers was the perfect way to end our Thailand stay. The stay here was filled with cheap good eats, plentiful uncrowded beaches, a refreshing waterfall tour, stargazing and postcard sunsets every night, not to mention powerful late night thunderstorms. We had one of our favorite meals here and some of our most memorable beach hopping moments in Thailand were spent on Lanta’s well groomed coastlines. It was probably the only Thai island I could see myself coming back to again and again for the atmosphere, price and friendliness of the locals. After a month of island and beach hopping and hardly exposing ourselves to any new culture, we felt ready for a big change and booked a ticket to UNESCO world heritage site, Georgetown in Penang, Malaysia. It wasn’t easy saying goodbye to the easy, free island pace of life but we were ready to rid ourselves of the constant abrasiveness of sand in the bed and vicious mosquitoes, whose bites started blistering on our skin. We made our way further down the longest peninsula in the world, ready for new challenges, cultures and languages. So long for now, Thailand. It’s been an amazing journey.