From cities to complete beach bliss...

So, being in a new hot and humid city at an unearthly hour, we ended up wasting a few hours in one of the parks until we could check into our hostel. Later we decided to head to the famous Koh San Road where we did a bit of shopping at the market. We found a little cart full of some thing which was attracting a lot of attention. We wandered over, and there was a lovely little pick and mix trolley… of many weird and wonderful bugs to eat. Luckily I wasn’t feeling all that hungry so I was able to decline such a nice offer, but Lee decided to try a cricket. Apparently it was just hollow and didn’t really taste of anything but soy sauce. I’m quite happy to take his word for it on that one!

The following day, we met up with our ‘homie’ Katie (We met on our tour in China, our tour leader called us his ‘homies’ which we found pretty amusing) The heavens opened and torrential rain appeared from nowhere, the road quickly became a swimming pool and we were wading through water to get to our taxi! Luckily we had flip-flops on, unfortunately Katie had her walking shoes on. We headed to the airport and flew to Krabi on our ninth flight. Lee spent all of my birthday money and bought himself a camera. Ok, ok, maybe that’s not entirely true, it was his birthday money too… he is like a dog with a million tails though with his new toy.

On our first full day in Krabi, we took a wander to the seafront as we were so lazy at getting out of bed, we missed all of the buses. We walked along the beach and booked ourselves a trip, and then really pushed the boat out and bought a beach towel The following day we just spent on the beach, flippin ‘eck is it hot here… 36 degrees to be precise. The thoughts of snow back home makes lying in the scorching heat that bit more bearable The sunset here was a bit special too. On our last day in Krabi before moving to the islands, we headed out on an excursion firstly to the Emerald Pool. This was pretty amazing, a freshwater pool in the middle of the jungle. I was on the lookout for any nasties, though all we found was a couple of rather large spiders. We think they were bird eating spiders, as they look like the pictures I googled on the internet. Yes, me being me decided it would be a good idea to look up every weird and wonderful insect (or anything for that matter) that I may spot whilst on the Thai islands. The list is pretty endless, though the ones that stuck in my mind were the poisonous spiders, poisonous centipedes, scorpions and not forgetting King Cobra’s – all to be found in the idyllic beach bungalows. Then when you go for a dip in the sea you need to watch out of the Box Jellyfish – those lovely little guys apparently hold the most poisonous venom on the planet… just cracking that is, and really entices me in for a swim! I am prepared though, and some may laugh, but I have purchased a bottle of vinegar ready to treat any stings Oh I do like to be prepared! Anyway, back to The Emerald Pool… it was gorgeous and so clear, and the only thing in it seemed to be a few little fish swimming around. After the Emerald Pool we headed to the Hot Spring and waterfall. This was also pretty nice, though a little bit busy by the time we got there. The water was between 35-40 degrees, it was like being in a lovely hot bath. The waterfall itself was made up of various little rock pools, so we just got comfy and relaxed, well for all of about 15mins as we had to get out for our lunch. After not feeling very hungry as I’d gobbled a bag of crisps and ruined my appetite, I managed to do a good job of demolishing most of what was on the table in front of us We then headed to the Tiger Cave Temple. We hadn’t been warned about the energetic climb required to get to the top viewpoint. With a climb of 1237 steps, in the roasting 2pm heat we decided to give it a go. Katie and I made it to 500 steps and then left Lee to do the rest alone We then headed back down and enjoyed some ice-creams while Lee continued to climb to the top and take pretty pictures for us (I think I preferred our deal!) He had an animal encounter on the way down as a cheeky monkey took a liking to his water bottle in the side of his bag and went for the kill. Luckily Lee saw him coming out of the corner of his eye, and the water bottle was saved! He also saw one sitting eating chewing gum, and loads of them sliding down the handrails, they were having a whale of a time!

We are now on board a ferry on route to Koh Lanta… our nice little beach hideaway for the next few days, or maybe longer if we take a liking to it!