Chiang Rai to Krabi - 31 October to 5th November 2007…
I feel like we have been on busses forever…
Wednesday 31st October and Thursday 1st November were both spent at the Akha River house in Chiang Rai, relaxing after our trek into the hills… OK… in all honesty we needed to get the laundry done, and book tickets for our next leg of the journey. We had planned to head south slowly, but busses and time tables were not working in our favour. Our only option ended up being the night bus from Chiang Rai to Bangkok… 12 hours. We opted for an air conditioned bus (with toilet!) and departed at 6:00pm on Thursday 1st November…
What a horror bus trip… it would have been fine just to be on the bus and be able to sleep, but this was not our lot. In the seat ahead of us was a young baby that kept… well… screaming… Just as the kid went back to sleep, someones mobile phone would ring, then the kid would scream again. This went on until about 2:30am when the childs mother decided to feed it… surprise surprise… the kid shut up… The mobile phones did not… Who rings someone up at 3:00am for a casual chat? At 5:00am said kid was woken up to have its nappy changed… being a boy, it pissed as soon as its nappy was removed… straight down my legs… Fortunately I had a blanket covering most of my legs and only my boots got wet. I so need to disinfect those boots!!
We arrived in Bangkok Northern Bus station at about 6:00am, with no sleep, and headed straight for the Southern Bus Station where we promptly jumped on a bus and ended up in Phetchaburi by about 9:00am… Blissfully we fell asleep for a couple of hours.
Upon waking we explored the Phra Nakhom Khiri Palace, which just happened to be opposite our hotel… very convenient. This was the limit of our energy for the day and we retired for an early evening.
Saturday 3rd November saw us jumping on another bus for a short 1 1/2 hour journey to Hua Hin. OUr accompdation was… basic… This was OK as we were only staying one night. Hua Hin is a grat place for shopping and drinking. There were bars and stalls everywhere and restaurants from all parts of the world. After a pleasant afternoon spent consuming cocktails, we settled on an Italian restaurant for dinner..very nice.
Sunday 4th November and we started our day with a brief disagreement with the tuk tuk drivers who were asking too much money to get to the bus station. We walked. It was not far. We then got on another bus and spent 8 hours travelling to Krabi. I was quite excited as this is where we are spending our final nice nights before travelling back to Bangkok so I can fly home.
We arrived in Krabi at about 7:00pm, and after another brief argument with a tuk tuk driver, got a lift to our accommodation for the evening. Once again we were only in the room for a night as tomorrow night was the Soffitel Phokeethra Krabi Resort and Spa… heh heh heh… not long now…
Just as well… our accommodation turned out to be very basic. (and an inspection of our beds in the morning revealed a few ‘friends’ we had not been aware of…) After dinner, Cathy logged onto the internet to find out the location of our hotel. We had not seen it as we came in and it was not listed in our book, as it had only been open about 8 months. She came back a short time later and handed me a slip of paper with the directions to our hotel.
I read it and my face fell. I looked at her in horror… “Fuck..” was all I could manage.
The hotel was not in this town… it was in Krabi province… not Krabi town. You had to travel towards Ao Nang, along a beach somewhere… Shit. There weren’t even any busses that went that way. It was in the middle of bloody nowhere… It had better be worth it…
Monday 5th November and, with our bags again packed, we called for a taxi… It was going to cost a lot, we were warned, about 650 baht…. we quickly calculated this into about $26 Australian Dollars and shrugged our shoulders… Not so bad really.
It took about 20 minutes to drive there… Hell… the hotel looked like a small town!
Was it worth it…
HELL YEAH!!!!!!
What luxury… The swimming pool is Thailands largest. Heh heh heh… Yipee… heh heh heh… Sorry… Got to go and be waited on hand and foot… there is a pool calling… there is more staff here than guests… heh heh heh… we have a resort hotel to ourselves (well… almost). heh heh heh heh heh heh….
