Today we were scheduled to fly from Bangkok to Krabi at 4:45 so we still had a little time left in Bangkok…so after a short swim, packing and breakfast, we went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum!!! As I am not in charge of finances for this trip, Caitlin embarked on a three day plan of sucking up to Marie in order to convince her to go… I argued for a nice culturally relevant activity or maybe another temple or a trip to a gogo bar or anything but a tourist trap like a wax museum… I was overruled. Violently. Turned out to be the most expensive activity we’ve done thus far at 800 baht per person but Caitlin had a disturbingly great time getting her picture taken with various celebrities (Marie may have had a little fun too) while I kept wondering if there would be at least a house of horrors section like ours had… Alas, no house of horrors but it was sort of interesting to see some of the Thai politicians and to see who they value from our culture… And I have to admit there was something… Pathetic? Funny? Tragic? about realizing that Caitlin had more fun wrapping her arms around a wax statue of Leonardo DiCaprio than exploring the ruins of a thousand year old temple… Not to mention watching Marie get all giddy about getting her picture taken with a wax effigy of George Clooney… Now if they’d had a Megan Fox display I could maybe understand their enthusiasm. Gotta say, though, I’m a little concerned about the Thai people’s music celebrity choices – Brittney Spears, really?? – but what can you do, eh?
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After the wax museum we wandered through the mall for a bit before grabbing the sky train back to our hotel. Then it was into a taxi for the 45 minute trip to the airport (no taxi scamming, thank you very much)… We were surprised by how many people were flying to Krabi but when we arrived, saw all the passenger pickup signs and realized they were all heading to the resorts at Ao Nang…. We arranged our cab ride into Krabi Town and had them drop us off at the Krabi Cozy Place – a budget hotel right in Krabi Town with decent Trip Advisor ratings… By this point it was full dark out and Krabi is not a particularly picturesque town so we were a little sketched out by our decision to stay in Krabi proper rather than at one of the beach resorts… Especially when the cab driver drove us through the seedier part of town. As we didn’t have a reservation, we asked our driver to stick around while we checked out the room. Luxury it isn’t but for one night it more than gets the job done. It’s clean, has Internet access, has a glacially efficient air conditioner and includes breakfast and costs $40 a night so no complaints. The owner? working at the front desk pointed us in the right direction for dinner and arranged our minivan pickup for the 2 hour trip to Koh Lanta and likes dogs so Caitlin and Marie figure he’s okay.
Our choice for dinner tonight was the open air food market… A good choice. Food was a little greasy and wasn’t the most authentic but was tasty and cheap at $8 for an appy, 3 entrees, a large Singha, 2 soda waters and a fanta… We poked around a little in Krabi town – lots of little bars but not much else going on as most people are on their way through to someplace else but we’ll take another look in daylight before confirming my impression that it reminds me of Hope, BC and places like that where people are just passing through.
Today we’re on a noon minivan to Koh Lanta (2 hours including a couple of Mill Bay type ferry rides) where we will be picked up in the little town of Saladan and transported to our beach villa at LaLanta Resort – right at the very bottom of Lanta Yoi and right beside the national park on the island so we should find plenty of piece and quiet… Now if we can do something about the weather ’cause while it hasn’t been bad for temple exploring and shopping, it has been overcast pretty much everyday since we left Chiang Mai and it has rained for at least part of everyday for 15 days in a row now… A couple of sunny days would be nice at this point.
Koh Lanta is pretty laid back at this time of year (hence the reason we’re paying 1/3 of the high season rate for a villa) but we are hoping to spend some leisure time on the beach and around the pool and they’re a boat ride away from the second best dive site in Thailand for me, and there’s scooters to rent, cooking classes, a really old Muslim village, surf lessons and a bunch of other stuff to do (much of it weather dependent but we’re prepared for movie and veg days too) so we’re all pretty excited about this part of the trip…
Thirty days in Thailand 