Don't Worry...Go Krabi

As you may have figured out we like to travel to new places. What you may not know is that I also love to surprise people with cool stuff. In the past I’ve tried to surprise Amy with some sort of trip for her birthday.  Since this year we are planning on hiking Mount Fuji in Japan over her birthday weekend so I didn’t want to spring that on her considering you need to actually train to get ready.  So I took the bull by the horns and planned a surprise anniversary trip.  I started asking everyone who had been in Singapore for a while where we should go. Most people suggested either Phuket (Thailand), Bali (Indonesia), or Krabi (Thailand).  

With those in mind I did a quick search and Krabi looked right up our alley. It was a little off the beaten path as opposed to Bali or Phuket.  Not to mention Krabi still has access to the Phi Phi Islands and some cultural aspects.  Best part it is only about a 1 ½ hour direct flight. 

The next task was finding a hotel.  I started with TripAdvisor, since that is the go to site for recommendation in Asia.  The Amari Vogue Krabi was in the top 3 in the whole Krabi area. Even better that the prices were reasonable, and unlike many of the other amazing looking hotels in the area you didn’t need to take a boat to get there.  I assumed (wrongly) that the boat trip would add a lot of time to and from the hotel but we found out it really didn’t. Next time we might have to stay on Railay Beach. 

Finally the week of the trip arrived and Thailand was in total chaos, or at least that is what the news said. A few days before we left there was a military coup and the media was drawing a lot of assumptions on what was going on. Previous experience indicated that this was a great time to go, since many people would cancel their trips and they would be hungry for tourists.  Also we were not planning on going to Bangkok where most of the turmoil was.  But just to be safe I talked to one of my co-workers who was there during the beginning of the coup and he said that he saw one police office on the way to the airport, aka business as usual. 

The flight, car ride and hotel all were great and we made it to the hotel in time for their 1 for 1 (2 for 1 for you Americans) happy hour special.  We also tried the onsite Thai restaurant which was very good.  The original plan was to get Amy certified for scuba (which would take 2 full days of diving), but after seeing the resort and checking out the surrounding area we decided to play it by ear and see where the days would take us. (We never did end up diving.)

The next morning we had some coffee and ‘free’ breakfast.  While reading the paper and looking at things to do on TripAdvisor we decided to have a morning workout where we would climb 1260 steps to see the Tiger Cave Temple.  Despite being 99° and 95% humidity we figured we were fit enough to do it as we had been training for Mt. Fuji by climbing the stairs in our building.  Next thing you know we are in a cab in our workout gear with a camera, some water and sunscreen.  The hike started off easy and then about 45 steps in the steps turned out to be large by Siegfried standards, about 15 inches tall. By the time we made it to the top I was 98% covered in sweat (there was one spot on my shirt that had not soaked through) but the view was amazing.  The Buddhist monks believe that putting shrines up high makes them closer to God, it felt more like hell to me, but totally worth it. The way down was much harder than the way up but we survived.  

We grabbed some water and after being followed around by monkeys (they’re cheeky little things,) we decided to check out an area on the other side of the hill where the monks actually worship and live in caves.  This was cool until we saw a big jungle snake and high tailed it out. 

The next day we hopped on a boat for an island hopping/snorkel trip to see the Phi Phi islands.  I was in this area 12 year before not only on boat trips but I also diving.  I was so excited to see them, but I was sad to see how touristy it has gotten.  But once you get there you can see why; it is so freaking BEAUTIFUL!  The islands are sheer cliffs that plunge straight into the water and then between you have small, perfect white beaches that can only be reached by boat.  There were a lot of tourists at Maya Beach (where the movie The Beach was filmed) and everywhere really. 

Our last full day involved doing nothing. We sat under a tree at the beach, caught up on our reading and recharged our batteries. It was an awesome day to follow up two full days of sightseeing and activities and a great way to finish up our trip.

I hope that you get the opportunity to make it to Krabi as it is an amazing place, with beautiful sites, wonderful people and affordable prices.  Not to mention you cannot beat the pad thai! 

Until then,

Raegen & Amy