On my way to Krabi

After spending three nights in Koh Samui, I continued on to Krabi. There I also wanted to meet a girl I had met in Bangkok. After spending the morning on the beach in Koh Samui, I was picked up at 12.30 pm. by a taxi that took me to Nathon Pier on Koh Samui. There I was able to get on the ferry straight away. The ferry I took was quite large.

The trip back to the mainland took 1.5 hours. As soon as we arrived on land, I could already see the sky turning darker. I then followed all the other passengers off the ferry and looked for my bus to take me to Krabi. Luckily I found it quickly and was able to get on the big coach. It took another hour until the bus finally left. In the meantime, the bus driver offered me a shuttle from the bus stop in Krabi to my accommodation, which I also booked.

The drive to Krabi took 3 hours. It rained repeatedly on the journey. The weather didn’t really look promising. The bus arrived in Krabi at half past seven. I had to wait a bit there until I was allowed to get into the mini van. The drive to Ao Nang, where my accommodation was, took another 20 – 30 minutes. At eight o’clock I was dropped off at my hostel in Ao Nang. It was still raining.

Moving hostels

I was able to check in straight away at the hostel. Admittedly, I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the hostel. It looked nice and was clean but somehow I didn’t like the vibe. It was also very large and the bathroom was very far from my room. Luckily, as always, I only booked one night in case the hostel is bad, so I can change at any time. I decided to change to another hostel the next morning. After checking in, I walked down the street and bought something for dinner at 7/11.

The next morning I packed my things straight away. It was raining heavily, so at first I couldn’t do anything other than change hostels. I packed my things, checked out and then called a Grab. The hostel was only 2 kilometers away. Normally I would walk the route, but with the luggage and the rain it was more relaxing to take a taxi.

It was still early in the morning, but since the room was already ready, I was allowed to check in. At first glance, the hostel seemed much better and nicer than the hostel where I had spent the night before. Everything was decorated in lovely light pastel colors and the rooms were large, bright and the beds looked very comfortable. I was really happy that I decided to change hostels.

Going on a walk in Krabi

It was raining the whole time, so I couldn’t do anything at first. In addition, Jasmijne, the Dutch girl I met in Bangkok, was supposed to check into the hostel at three o’clock and I wanted to wait for her.

At one o’clock the sun slowly came out and since I was a bit bored anyway, I decided to take advantage of the few rays of sunshine and go for a walk. First I walked along the promenade. The water was really beautiful, but because of all the clouds it didn’t sparkle as turquoise as it should.

I kept walking along the beach and finally decided to go to the Monkey Trail. This is a path on the beach where there should be some monkeys. The trail was 3 kilometers away from the hostel. Google Maps showed me that I couldn’t continue along the beach, but had to take a small detour through some side streets.

I kept walking along the beach and finally decided to go to the Monkey Trail. This is a path on the beach where there should be some monkeys. The trail was 3 kilometers away from the hostel. Google Maps showed me that I couldn’t continue along the beach, but had to take a small detour through some side streets.

When I got back to the beach, I saw that I could have easily followed the path on the promenade. When I got to the trail it started to rain again. I put on my rain jacket and walked to the trail anyway. Between the trees I was somewhat protected from the rain. Luckily it stopped raining very quickly.

No Monkeys along the monkey trail

The Monkey Trail was a boardwalk path just a few meters from the beach. But I couldn’t see any monkeys for the first few meters. I then had to walk a few more stairs, but I didn’t see any monkeys. Eventually after a few meters the path went down to a beach. The beach would have been really nice if it wasn’t so cloudy.

I then walked back to the other side via the Monkey Trail. On the way back I wasn’t any more lucky and couldn’t see any monkeys again. I then slowly made my way back to the hostel. I waited there until Jasminje arrived. As soon as she checked into the hostel and we had a little chat, we set off to explore Krabi together again. We ended up walking the same way I had already walked at lunchtime. We also walked the Monkey Trail again, but this time we had no luck either. In the meantime it rained a little bit, but not so much that it affected us much.

Beautiful sunset over Krabi

When we came back from the Monkey Trail the sun was setting. We were able to watch a beautiful red-orange sunset between the clouds. We waited for the sun to disappear behind the horizon and the clouds and then walked along the beach in the dark back to the hostel.

Later in the evening we went to the Night Market. We walked around there a bit and I finally bought a Pad Thai from a stand. Between the many stalls and the live music, there were also tables and chairs to eat at. For dessert, Jasminje and I both tried Thai pancakes. We had both seen these before at night markets, but neither of us had tried them until now. The pancakes tasted good, but were not soft as expected but a little crispier.

Later in the hostel we tried to plan a bit for the next day, but since we had no idea what the weather was going to be like the next day, we spontaneously decided in the morning what we were going to do.

Rainy days in Krabi

So the next morning when I woke up, I immediately checked what the weather was like. It was quite gray and cloudy, but there was no rain. First I got ready and around 9 am. Jasminje and I went to 7/11 to buy something to eat. Back at the hostel we had breakfast there. As we walked toward 7/11, the sun came out, the clouds slowly disappeared, and the sky turned blue. Previously we had thought about trying rock climbing. But now that the sun was shining, we thought about taking a day trip to Railey Beach.

While we were having breakfast, out of nowhere it started raining again and we decided that maybe it wouldn’t be so wise to go to the beach after all. So we decided that we would rent scooters and drive to Dragon Crest Mountain. You could also take a hike up to a viewpoint if it was raining. We were also somewhat protected from the rain in the forest.

When it stopped raining again, we both borrowed a scooter. Just as we were leaving, it started to rain again. But we had helmets with visors and rain jackets so we didn’t let the rain stop us. Still, the rain was extremely annoying. During the drive to Dragon Crest Mountain it stopped raining. It got quite windy, which wasn’t much more pleasant.

Hiking up to the Mountain

Shortly after eleven o’clock we arrived at Dragon Crest Mountain. We parked our scooters and then went to the ticket office. We had to pay an entry fee of 200 Bath for the hike and sign ourselves on a list with our names and the time we arrived. The lady then told us that it would take us 2 hours to hike up and 2 hours to hike down.

At first we couldn’t quite imagine that it would take us so long to cover the 3.7 kilometers. Ultimately the lady was right. The path was quite easy at the beginning, it went over some stones, but it wasn’t really steep. Later we had to climb over roots and climb stairs. It was warm but not incredibly hot. It was strenuous but I had done much more strenuous hikes in the last few weeks.

Just before we arrived at the official viewpoint, we came to another viewpoint. There we had a beautiful view of Thailand’s nature and the sea. It was just a little cloudy. As we walked the last 300 meters, it slowly started to rain. When we arrived at the viewpoint shortly afterwards, we were surrounded by gray clouds and couldn’t see a bit of the view. In addition, the rain was lashing around our ears and there was no place to take shelter.

A 2 hour hike for nothing

Since we had now hiked for two hours to the viewpoint, we also wanted to see the view. So we decided to wait until the clouds cleared. We waited, it stopped raining, but the clouds didn’t pass. Eventually it started raining again and we decided there was no point in waiting any longer and started the hike back down.

It was a little bit slippery at times but not too bad. Still, we had to walk slowly because we had to climb over all the tree roots again. After a while my feet also hurt a little because I could feel every stone under my feet. Luckily it didn’t rain any more on the way down. Nevertheless, the thick clouds had not cleared away. Two hours later we arrived at the parking lot.

Wet and exhausted, we made our way back to the hostel. Luckily the humidity in Thailand is quite high, otherwise we would probably have frozen. We couldn’t really do anything in the afternoon because it was raining the whole time.

Changing plans

In the evening we wanted to go to the night market again. Just as we set off on our scooters it started to rain. We were glad we had our scooters, otherwise we would have had to walk the one kilometer to the night market through the rain. When we arrived at the night market there were no stalls and no one was there. I then remembered that it was Monday and the market is probably only open on the weekend. So we drove back to the street where our hostel was and looked for a small Thai restaurant where we ate.

The weather shouldn’t get any better in the next few days. I now had 6 days until my flight back home. Actually I wanted to use this and make the most of every day and not sit in the hostel all day. I therefore decided to travel back to Koh Phangan with Jasminje the next day. I’ve been to Koh Phangan before, but I’d rather be somewhere I’ve been before, where the sun is shining, than somewhere else where it’s just raining and I’m wasting my time.

But I didn’t want to book the bus until the next morning because I still had hope that the sun might shine the next morning.

The next morning I woke up early and looked straight out the window. It was raining heavily, which is why I decided to travel back to Koh Pha-ngan. After Jasminje was awake, we booked the bus and ferry to Koh Pha-ngan directly at the reception. This was definitely the right decision as it was pouring rain the whole time and we couldn’t have done anything in Krabi anyway.

If you would like to know how I spend my last days of traveling, please read my next blog post Last stop: Koh Pha-ngan – Thailand Travel Diary.