We arrived in Krabi town on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. By then we had been on an overnight train and a five hour journey in a cramped minibus and were ready for a relaxing Christmas drink on the beach. The last leg of the journey was a taxi to the coast and our accommodation, which was just outside the resort of Ao Nang.
As the car drove through the streets of Ao Nang our hearts sank a little. McDonalds, Burger King and busy road wasn't exactly what we'd hoped for. Our bungalow was supposed be on the next beach along, Nopparat Thara, but it turned out to be up a dark, lonely road, away from the beach and still very close to Ao Nang after all. Then it started raining.
Christmas Day was mostly rainy and we amused ourselves drinking Chang beer, playing cards and watching bad Christmas films in our bungalow. Where we were staying was actually very nice, and on Christmas day the cleaners arranged our towels in heart shape and left chocolates on the bed.
We had already paid for 10 nights there so we decided to make the best of it and arranged a couple of day-trips: one kayaking and one snorkelling. The kayaking alone made staying in the Krabi area worth it. We paddled through blue green waters, past dramatic limestone cliff-faces and hidden caves into the mangroves, where friendly monkeys ran all around and climbed on the boats.
Although we started to enjoy ourselves and found some better patches of beach and less touristy places to eat, the patchy nightlife meant that we hopped onto a boat on the 30th December to spend New Year's on nearby Phi Phi island.
I had stayed on Ko Phi Phi seven years before when I came with Lia and Emily, before the Tsunami devastated this part of the country. Although obviously fantastic that the island had been rebuilt so quickly, the overdevelopment was a bit of a shame. Bursting its shores with sunburnt holiday-makers, everywhere in the main part of the island was a bit loud and tacky. So we decided, after hiking up some steep steps to a viewpoint, to follow signs to the other side of the island to see if it was any more idyllic.
The middle section of Phi is all hilly jungle and it took quite a lot longer than we had appreciated to get over to the other side. I remembered doing a trail like this before and was sure that we had managed to get a longtail boat easily back to the side we were staying. However, on this occasion we followed signs to a resort and beach that were not the same as the one I went previously. After a steep descent through loads of new bungalows being built, we finally found ourselves on a lovely little cove - with 'Private Property' signs all over it. We had managed to find the only bit of the island that was for people staying at the fancy 'Phi Phi Village' resort only. There were no longtail boats available and no-one else on the beach.
We didn't think our legs would physically take us all the way up the road we had just come down, and through the woods, so we looked around for another way out. We ended up stumbling and slipping over rocks, not knowing if we were going to eventually come to another beach, or just a dead end. Ben cut his hand and I cut my foot and the weather was getting darker and colder. 'This is how those stories on that 999 programme begin' Ben says helpfully. We finally rounded a corner and found a beach... where the last longtail was just pulling away. So, we had no choice, but to hurry back through the woods before it got dark and we got lost. Needless to say, we made it, but to say I looked red and sweaty at the other side is a pretty big understatement.
After a New Year where we enjoyed the compulsory plastic buckets with straws, full of rum, coke and red bull, we headed back to mainland for the last couple of days. It felt a bit like going home, getting back to our bungalow and switching on the movie channel on our TV! We had a 'relaxing' Thai massage and boarded the overnight bus to Bangkok.
