Friday 1st February
I had booked on to a full day trip around some of the islands near Krabi, with the main aim of doing some kayaking. A mini-bus picked me up from my hotal at 08.00, and took a group of us to Ao Nang beach, where we took a boat out to Hong Island, about 45 minutes away.
There were about twenty people in total on the boat, and I got talking to two Aussie girls called Sangita & Tania, who were travelling about Vietnam and Thailand for a month (on a break from their respective jobs of treating junkies and delivering babies). They were a lot of fun, easy to get along with, and Hong Island seemed like a cool place to hang out, so the day was looking up.
The beach at Hong Island was divided into two bays, with one cove having the clearest sea water I have ever seen, making it perfect for snorkelling and swimming. First up, though, was the kayaking: we broke off into pairs, and I teamed up with a big guy from Ohio called Randy (lucky we weren't sharing a prison cell, I hear you add, but he seemed like a nice guy). We set off around the island, stopping at a shallow lagoon in the middle of the island, and a few shaded inlets that provided welcome relief from the sun. It was a lot more strenuous than I had anticipated, but this was mainly due to Randy's size weighing down his half of the kayak, with the affect that my end was slightly out of the water! It was good exercise and the scenery was beautiful, but hopefully the next time I go kayaking it will be with someone more similar in size to me.
By the time we got back to the shore, I was starving and the tour people had laid on a really good lunch for us: rice, chicken, stir-fried vegetables, barracuda, and the nicest pineapple I have ever tasted, I couldn't get enough of it! We were even able to feed our chicken bones to a massive monitor lizard who had come out of the scrub, no doubt smelling the mounds of food laid on for the many tourists that had come to Hong Island for the day.
After an hour of relaxing and snorkelling in the clear blue water, we moved on to another island for more snorkelling. It was called 'Paradise Island', but, ironically, it seemed less like paradise than the stunning Hong Island that we had just come from. But, it was good to chill out and we had a laugh for an hour or two before we got back on the boat.
We made the trip back to Ao Nang via some of the more remote islands, not stopping off at any, just passing by to get some photos and a further glimpse of just how amazingly beautiful this area is. Everyone was tired from the trip, but we all agreed that it had been very worthwhile, and good value for the money paid.
I took a pick-up bus back to Krabi, got changed and went out for some food. I was exhausted myself, and got some sleep after I packed up my staff in advance of an early morning start onwards to the island of Ko Phi Phi.
