My last Stop - Krabi and its picturesque offshore islands

On Friday morning my long trip back to the mainland starts. Quite early, at 8:30 I am picked up and taken to the pier, from where an hour later our 5,5 hour trip to Don Sak starts. We go on a big ship, which stops first in Koh Phangan, then in Koh Samui and finally in Don Sak on the mainland. It is raining outside, the sea is rough and the ship is moving quite a bit and I really enjoy the long ride. I am reading and listening to audiobooks and sleeping a little bit as well.

As soon as we arrive a bus waits for us and takes us to Krabi. We drive for another 2,5 hours and on the busride I finally - for the first time - meet an Austrian backpacker couple and it turned out that they are from a little village in Lower Austria as well. When we arrive in Krabi taxis take us to our resepective hotels, as most of us are staying in places right at the beach, which is around half an hour away from downtown Krabi.The first thing I notice is that here obviously live many Muslims

 Already at the busstation I observe a man praying on his carpet and I see several men in Muslim attire and women with headscarves. I had no idea that 35% of the population of Krabi are Muslims. Right across my hotel there is a beautiful mosque and I hear the muezzin calling several times a day. And there are also many Halal Thai restaurants all over!

When I arrive at my place it is already 7 pm and dark. I am staying at a „hotel“ called „Adam Bungalows“ and as the name already suggests this place consists of many little bungalows and is situated in Aonang Beach Krabi. It’s right on the Main Street, however behind the entrance building where the bungalows are located there is a nice quiet garden with mountain view. The very friendly Muslim receptionist shows me to my bungalow which is nice and clean. 

Then I go for a walk to explore the area. It turns out that I am right in the touristic heart of Aonang Beach and on the street in front of our bungalows there is one restaurant beside the other, one tourist office beside the other, and many many massage parlors, cosmetic salons, Tatoo studios, motorbike rentals and all kinds of other stores. I have dinner in a Thai Reggae Tatoo restaurant where a Thai guy sings nice songs. 

Then I walk to the beach - it’s about 10 minutes walking distance from my place - and stroll around at the beach avenue with its many restaurants and bars and have a cocktail in a bar with life music before heading back to my bungalow.

When I get back into my little house I find an uninvited guest sitting right in front of my bathroom on my bathroom mat: a huge cockroach! Even when my nights are quite lonely I am not in the mood for spending my night with this insect. However, I want to safe his life and try to catch him and carry him (is it a he? Or better an it?) outside, but it is faster than I am and so it’s destiny is concluded. Sorry, dear cockroach. Now it’s about time for introducing my cockroach trap which I brought from back home. A few minutes after I have put it on the floor the cockroach is inside and eats the deadly, however obviously delicious poison. After about 10 minutes I see it tottering out of the trap like wasted with dope.

My second day in Krabi starts with a visit at a doctor´s office because my leg has become infected and I have to take antibiotics. So I stay most of the day in my little bungalow resting and relaxing.

On my third day in Krabi I take an excursion to the Island - most of the photos you see here are from this so called „4 Island Trip“ . At 8:20 in the morning I am picked up and they take us to the pier from where our trip with a long tail boat starts. I almost miss the beginning of our tour as I am caught up in a conversation with a couple from Moscow:)

Then we depart from Ao Nang and after a wonderful boat trip in a picturesque sea with many wonderful big rocks we get to Phranang Cave where we spend one hour on a nice sandy beach. Many of us go swimming, however because of my injuredleg I am unfortunately not allowed to go into the water. So I sit in the shade under a tree and just enjoy the atmosphere. Our next stop is at Poda Island. There they also serve us a buffet style delicious Thai lunch, which I enjoy together with a Dutch/Thai couple from Holland and a girl from Bulgaria, who I had met in the boat already, sittining on treestumps in the white sand.

Afterwards I stroll around on the beautiful island. At some point I run into a group of Malaysian people. The were Muslims and dressed very colorful and very friendly. They asked me if the can take a video with me where I hold a sign and say who I am, where I am from and that I support Dengue Patrol. They were so friendly and full of joie de vivre that after chatting with them for a while I went on in an uplifted spirt. 

The next island which we visited was Tub Island. On this island there are supposed to be monkeys, however I did not see any. I only ran into a beautiful Brasilian family, who were enjoying Thai Beach life and with whom I talked for a while. I was already in the Portuguese language modus as my neighbours on our longtail boat was a guy from Portugal. Moreover we had some girls from Argentina on our boat, some Chines people and a very nice family from Malaysia with a very cute baby. Our last stop was supposed to be Chicken Island. However due to the low tide we were not allowed to stop right at the beach, but only in the bay and people went snorkeling there right from the boat. Chicken Island got its name not because there are any chickens there, but because of a rock formation which reminds (with lots of fantasy ) of a chicken. This is our last stop and from there we go back to Ao Nang. 

After I showered and relaxed in my bungalow I am up for my next adventure: I want to get my first tattoo!  I already had checked out a tatoo studio where I wanted to do it and so I go there and have a look at different designs. I am undecided if I want a dolphin or an owl. In the end I chose the dolphin. The idea for having a dolphin on my wrist comes from the novel „The Beach“ written by Alex Garland in 1996. If you never have read it I can recommend you very much to read it.

I just finished reading this book the third time. It’s a backpacker novel taking place in Thailand. 

So I get my first tatoo - it is really small and only an outline of a dolphin on my right wrist. My souvenir from Thailand. 

And today is already my last full day here as tomorrow my trip home will start.