Bohemia Bunny

A little primer on Krabi

May 17th, 2006 by lynn under Leisure

Following in the footsteps of the intrepid Cowboy Caleb, my boyfriend and I went on vacation in Krabi, Southern Thailand. Here is some background information you need in order to fully understand the daily entries for the trip.

Krabi is a province in Southern Thailand, but it’s not near the riot hotspots. There is a significant Muslim population. Krabi’s main claim to fame is the limestone karsts that pop out sporadically from the countryside and the ocean. The better beaches have powdery white sand, clear blue seas that blend into the sky at the horizon, and schools of fishies that are particularly fond of being hand-fed bread.

Off the coast of Krabi, there are a number of notable islands, one being Phi Phi Leh Island where “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed, and another one somewhere was featured in a James Bond movie. And no, it wasn’t “Dr No”. Ko Lanta is a large island in the southeast, where we spent a couple of days just chillin’. Krabi’s limestone cliffs also attract rock climbers, but we’re not into that.

While we were on the mainland, we stayed at the Srisuksant Resort, and we were at The Narima during our time on Ko Lanta. We booked Srisuksant online using a hotel booking agent because it was so much cheaper, and I emailed the owners of The Narima directly to book our bungalow. While it’s called a bungalow, this boutique resort believes in blending into nature, so our bungalow was built out of woven bamboo, and topped off with a thatch roof.

We got around Krabi by way of songthaews, which are pickup trucks and small lorries fitted with a roof and two benches in the back (’songthaew’ means ‘two rows’). There are numerous other hire-vehicles available, but I never fully figured out if they were samlors (motorcycle sidecar taxis) or tuk-tuks. They sure didn’t look like the tuk-tuks I rode in Bangkok, but it could be a regional variation.

There is an airport tax when leaving Krabi (on international flights, if that wasn’t obvious) to the tune of 400 baht, or 20 Singapore dollars if you’re running low on baht. I suppose it would be 40 ringgit, 10 US dollars… depending on the person at the check-in counter.

It might be worth noting that the boyfriend and I went to Krabi with no knowledge of the Thai language, no Lonely Planet guidebooks, and no phrasebooks. Our main source of information was a free magazine distributed at the airport, and we supplemented that with our prior Internet research. Budget travelling at its best.