Krabi Pt. 1

Some of you might remember a last-minute blogpost I did at the Budget Terminal before leaving for Krabi... because we (I) had mixed up our flight dates.

I kept thinking our Krabi trip was 7th-9th July because those were the dates we had almost booked.

So on 4th July night we're at my house doing our usual nonsense - surfing the Internet; procrastinating checking our flight details because heck, we still have 2 days.

3+am, Alaric goes home.
5am, Alaric calls.

OMGWTFBBQ OUR FLIGHT IS IN 5HOURS.

With my master packing skills (Y), I still managed to squeeze in 1.5hours of sleep and get to the Budget Terminal with time for McDonald's breakfast!


Hahaha here's how your boarding pass looks like when you fly budget...

Anyway we went to Krabi because I had purchased coupon deals for a hotel stay there. The flight was booked separately from Tiger Airways.


Saw this in the in-flight magazine. Never really occurred to me before how Muslim women swim. The image above is a recent development but it's still not accepted by many of the more old-fashioned places. I just thought the name was funny though: The Burqini hahaha.


Hey people, this is how they treat your luggage. They take it and literally THROW it unto the cart. So just be careful what you pack at the bottom/top of your luggage!


Our coupon deal also include a 2-day tour! The first day was a city tour thingy, which we decided to opt out on once we got the free lunch (inclusive).

So the first (and only) stop before lunch was this temple! It was under massive restoration so there wasn't much to see.


Kewl dragons though.




Hahaha my fake Ray Bans again.


Cute, lazy and tinyyyyy kitty! It was about the size of my foot! (UK4)






This was lunch! They served us duck hor fun, which was not too bad but really nothing fantastic. The owner is probably a friend/family of the tour operator.

The rest of the group was meant to go on the city tour but we decided to go to our hotel since we hadn't slept much. Had to get a cab back and let me tell you:

THE CABS THERE ARE COMPLETE RIP-OFFS.

The tour operator insisted on getting the cab for us, quoting a whopping 600 Baht (S$24) to go back to the hotel. I thought we were getting scammed but no, it turns out all cabs there charge that amount.

They aren't real cabs either, more like normal cars that have a cab license or some kind of informal agreement with each other to quote the same (exorbitant) prices. So you can't actually hail a cab except at these designated areas where you'll see the cab prices listed.

S$24 for a cab ride is ridiculous! It's expensive by Singapore standards, much less Thailand's! In Bangkok a 30-minute ride is like... 120 Baht.


(This is not the cab). This is a tuk-tuk, which is different from Bangkok's because you're seated BESIDE the driver instead of behind! Thankfully the tuk-tuks still charge a normal rate, but you can only use them for short distances.

Krabi is actually quite large, split into 3 main areas I think? There's the main city, the touristy area with food and hotels (Ao Nang, which is where we were) and one more cluster. Within each area you can take tuk-tuks, but between the 3 you have to take a cab.


Came out in the evening after napping at the hotel!




My papaya juice!


OM NOM NOM!

I've recently taken a huge liking to Thai food, but frankly that's because the only thing I eat is Tom Yum soup and this dish of chicken with cashew nuts (I know the Chinese call it Kung Pao Chicken, but not sure if the name is recognised in Thailand).
Oh that's not the chicken dish in question in the photo btw, think we decided to try another meat dish.

We also got crab, but didn't know they meant the small ones lol. Not really worth the amount of effort needed to get the meat out!


Our rice came as a heart! Haha cute.


The whole street has lots of restaurants and all seem pretty good! They have an astonishing number of Italian restaurants too haha. But they still serve the usual Thai food along with pizzas!




There was a guy with a pet monkey charging for photos taken with it! Don't worry I don't think the monkey was being mistreated/exploited (unless you wanna say it's used for photos instead of frolicking among the trees etc etc). It was quite naughty really.




Haha the monkey took a real interest in the beer!

P.S. I hate monkeys actually, but this one was quite cute.


Super cute dog! It looks so sweet. It would lick your hand if you came near, but reacts super viciously if you try to pet its head!
Luckily I was just taking a picture of it. No idea why the sudden change in demeanor! Maybe it used to get hit on the head a lot ):




Haha I was originally in the picture but decided to crop myself out since the rabbit is so much cuter!

This rabbit belonged to a roadside seller; he said there used to be another rabbit but one day it got out and a stray dog killed it ):


Gave the old man some money if he promised to put newspaper/something on the floor of the cage!

GRILLED FLOORS ARE VERY BAD FOR RABBITS.
Source: SPCA

I know it makes it convenient because the poop falls through the grill unto the tray below (rabbits can be toilet-trained btw) but it hurts their feet! The grill/wire cuts between their toes.
Imagine if you lived 24/7 on a grill (rabbits can live up to 12 years). Fun meh???

Please put some kind of plastic (maybe a tupperware cover?) or something if you don't want to buy a new cage/rabbit bed.




LOL.


Pimped-up tuk-tuks! Haha lots of cool variations!


Alaric getting a henna tattoo done (alongside with a nice chest rub ^^).

I wanted to get one too but remembered that the next day we'd be going to the beach, snorkeling etc. and if I got the least bit sunburnt it would mean the tattoo would remain in the form of an un-sunburnt section hahaha. And my burns/colour always take AGES to fade. Like literally over a year.


Haha Alaric got some Egyptian eye. Frankly there aren't many desirable choices for the tattoos.
They're so uncool that even the oldest, more loser gangsters from the 1960s wouldn't get them hahaha.
Think it lasted about a month on him?

So that was Day 1 of our Krabi trip! Will be back with Day 2, which consisted of all the water+beach stuff. I'm missing Tom Yum soup (please stop suggesting tom yum instant maggi mee to me haha). Bye!