Saturday, November 29, 2008

Krabi - an unexpected adventure

Our next stop was a small town in the southern-most part of thailand called Krabi (gra-bee). It sits just outside the common tourist path and is well in to the part of thailand where Islam is more common than Buddhism. You can definitely notice the difference, most namely in the availability of alcohol (or lack thereof), but also in the fact that Mosques now outnumber the Wats.

Krabi was a wonderful surprise to us, we spent the very first night at a beach just outside of Krabi and to waste no time beating around the bush, it sucked. it was 100% a tourist economy and not the yummy interesting kind, the yucky kind instead. So, needless to say, we hopped a shared taxi back to Krabi the next morning and found different accomodations to spend the next couple of days. Krabi had so much to offer, both expected and unexpected. We ate most of our meals at a bustling night-market (the very best way to eat in Thailand) where you can walk from stall to stall and give everything a shot. One night we ended up drinking a couple of towers (not to be confused with a couple teen) at an expat bar that was running a few english movies and spent most of the night talking with the bar owner and a few of his friends.

The next day, we recovered from our minor hangovers and went to a buddhist temple here that is about 8 km out of town. the temple exists half at the base of a mountain and half up a flight of 1,283 steps. The view and serenity that we earned at the top was worth every bead of sweat on the way up. Plus we made some amazing new friends. One of our most unexpectedly amazing nights here in thailand, we joined up with a pair of Scottish expats, took a taxi to the wrong town, feasted on tons of indian food and countless carafes of wine and drank the rest of the night away at an irish pub. Ian and Stella we hope to cross paths with you again someday - look us up in Costa Rica.

We've since headed even further south, we're now a stone's throw away from the malaysian border. There's a national park down here that consists of about 91 islands and we're going to go camp on one of them for a few nights. should be beautiful, we'll let you all know.

Hugs to everyone,
TeamWander

PS. We sent half of our stuff home (quite literally) with Mama Wander and are now living out of one (the smaller of our two suitcases). It's proving to be an amazing lesson in how little stuff you actually need, and hopefully we can carry it over to packing for Costa Rica.

6 comments:

Lansen said...

YES!!! a "couple teen" reference on the team wander site!

Liza said...

Happy Thanksgiving! Glad you had guests with you to celebrate!

Sorry to hear about Jaime and Michelle getting stuck! Did Miah's mom get out before all that happened? Hope you guys are doing well!

Jessica said...

I am curious about the contents of your one backpack, Mr. and Mrs. MacGyver! Happy belated Thanksgiving to you both :)

Gretchen said...

Are you seeing any effects of the removal of the prime minister or are you out far enough that it isn't really affecting you?

Team Wander said...

Last we heard they were just trying to get him ousted (we're checking BBC right now). But to be honest, we're pretty much far enough away (about 500 miles) that it's a non-issue for us in every way except that we're concerned for Jaime and Michelle. Sounds like they've got a plan to get home (involving an overnight train, a bus, a flight to another country in asia, and then a flight home that takes three legs). We did have an interesting conversation with a cab driver where he said that he wasn't too sad that the P.A.D. is trying to get the PM ousted.

Team Wander said...

For those of you who like to keep on the political up and up... http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXtkIJGFlHXR5qT3LIG2olEVZyFQD94R6DLG1