South East Asia : Krabi, Thailand

19th to 21st Oct 2009

More photos of Krabi @ My-Facebook-Album

From Langkawi, we took a ferry to reach Satun, Thailand. After getting our passports stamped at the port, we headed to Krabi by a pink double decker bus. Good roads, beautiful paddy fields view along the roadside, entertaining Thai comedy video played in the bus and a little nap in between helped me pass the time. It took us about 4 1/2 hrs to reach Krabi and it was about sunset.

Krabi has two very popular and beautiful beach areas. One is Ao Nang, a hustle bustle place with long beach and the other is Railay, a calm and more scenic beach. We choose to stay put at Railay first.

Railay beach


Railay beach is surrounded by huge limestone cliffs and is cutoff from the mainland. It is accessible only by sea and we took a long tail boat to reach here. It was already dark when we reached this place and had traveled the whole day. After relaxing for a while in the resort, we went for a brief walk along the dimly lit narrow path. The entire East Railay beach is only about a Km long and the interesting part about this path is that we need to walk through many restaurants and cafe. This place was very relaxed and less crowded, though every inch of the place is developed. It felt like we were in a small island.


The next morning, we went to Railay west to take our long tail boat for the day tour to near-by four islands. The west beach was stunning with huge cliffs on either side, calm clear blue water and fine white sand. It deserves all the praise given by the fellow travelers on other blogs. The four islands tour included Phra-Nang beach, Poda island, Chicken island and Tub island. Phra-Nang and Poda were breathtaking and I went crazy looking at the beauty. We went snorkeling near the other two islands and found variety of fishes. We had enough time to explore the under water life and go behind some fishes! Coral life wasn't exciting enough as many of them were dead and the live ones were not colorful.


In the evening, we sat along the west beach side restaurant and watched the sun set while sipping the hot Cappuccino. The color change in the sky and its reflection on the water was brilliant. We kept watching till the place went dark.

The huge cliffs in Railay makes it the one of the best destination for rock climbing. We initially planned to take a day for rock climbing. But, Jomy had twisted his leg the previous day and he couldn't do it. I for some reason decided to drop it as well (Shame on me!) and ended up watching experts climbing the rocks!!

Ao Nang beach

The next day we spent our time in Ao Nang beach. The place was bustling with people, numerous resorts and other shopping centers. The beach coastline was very long, clean and very good for swimming.

At night, with scores of bars and restaurant, Ao Nang was a party scene. But, we peacefully sat along the beach side benches and munched chicken satay bought from the late night street food shop. Ao Nang was different from Railay and I enjoyed the experience in both the places.