Bangkok --> Krabi

I'm writing from a hostel in Hanoi that's full of European backpackers and on a street full of small motorcycles, repair shops and people trying to make it. Here's another backlog-reducing post.

Last tuesday:

We arrived from the overnight bus in Krabi, then took a van to Ao Nang, a beach town. The overnight bus ride was not worth the cost savings, but it was fun to see some of the countryside, especially in the morning when we got into the mountains near the coast. The flatter, valley areas were often farmland with distinctly tropical plants (rubber trees?). The mountains were stunning-- near-vertical, overgrown sides. The islands, when we saw them later, were even cooler-- the same mountains except surrounded by ocean.

 The Ao Nang beach didn't look good for swimming, so we joined a tour group for a jungle hike to a natural hot springs, a climb to see a mountaintop temple (buddha statue), and an elephant ride. The other people on the tour were from Holland. Visiting the temple required a climb of some 1000 steps. The view from the top was worth it, though it started raining (pleasantly warm but view-obstructing) shortly before we started back down. Kipp and I also met a backpacker from Germany who lamented how the best sites eventually ended up in guides such as Lonely Planet and were subsequently overrun with tourists.

After checking into our hotel (just adequate, but very cheap), we had dinner and walked around Ao Nang for a bit. It was the off-season for tourism, but the shops and vendors (as noisy as in Bangkok) were set up to accommodate more tourists. It's still surreal to see the mix of relatively poor locals and tourist gift shops and restaurants. The economics of things mean that restaurants have many more waiters/waitresses than a similar-size restaurant in the US. This applies to bars as well-- many bars (which were usually completely open to the street-- no front wall or doorway needed due to the climate) had enough waitresses for some to stand around beckoning passerby toward the bar. In the low tourist season, this seems strange: Kipp and I turned down one street, which had about eight bars but only a few tourists there, and saw at least thirty women beckoning at us toward the different bars. It was very unusual and somewhat disturbing. I would suggest flying directly from BKK to Phuket or Krabi and traveling on to your destination island the same day.


Also, the stories about the sketchier aspects of Thailand seem true. I have noticed the occasional older and creepy-looking tourist walking about with a much younger Thai woman, and have ignored calls from street hawkers in Bangkok for "ping-pong show". Maybe more rural areas are different. In Bangkok, Kipp and I stayed in a hostel near Khao San Road (popular with backpackers/tourists).