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| The rooftop garden and view at my favorite guesthouse in Krabi - Smile! |
My first night here in Thailand I met a Swedish gentleman who has been traveling the region since the 1980s, he has also worked here for a large portion of that time in a role that required him to make visits to many of the small (and beautiful) places around the country. I had made the voyage from Lankawi with a young American bloke and the older Swede gave us some absolute gold tips, platinum, even. One of these we executed the very next day. This was to find our way to the Floating Village in Kaoh Sok National park. The tricky parts were that in order to get there we had to go not to the main gates of the park, but instead to a side gate where the Rachaprapah dam was. When getting bus tickets the vendors all told us that we couldn't do this, that we should hire a taxi for 1500baht to go, because the town where we change has no guesthouse and maybe there is no more bus going the way we want. We stuck to our guns and had an adventure anyways it was not that different from some of the wayfinding I had to do in Borneo, though my friend Patrick was much more stunned. We took 2 buses and a motor-taxi costing 265baht total, a much nicer price than a private car. We did have to charter a boat to ourselves from the dam to the village, for 2000, but sometimes there's a price to pay to do something amazing. The setting there was very dramatic, limestone karsts dropping directly into reflective green water.
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| turned out in the morning this is where the swede sent us. |
Some of these cliff walls we would pass within meters of as the boat rounded a point. We arrived after dark at the village and nobody at all was there, the staff couple proceeded to get us settled and cook us dinner. It seemed within minutes that a virtual feast was laid out before us, a whole fried fish, a green curry, two different vegetable dishes, and all of it tasting divine.
I had an early night, and was suprised when we had some late arrivals, especially because I never heard the boat. I must have still been knocked out from the all nighter I pulled in Langkawi the evening before I got to Krabi. I also had a nightmare about being trapped in a subway with thousands of people, unable to escape. Imagine my relief when I woke to find myself miles from any type of crowd and that as a bonus the sky had cleared. I took a moment to go outside and look up at the stars in the virgin black canvas of the night, no matter where I go in the world, you always have the stars above me.
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| The terrible view I woke up to :D |
In the morning we took a leisurely breakfast, and then, advantage of the free kayaks for a leisurely paddle. When we got back around noon the staff had us hurriedly pack our bags back up in order to move rooms. There was a large group of Thais arriving for a company retreat. So we were moved off the floating village and high up into the hills. We first had to walk past the kitchen and staff quarters, then onto a bridge made of bamboo (takes some getting used to to walk on especially with a pack!). Up a massive steep flight of stairs. Through the forest and around the point to a cabin built into the hill over looking the water.
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| Picture I took of Patrick for posterity |
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| Picture he took of me for posterity. I think I win the photographer prize this time |
That night the large Thai group had a bit of a party. We had been lazing about up in our penthouse so the party was in full swing when we came down.
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Patrick and I with a Thai who wanted to hang out with us
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So we had a bit of dinner a bit of drink and a bit of dancing. As none of these people worked in the tourism industry there was very little English being spoken. We got by with gestures, ad libs and dancing when there were people singing. There was one song that was so popular several people sang it (of course Karaoke was the entertainment of choice) so Pat and I had an idea of its chorus by the end of the night.
Our road home the next day was even more interesting than the trip out. There wasn't a proper bus station so we waited near the police station hoping to figure out which bus we wanted to flag down to get to Thub Put so we could get a bus from there back to Krabi. A Thai man decided to come and look after us, he spoke very little English and we spoke no Thai, but we still managed to figure out a bit about each other. He said "Me, Protect." and gestured to the village when I asked his job. I figured this meant he was a police officer of some description, but with further gesturing and by showing me his card where he had a very fancy dress uniform. Looking at this I understood that he was some sort of boss to which he replied enthusiastically "Yes, yes - big boss man!" He then pulled his truck up so we could sit on the tail gate, and showed us the shotgun in his back seat (and shells he was carrying in his pocket). Definitely the boss!
