Journey to the World

March 3, 2007

A knock on a door woke me up. It was the driver who came to pick me up. I asked him to wait fifteen minutes while I was organizing and we hit the road. When we arrived at Ao Nang beach, the driver picked a group of Thai people with whom I went sailing later. Many kayak groups leave the same place we started the tour along with guides from different countries, so I met other tourists as well on the way.

Kayaks in the mangrove forests

The sail is suitable for almost everyone. Those with no strength paddle can ask one of the locals to join and help him. You can take either a single or double kayak, so I chose the single one. Paddling in the river isn’t that difficult. Already after the first ten minutes I’ve seen the first mangroves in the river.

A little before the middle of the trail, the group get into a passage between the rock. This is where the interesting part begin.

Curious monkeys

Long tailed monkeys live on these trees, and when they see the paddlers, they start skipping along the branches until they reach a good jump point into the closest kayak. After the invasion to the kayak, shamelessly they start searching for food in every place possible. I was in the first kayak so I was also the first victim. We were told not to touch the monkeys, and indeed it is not recommended because they can bite. If the monkey has rabies the end of your journey is very near.

The monkey who jumped to my kayak sat on the edge and looked at me as I was in my rush to open the waterproof bag I got at the beginning of the sail. This was a fatal mistake that I later learned. I got the camera out of the bag and started photographing the curious monkey, and while I’m checking the quality of the images, the monkey was checking the quality of the bag’s contents. The monkey quickly approached the open bag, and before I got out of the shock, he managed to grab my Snickers bar and run away to a safe place at the other edge of the kayak, where I couldn’t lay my hand on him. My energy bar for that day was stolen by a hungry monkey. Luckily he didn’t have the chance to steal the potato chips that were also inside the bag, so I quickly closed it.

After he finished eating, the monkey jumped to the nearest tree, to another kayak, and grabbed his second dish of his meal.

Other monkeys looked at us from the trees, jumping from one kayak to the other as if they were a crossing bridge from one side to the other side of the river.

After all I’ve been through, one monkey was not enough so I went looking for more monkeys to visit me in the kayak. Some time later another curious monkey brought himself to my kayak. This time I closed the waterproof bag immediately. The monkey looked at the bag, as if he knew what’s inside, and checked it with his hands from every angle possible. He didn’t find an opening so he started digging with his fingers trying to make a hole. At some point he gave up and went looking for other things in the kayak.

I was completely alone at that time so he didn’t have many choices. My shows were thrown on the front so the monkey started checking them. One shoe interested him so much that he grabbed in his hand and almost ran with it to the nearest tree. I yelled at him so he left it on the last moment. Eventually he found some Snickers leftovers that the previous monkeys left there. After that I tried to catch with my group who already disappeared.

Ao Nang Beach

Ao Nang beach is a major tourist attraction. As I mentioned earlier, prices are up high in every aspect. A walk of one hour on the beach was enough for me. The beach is clean and the view is not bad at all. The water, on the other hand, are not clear. In short, there’s nothing to see under the water. From the beach you can buy a ticket for a long tail boat to several nearby beaches.

The famous Railay Beach, Tonsai Beach and Phranang Beach which is famous because of its cave. While talking to the cashier I was offered to buy a ticket to Phranang beach and walk by foot from there to Railay beach, twenty which is located five minutes walk from there. From Railay beach you can take another boat back to Krabi.

Phranang Beach

It costs 60 baht going one way by boat, not so expensive. The cave beach is very nice. I saw there two mountain climbers trying to get to the top of a cliff. One of them used sophisticated acrobatic techniques. The water in this beach were not clear as well.

Back to Krabi

It was getting closer to 6:00 PM so I started walking toward the eastern beach. The trails managed to confuse me so much that I got there after 6:00 PM. The man with whom I talked was not found so I walked toward the boats. Due to the low tide, the boats anchored ten meters away from shore. A long slippery stone trail took me there there. There were two boats. One was not going to Krabi. The other empry boat did. I slowly approached the empty boat and asked how much it will be. Since I was the only one, I started smelling the price going up to the skies when the man on the boat didn’t want to give any details. In order to actually get on the boat, you have to skip on stones inside the water which was 50cm high. I asked the sailor again when he intends to leave and how much I have to pay, but got the same answer – get on the boat and wait. The time was already after 6:00 PM and I was starting to run out of options. The boat to Ao Nang already left the western beach at 6:00 PM. The last one to Ao Nang leaves at 8:00 PM which means i would miss the bus and have to take an expensive taxi to Krabi.

I took a bet and told the captain I will go aboard only if he agrees that I will pay 100 baht as I agreed with the man on the beach. He hesitated a little and told me to come.

We waited for fifteen minutes for other passengers to come. While waiting he told me that at the end of the day when the boat is empty he charges from tourists 1000 baht per person. He lives in Krabi so has to get back anyway, so I it seems like got lucky that day. A tractor loaded with Thai people entered the sea to get them to the other boat which will get them to their homes. The captain told me they work in a place managed by the king’s son, where rooms prices can reach up to an amazing price of 400,000 baht a night. I checked it with someone else and discovered it’s probably true.

We sailed back to Krabi and I went to pay for the tour I ordered a night before. In the travel agency which is located in the corner of the street of my guest house there’s a nice woman called Patty who helped me a lot with ordering tickets, and got me the cheapest prices I was able to find. Even though Green Tea is a good place to sleep in, the woman who runs it is impatient and it’s not recommended to order through her any of the tours.

This article was originally written in Hebrew. It was translated to English at a later time.

 

This article was published at 3-03-2007 Time: 10:40 and belongs to categories Ao nang, South Thailand, Far East Travel Journal 2007, Mangroves, Monkeys, Kayaks, Krabi, Railay beach, Thailand. You can follow comments to this article using the feed RSS 2.0. You can post a comment, or trackback from your website.