Welcome to Thailand!

We took the ferry from the Malaysian island of Langkawi back to the mainland, stepping off into Thailand and the town of Satun. Made it through customs without a hitch, just a long wait in the heat while two officials processed all the passengers. Not wanting to stick around in this small southern town we tried to get to the bus station - only to find that the only bus north until late that night was leaving at 3pm, in 10 minutes. And we were still at the port! After a quick haggle with a tour operator, we snatched our tickets, jumped into a car and sped off to the bus station. The driver had no time for rules as he zipped along the winding jungle road, overtaking on corners, weaving in and out of the two lanes. We felt like Hollywood stars escaping from the baddies! 3 o'clock ticked over as we pulled up next to our bus, grabbed our bags out of the boot and clambered aboard. Phew made it! A minute later the bus started up, the doors shut and we trundled off through the bus depot and out onto the road, our next stop: the town of Krabi.

5 hours later, after transferring buses in Trang, we arrived in Krabi mid evening. Thankfully we'd booked accommodation in advance and our guesthouse had said they would pick us up from the bus station. We were dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Turned out the bus station is closed at night. With no idea where we were, we had a sudden realisation that Thailand was nothing like Malaysia. Nothing was in English, no one spoke English and with the exception of Jades ability to awkwardly count to 10, our Thai skills were non existent. Not very useful. Luckily we had purchased a Thai SIM card so we called our guesthouse. They didn't know where we were either. Oh. With desperation we turned to a tuk-tuk driver. With hand gestures and some pointing to our phone our tuk-tuk friend spoke to our guesthouse and was able to tell them where we were. Half an hour later we were finally picked up, it looked like we wouldn't be sleeping on the street after all!

Jade with the crabs in Krabi

The next day we had a bit of a look around the town but without transportation it was difficult to go too far. Come dinnertime, and some googling for where to eat we came across a Thai restaurant that looked quite good and not too far away on foot. We quickly noted where it was on Jades phone and left. After walking up a road that didn't look like it was the right way for half an hour, with no map and Jades phone suddenly deciding it didn't want to work after all, we discovered we had no idea where we were. Luckily for us a couple of minutes later we just stumbled upon it, and what a find! It was set in a little jungle with only a handful of tables, a little stream running through the property, lights hanging from all the trees and the food was absolutely delicious! Sticky ribs with roasted garlic, a spicy mango salad and a green curry, we wished we could stay longer just to try some more dishes.

Some of the pretty suspended bamboo lights in the jungle like restaurant

The next day we took off for Railay beach, a small peninsula not far from Krabi. Only in order to get to the beach means a short boat ride - it's cut off from the mainland by giant limestone cliffs. To get there we took our first songthaew ride to Ao Nang, passing the sheer limestone cliffs on the way. After a quick bit of shopping, we then boarded our first ruea hang yao - the classic long-tail boat - and noisily putted our way around to Railay Beach. It's a gorgeous wee area which feels like an island with two beaches and a lagoon with a jungle path connecting all three sides. Once again a lot of lying on the beach, reading, relaxing and swimming was done here. We were also starting to get a bit of a tan; we were no longer the whitest people on the beach!

Our first songthaew ride - a ute with seats on the back and used as a bus

The massive limestone cliffs of Railay & the long-tail boats used to get there

Even the towels were crabs!

On our last day we wanted to do some snorkeling and thought the sunset tour looked pretty good. With a small group of people we headed out to a couple of spots to do some snorkeling. Unfortunately the coral was close to dead - no thanks to the group of Russians who stood all over it. But I've never seen so many fish! Schools and schools of them. Our tour guide chucked bits of watermelon into the water around us (the fish go nuts for it), which meant we were completely surrounded by 100s of fish as they all tried to gobble up the fruit. Small ones, big ones, blue, yellow, orange, rainbow coloured fish (and a couple of jellyfish we made sure to stay away from). So many fish! After that we headed to a small island to watch the spectacular sunset and have a BBQ on the beach for dinner. With the sun having finally set and the mainland a twinkling line of lights we boarded our boat for the last item of the tour - swimming with the biolumescent plankton. We anchored offshore from the eastern side of Railay, in the middle of the bay far enough away from the light pollution - it needs to be pitch black for you to see the plankton well. After a quick explanation of what to do: splash, and the plankton will glow, we all grabbed a mask and snorkel and dived into the inky black water. The boat lights were switched off and we started splashing. Wow. The ocean was completely black in the darkness but our arms, hands, legs and feet were lit up as thousands of tiny specs glowed and swirled neon blue-green around us. An amazing sight and definitely a highlight of the trip so far.

Cruising round the islands looking for the best snorkelling spots

The beautiful sunset we watched while eating our beach BBQ

Well time to move on again, we now start the island hopping part of our travels so there will be plenty more golden beaches to explore.