Day 17
Today means beaches in both of our minds and we are up and dressed faster than we have been all trip. Breakfast this morning is at the hostel and I have a hearty one of waffles and ice cream, don't judge me. Bags packed, we flag down a taxi just outside and we make our way through the traffic of Bangkok in air conned comfort. We leaving from Don Muang airport today, the smaller one in the city and we're through to the gate in about half hour from arrival. The only strange thing is that they scan your check in luggage before you have even checked in so you get caught by a queue just by the door. We slob here for a bit as we are early as always, eating bad food and enjoying the strong wi-if to read useless articles about 3 legged goats etc. At about 30 minutes before boarding, adding in the usual Thai time keeping, we think we have easily got enough time to get drinks but Thai airline is super efficient for once and neither of us realised you couldn't take drinks on the plane, I manage to slip through as I find a sneaky bin but Ben has to go to the back of the boarding line and I'm ushered into a bus to the plane. My fanicful brain goes into over drive at this point, imagining all sorts of dramas involving missed planes and fire engines when Ben appears and I pretend to have been cool the whole time.
The flights over an hour but I turn on baby mode and nap for most of it. Stepping off the plane into the warm but fresh air of Krabi was heaven and it was only made better by watching our bags come off the plane at this tiny airport and them coming through first. There is a regular bus outside the airport that goes straight to Krabi town and we bundle on and I realise that I don't actually know how far the hostel is from the bus stop and more importantly, I don't really care. Whether it's the brothel aphiniy I had last night or the cooler Krabi air but I'm finally starting to lighten up and it's such s good feeling.
The bus set off, with dance music blaring with disco light accompaniments and it takes 20 minutes to get to the town. The bus stop is just outside the main town and has food so we fill up and check out the hostels location on a map. It's close enough to walk and we carry on our pregnant ladies impression as we huff, puff and overheat on the way, taking in the cool hippy vibe of the place. It's getting dark at this point but I don't have any of my usual anxiety, even when we get a tiny bit lost and we arrived at the hostel, Ben in awe of the place and me in awe of myself.
This is when Krabi town lets itself down, as we open the door to a smell that wouldn't be out of place in the lost property box of PE department. We both gag instantly and Ben runs to the window to find in horror that it's already open. A quick visit downstairs and the owner follows Ben back up with a can of cheap air freshner which actually, if it was at all possibly, makes the smell of dead socks even worse. We are meant to have two nights here but use the evening, instead of exploring, hiding on the landing of our floor, frantically booking somewhere better. We settle on a hotel in Koh Phi Phi and when it finally comes to having to sleep, we cover our noses in Tiger Balm, which by the way causes pain equal to the foot massage and try and sleep whilst holding down the contents of our stomachs.
Day 18
We are up, packed and out in a flash as the smell hasn't got any better over night, contrary to the managers promises about it fading. He does redeem himself slightly and books us on a boat ride to Koi Phi Phi, saving us the job. So we spend the 40 minutes before our transport comes to pick us up, wandering around finding pastries and snorkels.
In true Thai style a jeep that can fit 6 plus bags has 10 people on it and we all squeeze In with our bags on our laps, all a bit closer than we would like to be to someone we've only just met. The peir is simple and we are on the boat in 5 mins from stepping out of the jeep, we find a row of empty seats on a nearly full boat and settle in till we realise why no one else has sat there. It's Arctic, the air con is right above us and we throw on hoodies and scarves, keeping our bags on our laps to keep us warm. The boats only an hour though so it's not too bad.
A lot colder than I thought I would ever be in Thailand, we step off the ferry into paradise. This is what we imagined when we planned this beach trip 3 days ago in Bangkok. It's a short walk for us to the left side of the beach and we arrived at a little basic but clean and non death smelling hotel, and the best bit about it? It's less than a minute walk to the beach. So we change in a flash and make our way down to the White sand and clear blue waters. My pasty body is aching to be sun kissed but Ben wants to explore, I follow him out into the shallow water for a little bit but I soon realise he wants a proper adventure and the beach is calling me so he goes off. Although we've walked 30 metres, the water is really shallow so I decide to sit for a while. As the sand around me settles, suddenly a load of fish come over and starting checking me out, it really tickles and as I giggle I feel something move next to my hand and I see a little crab scuttling away.
I'm not getting much tan here so I wander back to the beach to lay, flip, sun lotion and repeat for a couple of hours with my book. After a little while I systematically look up every now and then to see if Ben's on his way back, on my 4 check I see a luminescent shape in the distance and I realise Ben's back, I stop reading to smile and wave when I realise something's wrong, he's limping and not waving back. By the time he gets to me, I obviously have my concerned look on my face as the first thing he says is "Don't worry the fisherman said it wasn't poisonousness, but we might need to tweezer a few out" I'm like, what? Turns out on his massive adventure around the point, he swam over a sea urchin that wasn't impressed with him being so close and spiked him, a lot. And his right thigh was covered in horrid purple dogs. I sigh, pack up my bits and walk the limping idiot back to the hotel, where I manage to get a few more out with tweezers and point blankly refuse to wee on his leg.
The pain looks quite bad though, and he's wincing a lot as we walk to find food that night so we don't go far. We celebrate finally getting to the beaches with some cocktails and I finish up with a pineapple full of ice cream, delicious. We start to explore but Ben's leg is shooting electricity like pains through him so we just limp our way to the beach, planning tomorrow's canoeing adventure.
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