TrongpaiExpat
January 26th, 2008, 21:37
The BF and I flew into the new Krabi Airport on Nok Air from Don Muang. It's a short one hour flight and Nok was running a promotion, we got two RT tickets for 6000B. We used a rental car company called Krabi Rental (http://krabidir.com/krabicarrental/index.htm) on-line and arranged for a Honda Jazz for the week at 1,300 per day. Budget in the airport charges 1,700B per day. Someone from Krabi Car rental met us at arrivals and a fairly new Honda Jazz was parked at the curb ready for us.
We spent the week at Somkiet Buri Resort (http://www.somkietburi.com/). We had to take a pool side room at 3,500B as the place was fully booked. The place is nestled in a beautiful garden with a walk way that meanders around waterfalls and fishponds. It had a very private feel to it. You only really saw other guests if they came out to the pool or at breakfast. One of the cute pool boys was flirtatious with me when no one else was around.
Krabi attracts a family crowd of mostly Europeans and mostly from the Scandinavian countries. Not as many Germans as in Hua Hin and Samui and very few from native English speaking countries. The blond and blue eyes brigade parades up and down beach road from dusk to early evening. Many younger families with small children. They are polite enough and just seem to ignore me and the BF. I did not notice one gay farang with a Thai BF anywhere or a tourest that even appeared gay.
If there is any gay life in Krabi, I did not find it. First, I tried to book at Ao Nang Pearl, a gay hotel, and I had read some good reviews but I got no response from the web site booking page.aonangpearl.com/ (http://aonangpearl.com/) I called and got a recording in German, left a message and got no response. I even left a message in German using my one semester German and that did not work either. The current edition of Thai Phun has three gay bars listed for Krabi with no address. The bars are very low profile, I found two areas where there are small beer type bars, one is very hidden behind a series of tourist shops and the other area off a side road. I did find two of the listed bars and they were open style beer type bars and both had no customers and no boys, one did have a lady boy behind the bar sleeping. They were next to a few lady beer bars where there were a total of two customers in all the bars and about 15 or so ladies all combined. Bottom line, if you visit Krabi, BYOB.
I had last been to Krabi about 8 years ago. I was very surprised to see the level of development of Ao Nang, I hardly recognized the place. There was only one small commercial strip on Beach road then and very few people. Now, it's very much like Phuket. When I stayed there 8 years ago there were only two upscale resorts and a hand full of cheaper hotels on Ao Nang, now I could not count all the hotels. Development seemed to have went in every direction. A whole new section of beach with all new hotels in three different directions from the original main road. Railey beach is pretty much unchanged, it had upscale resorts then and it's still there, no big changes.
On my last trip, I did all the usual island and beach tours via long tail boats. Back then you could rent a boat and driver all day for 800B. Now, it's organized, there are middle men, a ticket office and "an association" and it's 1,700B for 4 hours but boat taxi service to Railey and other beaches are only 40B. We got lost one day and stumbled on beach called Khlong Sai, north of Ao Nang. It's off the Euro tourist haunts and at this beach you just negotiate with the boat driver and for 1000B you have the boat all day for touring, diving, snorkeling or whatever.
Driving around the Province we stumbled on signs for Ao Luk sea caves while looking for Boke Kanornee National park. We had a map of Krabi but many of the attractions in the Province had one name on the map, another on the sign and a third when you got there. English maps don't match the Thai maps and Ao Nang in Thai is Aoprahanang. Ao Luk, also off the tourist circuit, is a set of limestone caves in a mangrove forest accessible only by kayak. You have to take a guide along with all the necessary gear and a kayak for 500B per person. If your hotel arranges a tour, it's 1,500 per person but we just drove up on our own. Very impressive caves and the calm inland mangrove waterway made paddling easy.
We did eventually find Boke National park as well as two other parks, Khao Phanam Bencha and Thanboke Khorane. Again the names on the map do not match the signs but we just went in the general direction and ended up somewhere. I get the feeling that Krabi province is growing so fast that maps can't keep up with the development.
Krabi tourist don't stray far from the beaches. We saw very few tourists at all the inland National Parks and Marine Parks to the north of Ao Nang.
Food in Ao Nang is all overpriced and flavored for farangs. In Krabi town, there are many decent options at a fraction of Ao Nang prices.
Traffic was light most every where, from Ao Nang to Krabi Town and in the Province. Roads excellent. The hoards of Euro tourist seem to just stay in beach area resorts, don't rent cars or motorcycles and just walk around. There is a new white large bus that goes to town, to the airport and to Tesco as well as those motocy tuk-tuks but I don't know what it cost. I did notice transportation billboards, 400 to 700 for the airport and 100 for some other near by locations. There are signs but not clearly marked and at night hard to find the right road and again the route numbers on the map I had did not match the road signs.
We spent the week at Somkiet Buri Resort (http://www.somkietburi.com/). We had to take a pool side room at 3,500B as the place was fully booked. The place is nestled in a beautiful garden with a walk way that meanders around waterfalls and fishponds. It had a very private feel to it. You only really saw other guests if they came out to the pool or at breakfast. One of the cute pool boys was flirtatious with me when no one else was around.
Krabi attracts a family crowd of mostly Europeans and mostly from the Scandinavian countries. Not as many Germans as in Hua Hin and Samui and very few from native English speaking countries. The blond and blue eyes brigade parades up and down beach road from dusk to early evening. Many younger families with small children. They are polite enough and just seem to ignore me and the BF. I did not notice one gay farang with a Thai BF anywhere or a tourest that even appeared gay.
If there is any gay life in Krabi, I did not find it. First, I tried to book at Ao Nang Pearl, a gay hotel, and I had read some good reviews but I got no response from the web site booking page.aonangpearl.com/ (http://aonangpearl.com/) I called and got a recording in German, left a message and got no response. I even left a message in German using my one semester German and that did not work either. The current edition of Thai Phun has three gay bars listed for Krabi with no address. The bars are very low profile, I found two areas where there are small beer type bars, one is very hidden behind a series of tourist shops and the other area off a side road. I did find two of the listed bars and they were open style beer type bars and both had no customers and no boys, one did have a lady boy behind the bar sleeping. They were next to a few lady beer bars where there were a total of two customers in all the bars and about 15 or so ladies all combined. Bottom line, if you visit Krabi, BYOB.
I had last been to Krabi about 8 years ago. I was very surprised to see the level of development of Ao Nang, I hardly recognized the place. There was only one small commercial strip on Beach road then and very few people. Now, it's very much like Phuket. When I stayed there 8 years ago there were only two upscale resorts and a hand full of cheaper hotels on Ao Nang, now I could not count all the hotels. Development seemed to have went in every direction. A whole new section of beach with all new hotels in three different directions from the original main road. Railey beach is pretty much unchanged, it had upscale resorts then and it's still there, no big changes.
On my last trip, I did all the usual island and beach tours via long tail boats. Back then you could rent a boat and driver all day for 800B. Now, it's organized, there are middle men, a ticket office and "an association" and it's 1,700B for 4 hours but boat taxi service to Railey and other beaches are only 40B. We got lost one day and stumbled on beach called Khlong Sai, north of Ao Nang. It's off the Euro tourist haunts and at this beach you just negotiate with the boat driver and for 1000B you have the boat all day for touring, diving, snorkeling or whatever.
Driving around the Province we stumbled on signs for Ao Luk sea caves while looking for Boke Kanornee National park. We had a map of Krabi but many of the attractions in the Province had one name on the map, another on the sign and a third when you got there. English maps don't match the Thai maps and Ao Nang in Thai is Aoprahanang. Ao Luk, also off the tourist circuit, is a set of limestone caves in a mangrove forest accessible only by kayak. You have to take a guide along with all the necessary gear and a kayak for 500B per person. If your hotel arranges a tour, it's 1,500 per person but we just drove up on our own. Very impressive caves and the calm inland mangrove waterway made paddling easy.
We did eventually find Boke National park as well as two other parks, Khao Phanam Bencha and Thanboke Khorane. Again the names on the map do not match the signs but we just went in the general direction and ended up somewhere. I get the feeling that Krabi province is growing so fast that maps can't keep up with the development.
Krabi tourist don't stray far from the beaches. We saw very few tourists at all the inland National Parks and Marine Parks to the north of Ao Nang.
Food in Ao Nang is all overpriced and flavored for farangs. In Krabi town, there are many decent options at a fraction of Ao Nang prices.
Traffic was light most every where, from Ao Nang to Krabi Town and in the Province. Roads excellent. The hoards of Euro tourist seem to just stay in beach area resorts, don't rent cars or motorcycles and just walk around. There is a new white large bus that goes to town, to the airport and to Tesco as well as those motocy tuk-tuks but I don't know what it cost. I did notice transportation billboards, 400 to 700 for the airport and 100 for some other near by locations. There are signs but not clearly marked and at night hard to find the right road and again the route numbers on the map I had did not match the road signs.