A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Krabi, Thailand

There's not really much to say about Krabi. It's a semi-beach town (no beach but all the beach amenities like boat trips, dive shops, restaurants, guesthouses and internet outlets). I rolled in around 7:30pm in a very depressed mood, having left Amanda and Geoff at the dock at Ko Samui. For the first time I actually felt homesick, tired of Thailand and beginning to vew the entire Asia travel thing as pointless and lonely. Not a good day (you'll be happy to know that I've completely recovered from this temporary funk). The drive was comfortable, however, as I was sharing an air-conditioned minivan with just one other person, a seemingly insane bald Brit who had flown to Moscow, stayed 3 days, took the train to Beijing, stayed 3 days, took the train to Hong Kong then flew to Bangkok. I simply cannot figure out the point of this sort of travel -- he barely paused long enough to get a sandwich, or an eggroll, as it were.

At any rate, I checked in to the guesthouse affiliated with the bus company (as usual - I am so lazy in this regard) which was no doubt more expensive than necessary but had air-con and was clean. In fact it looked pretty new, which is a welcome change from some of the stained and scrotty places I've stayed in in the past.

I did very little apart from mope and sit in the air-conditioned room while in Krabi. Read books, walked around, ate, and procrastinated on the journaling. Krabi's not all bad, actually. In the absence of a beach (it is situated along a river leading to the Andaman Sea) the city fathers (or mothers, but probably fathers considering we're in Asia) have developed quite a lovely landscaped boardwalk/park along the riverside, complete with meandering brick paths, flowers and trees, and designated dog toilets. In light of the fact that all of the dogs run around loose, it's doubtful that these get much of a workout, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless. A couple of small piers are located right downtown with regular boats to Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta, and a floating restaurant provides a dining experience slightly more sophisticated that the usual traveler cafes in town.

Apart from the waterfront, however, the town was uninspired, with the usual abundance of concrete block architecture and approximately 387 "travel agents" selling identical boat tickets and day tours, along with serving meals of questionable quality, offering internet service at high prices, and doing laundry. To the naket eye, it seemed that perhaps 50% of the businesses in town were offering tours, and remarkably, virtually noe of them posted their prices. I can hardly express how annoying this is to me. In fact, it's the part I like least about travelling in developing countries -- constant price negotiation. Perhaps I'm not a typical tourist, but often I'll end up just not buying anything rather than go through the relentless tedium of figuring out the price of something (which generally involves talking to every vendor in the market) followed by the inevitable feeling that I've been taken advantage of in some way. I can never get in the spirit of bargaining -- I just want them to quote me a fair price, for crying out loud. But I digress. On to Phang Nga.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 10:25 PM