Photo Trip Report: Sojourn across Southern Thailand

[lomuamart]

Great photos again.
A couple of years ago, some good friends visited Thailand for the first time and had a week with us in HH. The husband is a very keen bird watcher so we went to the reserve near Dolphin Bay. However, the place you visited above seems superior so I'll bear it in mind should the couple ever come back over here.

[buksida]

Yep, Thale Noi could be considered a 'twitcher's paradise'.

We took in a few more Thai attractions around Trang including the night market/food bazaar which was a little like a spread out version of the Soi 88 food court but without the deafening noise. There were also a couple of kayak spots for the kids and a bizarre ‘wooden dragon’ garden type place. Didn’t spot a single farang at any of them. Again, phone photos, hence the quality.

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To follow: Krabi ...

[Big Boy]

Love that flower at the end. Any idea of the name please?

It took a bit of staring to work out the dragon, but it appeared eventually.

[buksida]

No idea, it does look pretty cool though.

[buksida]

Soon it was time to get on the road again and into our next province. I wanted to head into the relatively unexplored Satun province but democracy overruled me and the majority voted for Krabi since half of our party had never been there.

The first thing you notice when travelling from a non-touristy into a tourist province is the wealth. The cars were all bigger, newer and shinier, traffic heavier, and the development rampant. The 20 year old rusty Nissan trucks are all replaced by red plated Honda CRVs. The second thing you notice are the higher prices and the ‘farang tax’ on pretty much every lookout, waterfall, hill and puddle the junta could find to stick a brown sign on and label a ‘national park’.

One advantage of travelling in the low season of a largely a depressed tourist industry is that you get some superb deals on hotels, especially in places such as Ao Nang which are saturated with them. Beach front, pool, and breakfast for 909 baht per night including tax, thank you very much. The Ao Nang All Seasons Beach Resort would fit the bill for the next couple of days.

My last visit to this beach was on that fateful day in December 2004 when most of it was destroyed in the tsunami. Today it is a fully renovated characterless tourist strip full of overpriced Italian restaurants, glossy air-conditioned coffee shops, and the mandatory tuktuk mafia. You couldn’t walk ten yards without an Indian thrusting a menu at you or trying to sell you a suit, or a local offering you a taxi – take me back to the serenity of the lakes in Phattalung!

Photos to follow ...

[buksida]

It is only worth coming to Krabi for the scenery off the land and for that we had chartered a boat trip the following day to ‘five islands’ for 2,800 baht for all of us.

The first stop is ‘Koh Tup’ which is famous because you can walk across the sand bank to the next island at low tide. We’d departed early so as to catch the tide and arrive before the crowds. The first greeting on this paradise islet, however, was the military demanding that all the farangs cough up 400 baht before setting foot on the sand. I thought it was a good time to test out my Thai ID card but the trumped up little jerk, obviously not a fan of pink, thought otherwise and called it a fake.

Fortunately, mrs buksi is far more diplomatic and ignored this asshat, taking my ID to the only structure on the island, a little ‘national park’ shack with the prices on it in Chinese, and showing it to someone with more brains than a pigeon, who let me in for the 40 baht Thai price (well, at least that’s what she told me anyway). I refused to let it bother me and went off to take these shots …

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More to follow ...

[Nereus]

Hmm, nice hat on #497.

You do realise that all that you are posting here leaves the rest of us dead in the water. (no pun intended)

[buksida]

Hmm, nice hat on #497.

This guy thought the same apparently ...

[Big Boy]

[buksida]

From this island we headed over to Koh Poda which is the large one you can see off the coast of Ao Nang. Again, I had been there 15 years ago when it was a pristine little islet with literally nothing on it. Today the military have taken over and were there again to demand 400 baht for stepping on the sand. Fortunately our boat guy told them we’d already paid on the previous island.

It was good to see specific areas cordoned off for swimming and signs telling visitors to take their trash back to the mainland. But once you walk away from the boats and tourist cordons the beach trash is evident again and plastic bottles litter the place. Such a shame that with the squadrons of ‘park officials’ on the island they have made no effort to clean it up – evidently they are only interested in collecting cash, not trash. Gripes aside, it still is a beautiful spot with stunning scenery, something you never get bored of no matter if you have been before.

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More to follow ...

[NOKYAI]

Hmm, nice hat on #497.

I notice it makes a second appearance

[Trevtherev]

It was not so much the hat that grabbed my attention. Anyways, back to these travels, once again very nice pictures and I am very tempted to follow this same trip

[migrant]

Great pics, and narrative, as always!

[buksida]

Our next stop was Ao Phra Nang beach. Again, we had been there before and were the only people on it when I took a similar photo 17 years ago. Today it is a circus. Clearly the most popular day trip from Krabi the place was rammed. Bars and restaurants where there was just jungle before, fast food boats, kayak rentals, massage hawkers, climbing walls, a cave full of wooden cocks, a lot of rather large western girls wearing very little, and hordes of selfie snapping Chinese tourists.

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More to follow ...

[buksida]

Just found this on the Bangkok Post today, photographers taking in the sunrise this morning: https://www.bangkokpost.com/photo/photo ... at-pak-pra