Boat trip to Koh Gai (Chicken Island)

First and foremost, Koh Gai which is directly translated to Chicken Island, has nothing to do with the fowl living on the island (or lack thereof), but more to do with the physical characteristics of the island. I am pretty sure that anyone can and will agree that the island is aptly named based on the following photo I shot today while taking the boat around the far side of the island.

From just the right angle, the pillar rising over the side of the island looks exactly like a roosting bird.  I tried to walk over to the base of it at low tide, but had to give up after reaching a few impassable places and slipping and rendering my foot a bloody mess. 

That being said, the island is beautiful, but I do have some advice for anyone thinking of going there.  

Skip the tours and skip the short-time boat trips.  Find a boat, charter it for the day, and enjoy going when and where you want.  You can charter a boat for the day for about $60 and then leave at a much earlier time than the other tourists.  

Leaving early is VERY important.  The island gets insanely crowded, and honestly that pretty much ruins the experience.  You want to make sure you leave the various ports around the area by about 7:30am, and then reach the island a few hours before the main rush of tourists.  The silence and beauty of the place is very obvious at this point.  After about 10am, the island is crawling with tourists of all sorts.  

The best thing about Koh Gai is that it actually does have food and bathrooms on the island.  I would say that it is important to bring some toilet paper, and the park entrance fee is a bit steep at a price of 400 baht, but they do make a pretty good plate of chicken fried rice.  

Of course I had to order chicken fried rice on Chicken Island, which I am pretty sure does not have a single chicken on the entire landmass.

The area was beautiful, and for some reason it was just flooded with butterflies.  I tried to take a lot of photos of them, but they were pretty good at avoiding me.  I did manage to snap a photo of this one in the bathroom.  

The best part of chartering a boat is that you can just request that the boat driver take you around to the different islands to just enjoy the views.

I have never been a fan of just lounging around on an island, but I have to admit, I found a pretty good place to rest my feet today.

Should you find yourself in Krabi in need of a good boat captain who has a home port in Krabi town, give this phone number a call.  I would highly recommend him.  

"Just" - +66 - 087 - 269 - 8927

Impromptu Boat Trip in Krabi

Today was another amazing example of making plans, and then dashing them when a different opportunity comes along.  I do owe this entire adventure to Melissa who decided that she wanted to walk into town to just walk around and explore and asked if I wanted to come along.  

So, we walked...

Then we decided to talk to some of the people getting on the boats and got approached by one of the boat captains.  The weather was nice, and the idea of just cruising around the tributary seemed quite hard to pass up.  So we hopped in the boat with no real clue where we were going, how long we would be gone, etc.  

We started by just cruising up the river, an obvious and beautiful choice.  We took a few photos of the boats passing, some pretentious posed photos, and other needed things.  

Then, the boat captain pulls up to to the cliff-side featured in the above photo.  This is where the adventure started to turn a bit weird, but quite awesome.  While we had no clue what the site was, there were a few obvious advantages to exploring it. It was empty, it was getting dark fast, and there were super creepy stairs leading up to a cave opening.  

I mean, how do you turn down an adventure like this?  So, after stopping long enough to take notice that we could hear bats, and that we did not have any flashlights, we bounded up the slippery and God only knows what made the stairs take on that look covered stairs.  Yeah, I washed my hands when we got back...

The inside is some archaeological site.  It seems like it has been in use since prehistoric times, though being used most recently by the Japanese during the Second World War.  

The inside was amazingly cool, bats were flying all around the ceiling and you could see movement in the darker areas that were lower as well.  The area was somewhat dim, and we used our cell phones for flashlights in places, but talk about an amazing find!

After the trip to the cave, we went over to the nearby boat village and had some fun walking around it as twilight fast faded into night.  

This might be the best aspect of traveling.  I often find I learn more about an area and see more of what should be seen when I am in-between plans.  We had no intention of seeing either one of these places.  To be honest, I don't think we knew either one existed.  As we walked around the village in the early hours of the evening, we both kept saying over and over that this was exactly what we wanted to see, and never knew it.  Sometimes a quick-talking boatman and a casual stroll in the evening can lead to the right adventure.

Visiting the emerald pool in Krabi, Thailand

We started out the day with the plan of going to the hot ponds near our hotel area, only to find out that there had been a rather impressive flash-flood in the very recent past.  It looked like the water and silt had been over a meter in height as all of the flat surfaces that were about that height or a little higher had debris and such on them.  The pools were supposed to be rather clear and at a nice but today they looked a bit like silty mud holes.  I am sure they are quite beautiful to laze around in, just not today.  Today I am pretty sure there were monsters in that water.  We were wise to move on quickly. 
That being said, they did have quite cute dogs in the parking area.  I am sure that the sight of packs of dogs seems quite foreign to anyone who is reading this from the United States, but soi dogs are every where around Thailand.  (Soi is the term for alley, so they are just known as the local soi dogs in respect to the fact that they are usually just in and around just about every alley). 

After that bit of a misadventure we made it up to the emerald pool, which has definitely earned that title.  The walk in is about 1.5 kilometers, but the sheer beauty of the area makes the distance slip by quickly.  The area actually looks a lot like a flooded upland Hawaii, with many ankle-deep streams crisscrossing the jungle floor below the raised walkway.  While the cost of entrance is a bit steep for Thai prices, (200 baht per person), the price is well worth it as the area is almost pristine.  Sadly, this is not the standard for Thailand, as many people just leave their trash on the ground and no one is responsible for collecting said refuse.  

After arriving at the pool about thirty minutes before the main flood of people, we jumped right in and took a swim in some beautiful water.  The 200 baht entrance fee was easily worth it just for that moment.  

I also saw this awesome family dragging the grandmother into the water.  I love the looks on the kids faces as they see their grandmother being hoisted into the pool.  

I would highly recommend going to this site to anyone visiting Krabi.  While it seems like most tourists go to southern Thailand to visit the islands and party, places like this are a great reminder that there are amazing things to do that don't require boats or copious amounts of alcohol. 

Wat Tham Suea 2.0

I have had the chance to hike Wat Tham Suea once before and I distinctly remember saying that I would never go again. That promise lasted less that three months.

As much as my legs are regretting the trip, I am still quite glad I got to go a second time. The monkeys were nice this time, we were one of the first groups of people on the top, and found a new surprise - free wifi on the summit. 

I had a great time giving my family a quick tour via video call from the top of a mountain almost half a world away. Quite an amazing achievement for modern technology. 

There are still way too many stairs, and the view is still superb. The highlight of the day though, was that we were able to get about three uninterrupted hours of sunshine in the midst of a monsoon.   We are still in awe of the luck that we had by dealing with pouring rain all night, and then having the rain start up within about 15 minutes of us reaching the base of the mountain.  Maybe today is the day to buy a lottery ticket...

Krabi, Thailand, in the rain

One of the things that I continually try and learn while I am travelling is the idea that no matter how well you plan out something, nature always can create another plan without any warning, and without any forgiveness.  One of the joys of traveling with someone who is like-minded is that when the plans change, you can just evolve and change with them.  Krabi and the coasts of Southern Thailand are known for their beautiful coastlines, islands, lush mountains, and as of the past few days, the start of the rainy season.  

It seems like the start of the monsoon season has finally reached Southern Thailand, just in time for my planned adventure with my friend Melissa.  Today started with a bit of an overcast day and a trip through the airport, and has ended after quite a few impromptu trips, with an incredible rainstorm.

The rain has been thundering down for close to three or four hours now, and only growing more and more intense.  It has started to remind me of the weather in Hilo, Hawaii, where the smell of the rain would mix with the ocean water and create the very unique stormy scent.  The open air sitting area we are in is covered well enough that the neighborhood cat has taken refuge along with the trust-fund backpacker who is complaining about having to make his 90-day visa run while smoking cheap cigarettes.  

The cat has taken refuge near my chair and continues to meow and clean her very pregnant belly while Melissa has had to move a few times to avoid the drips in the semi-solid roof.

All-in-all, quite a good day, While it is not the trip that was planned, I don't think I would ever truly complain about being able to sit and listen to the pounding rain while fending off the advances of a very mouthy cat and having to debate between ordering a glass of wine, or enjoying a warm drink of some kind.  Today has been an adventure of hurry and wait, one where we enjoyed scenery and then had to run for shelter.  We found that 7-11 pop-up umbrellas were quite worthless in the face of the monsoon downpour, and we learned that the wonderful curries of the south really warm the body after coming face-to-face with the haphazardly built umbrellas.

In the end, I will probably chose the wine, and sit back with a pilfered book from the hotel mini-library, and appease the very mouthy cat.  This is of course if I can keep avoiding the dripping spots in the roof, and not get lulled to sleep by the mesmerizing and cathartic Krabi rain.