I landed in Phuket about half past three, excited to be back in Thailand. It sure has a hold on me. Once again being attacked by cabbies and tour guides I find my way to the local bus stop back to town, just outside. Again cheap cheap. I settle in the shade next to a bloke from Wales who is staring at a map of Phuket with a confused look on his face. "now what?" he asks me. I laugh, where do you want to go? "I think Phi Phi". Perfect. I'm heading to Krabi tonight and making my way to Phi Phi to meet up with my girlfriends, you are more than welcome to join.
He seems very relieved and calls me his travel angel. After the next bus to town get cancelled we are again attacked by cabbies willing to take us to town for 150 baht eat or right to Krabi for 1000. We will wait for the next bus I say. We make it back to Phuket town around 6:30 p.m. And the next bus to Krabi is at 7:00. Perfect. It's only a three hour ride so that will be a good time to show up and stay for a night...maybe two. We get some street food in our bellies and settle in front of the post that says Krabi. It's about 8:30 when a bus the Krabi starts to fire up, we load our bags and hand the lady our tickets, which are a different colour than everyone else's. "this not me" she says. Oh crap. I go to talk to the ticket lady, "ooooh, you're bus gone" she says with a dramatic pout on her face, she reminds me of the villain on Reboot. That's all she keep repeating. Ok, we get it. For some reason that bus was at the other end of the terminal, who knew? Needless to say we have to buy another ticket for this next bus, which is the last if the night.
I'm not too bothered, we are still way under budget compared to the 1000 ride directly there. Allen is harassing me to all he'll by this point. I simply look at him and say, have you not noticed this bus is playing Lethal Weapon in Thai, how amazing! Which he replies, "yeah and it's called the crazy bus" and boy was it. I managed to fall asleep within an hour or so as he lied awake apparently terrified for his life. It really was the crazy bus we made it to Krabi in only two hours in the pouring rain. We are shaken awake and mysteriously wet (all the buses seem to not be sealed properly, you will end up wet if it rains) and pushed off the bus into the middle of no where. Being the last bus of the night it doesn't need to go to the station, it just drops you off wherever.
Luckly a toothless tuk tuk driver ocomes hobbling over the meridian. "hellooooo, where you gooooo?" Krabi town, guest house, cheap cheap. "ok, 150 150" he points at us separately. Whatever, I just woke, too tired to negotiate and don't know how far we are. We prob could have gone two for one. Ah well. He takes us directly to a guesthouse, 300 baht, why not? Splitting accommodation always makes things easier. We have a balcony on the second floor, Wifi in the room, our own bath and sports on t.v. It's almost midnight so we take to the street to get some grub.
Krabi town is probably my favorite town so far. It reminds me of Moose Jaw lines with shops and eateries, and seems very sleepy. The streets are wide and there is no traffic at night, just you to explore and as the sun comes up it is surrounded by beautiful scenery and of course, Wats. We manage to make it to the night market right before it shut down and grabbed some street food, I'll never get over it. It it didn't break every health law in the book I'd love to have my own back in Canada. You could make a killing.
We wander the streets a bit more, the world is our oyster, and see a group of Americans sitting outside a bar and decide to join them. The woman who owns the bar is passed out in a hammock, apparently drunk, so we just keep leaving money at the bar and serve ourselves. Team America has just arrived in Thailand from Beijing (where they all currently reside) and are very excited to hear what I can tell them about this glorious country. We talk for several hours and retire for the night.
I'm up and ready first the next morning so I find out how to get to the girls, which happen to be in Ton Sai and not yet Phi Phi. No worry. A local bus just down from whee we are staying takes us to Ao Nang and the long tailed boat takes us to Ton Sai. The expression on Allen's face cracked me up as we keep cramming more and more people on the bus. This is how it goes I say. He is laughing by this point. We get directly on the boat a this point, crossing turquoise waters, around limestone cliffs speckled with rock climbers, our eyes growing wider. Again, we found paradise.
It's just after noon when we arrive so we settle at the firs bar to have a couple beers before we go on the hunt for Jenna and Chels. They found us before we found them. So happy! Hugs and stories and smiles all around. I finally have a chance to do laundry and settle into to a hut once again.
Fun fact: the hardest part of my day right now is always being covered in sand.
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