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Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Krabi

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This trip was different than many others that I’ve taken, for several reasons. Firstly, it took place over Thanksgiving weekend, so it was a three-night adventure instead of a more typical weekend jaunt. Secondly, and more importantly, I met up with my friend Lucas (with whom I also explored Hong Kong back in March) and his friend from college, Mel, for the last hurrah of the backpacking trip they were making through Thailand. Finally, this was a beach vacation with no purpose other than playing at the beach. It has been a very long time since I’ve had one of those vacations, and I have all the sunburns to prove it!

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Random building that I just loved

Lucas, Mel, and I chose to stay in Krabi Town so that we’d have quick access to an airport as well as a good jump-off point for a variety of water-related activities. We stayed at Pak-Up Hostel, met a ton of really cool people, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

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The bar at our hostel where we spent each evening

On our first night in Krabi, we walked through the night market, which contained the usual number of food stalls and stands selling other random items. My favorite, however, was a mobile library!

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On Friday, we booked a kayaking tour of mangrove forests and sea caves, which was really neat. It took a bit longer to get to the kayak site than we’d hoped, but we couldn’t have kayaked in this area on our own. Unfortunately, most of my cave photos didn’t come out, but this is what we saw on our adventure:

It was pouring when we got back to Krabi, but tropical storms usually clear in a couple hours. This was no exception, and we took advantage of the blue skies to head to Railay Beach, known for rock climbing. As it had just rained, we didn’t see any climbers out and about, but we did see a truly stunning place.

Our water taxi ride to Railay gave us these views . . .

. . . and our time on Railay Beach left me in complete awe:

 

Despite getting caught in another torrential, terrifying storm on our water taxi back to Krabi, we headed to Aonang Beach the next morning to hire a longtail boat to take us island hopping.

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Interior of our boat
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Exterior of our boat, complete with captain

 

It took about an hour to get to the Hong Islands, and we stopped in three places to just enjoy our time on the beach. Our favorite by far was Hong Lagoon, our last stop. Lucas and Mel dove gracefully off the boat; I belly flopped painfully a couple times and then opted just to jump.

We could have visited a fourth island, but hunger got the better of us, so we chose to head back to Aonang to eat. We spent about an hour relaxing in some rented beach chairs before making our way back to Pak-Up for a much-needed shower.

This weekend in Krabi was absolutely amazing. The ocean is my happy place and I haven’t been to the ocean in a very long time. Maybe it was the 10-bed dorm room in the hostel, maybe it was meeting up with friends, or maybe it was my makeup case remaining untouched for the entirety of the trip, but I have never felt as free as I did over the past few days. That feeling was entirely unexpected, but I’m glad for it. Sunburn and all, I’d do it again in heartbeat.

 

 

Singapore

Rooftops and Gardens

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No, not rooftop gardens, though I love those!

This weekend I went to Lantern for dinner and drinks with a friend from school and one of her friends, who also works at school. School is massive so it’s no surprise that I’m still meeting my colleagues! In fact, I’ll probably never actually meet all of them. The teaching staff alone is twice the size of the entire student body of the school I attended as a kid.

Lantern is beautifully set on a hotel rooftop at Marina Bay, so we wined and dined overlooking the skyscrapers of Singapore’s business district, as well as some very fancy hotels. Marina Bay Sands, the casino, is in the distance. Our ferris wheel, the Singapore Flyer, was close by, too!

On Sunday, I visited the Botanic Gardens with the same friend. I’ve been there before with Mitch, but it was great to be back. It’s so beautiful there and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. It’s not sunny all the time here! Really! Just hot. All the time. As usual, the gardens were full of people engaging in some quality outdoor recreation. We passed picnics, birthday parties, runners, bikers, newly weds taking photos, and people playing various sports games. In an age (and a city) where people are so invested in handheld technology, it’s heartwarming to see people enjoying the exact opposite..

So far, my favorite part about Singapore is that there’s something for everyone, and always something new to experience.

Singapore

Lights and music are on my mind.

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Who gets the title reference? Anyone? Anyone? Answer: This song!

On Friday night, I joined two of my friends at the opening of the Night Festival here in Singapore. The Night Festival runs from 7pm-2am Friday and Saturday night for two weekends and consists of free museum admission to the Art Museum, National Museum, Peranakan Museum, and Philatelic Museum (that means stamp collecting!), as well as street performances, installation art having to do with light, dance performances, interactive stage performances, and food and drinks available on streets closed to cars. We were more than a little overwhelmed with options and choices, and largely unfamiliar with the wide area in which the festival was located, but we followed the crowds and the music, bought ourselves some strawberry margarita popsicles, and had a good time!

These drummers wove their way down the street and stopped to play right in front of us! I learned later that they're a group from the UK.
These drummers wove their way down the street and stopped to play right in front of us! I learned later that they’re a group from the UK.

The New Stream Brass Band claims to be a New Orleans-style jazz band, and the word style is key. Growing up in Rochester and attending the Jazz Festival regularly has introduced me to enough jazz to recognize authentic New Orleans jazz. This wasn’t, but the musicians played and sang and got quite a large crowd. They were a lot of fun to watch because they were clearly enjoying them, and the music did remind me of bands of I’ve heard in the past.

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I couldn’t help but take a picture of the food truck offerings from a truck called Cow. It was painted white with black spots!

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These prices were so reasonable! We were shocked.

The light installations all involved music or sound in some way, too. There were even fire dancers at one show!

These guitarists were really good!
I completely understand why children are fascinated with mobiles. So were we!
This was just sort of fascinating. The birds looked like they’d been made of wire.
Light show with fire dancers at the Singapore Art Museum
This group’s name is Alchemy – cool, right?
French graphic designers put together this display to celebrate Singapore’s 50th birthday

I got a good laugh at the civility of this festival. No one was walking on the grass to get underneath the giant mobile, but my American friends and I looked around at the lack of barriers or explicit signs, and did just that. People waited at crosswalks to cross the street. Only some streets were blocked off and there were crossing guards with whistles positioned at the streets that were still open to traffic. Even though alcohol was available, very few people were drinking. There was no trash anywhere. No one was climbing trees or light poles for a better view. It was all very, very calm. How strange!

I might go back next weekend to go to the Art Museum. I haven’t been there and this would be a good (read: free) opportunity to see what it has to offer.