Ao Nang and around

From touristy Patong beach we took a local bus to Krabi and watched the great Waterworld movie on the way. A bit funny to watch Kevin Costner speaking thai. From Krabi we headed to nearby Ao Nang which is another beach resort area. We have been going out couple of times and I was also happy to meet new travel mate Andy from Germany. Timo had met him while he was travelling in Australia. It was nice to hear german afterall I started studying it in autumn 2006. I realized that my german wasn't good at all at that moment:D Well hopefully it gets better through time. There's so many Finnish people here in Ao Nang that you'd propably manage by speaking only Finnish. Not very cultural experience. We also went to the local tailor with Timo and ordered us some business suit. Cashmere with stripes, business look at the best!















We rented 125cc scooters for 4euros/day each with Andy and Timo and went around Ao Nang. We drove to Buddha footsteps at the nearby temple Wat Tham Seua(so called tigercave) and climbed all the 1237 steps up to the mountain. It was hard work in the burning sun and definitely good for your bum and thighs. We were respecting the culture by wearing long trousers and shirts even though there was many westerns pretty much in beachwear. I think we got much more out of it with the proper suffering.















After that we drove around the countryside, trying to find a beach, and kept on waving to all the local people and children which were waving back to us. We felt like movie stars since in every house there was someone giving us the wave and directions. We went to dinner for a local restaurant without anyone speaking English and ordered some Pad Thai, which is fried noodles with some seafood. The old owner lady of the place called her sister and we had to tell her in the phone if we wanted any more food and if we were satisfied with the spices. The sister could speak a little bit english and therefore worked as a interpreter between us and the kitchen. Well, we got really good portions and the food cost us only 25 bahts(~50eurocents) each. Finally we found the beach we were looking for and were surprised to see that there was still lots of uncleaned garbage from the tsunami and no tourists or locals whatsoever. At this point the time was running quite late and we had to head back to Ao Nang. We were very delighted by the pouring rain which hit us on the way back. What an experience driving through traffic with slicks-like tires, wet roads and toy helmets. We ended up soaked but finally made it back to the accomodation and well earned cold Chang-beer.

At the end of our stay, we had some nice local parties back in Ao nang. After one bigger night out, we headed to nearby Railey Beach just to lay on the beach. The beach is pretty popular and was quite full. Nice views and great rock climbing opportunities. We were scammed on our way back since we had bought a 2-way ticket to the Railey beach but it was valid until 6pm only. We had to pay 1 euro for the new ticket. What a rip-off!

We also met a girl from Timos home university in Finland and she was staying in Ao Nang with her sister. After big farewell party we had to say goodbyes to our friend Andy and the girls. He was heading to Northern Thailand and Chiang Mai and was planning to do some meditation there. The girls went back to school in Finland. We left to Koh Lanta with Timo and ended up having good, relaxing, days there at the Southern part of the island.