Sporty freshness in Krabi
Monday, 29 November 2004
Aside from Catherine being eaten by insects, we have been doing a load of other stuff in and around Krabi which is a small town in the south of Thailand. It's kind of a travel stop over for alot of the holiday type islands in the south such as Ko Lanta and Ko Phi Phi. The town itself was label uninteresting by lots of people we spoke to but when we got there we found a load to do and alot of nice places to chill in.
The town was pretty live for most of the time we where there because of the Andaman festival which marks the start of the high season (which means all the locals get to rake it in off the thousands of tourists who pass through - happiness indeed). The festival mainly involved a stage with various unusual thai pop acts performing song and dance numbers with strangely dressed children and a huge amount of market stalls selling weird and (sometimes) wonderful food. On sale here we saw cockroaches, crickets, grums and flattened squid things that smell like bad feet. These are in fact everywhere and are extremely rank...bloody foreigners and thier dodgy food. The other part of the festival was a common thai custom (which has a name which I can't be arsed to find out...answers on a post card please) where you light candles on incense on a little floating thingy made out of bamboo and send it off down the river. This was supposed to be beautiful so said the locals. It was shit. Nuff said.
One day in and incredibly fresh and sporting fashion we went kiyacking around islands and mangrove forests which was really cool. Our group got attacked by monkeys. We watched and laughed in the traditional way. Had a kiyack race with the instructor (which we lost - but only just) and woke up the next day to find I had grown a new an unsightly muscle on my arm. Freaky.
One night we had a nice big piss up where we ended up in a reggae bar which turned out to be owned by a girl from Newcastle-under-Lyme and her Thai boyfriend. Ended up chatting to them all night and listening to Bob Marley's greatest hits about 4 zillion times. It seems that in Thailand reggae = Bob Marley. No more no less. There are alot of reggae bars and ALL OF THEM just play Bob Marley and only have Bob Marley posters on the walls. It sounds like they need to hear DJ Derek.
If your going there here are some recommendations: Guesthouse - Chan Cha Ley, Food - Mark and May, Novelty item - electrified bug zapping tennis racket.
On November 29, 2004, Kev-La said:
Bug-zapping tennis racket! Wicked!!
On November 29, 2004, Tom said:
Dj Derek? Is that the old geezer from Bristol? If it is maybe we should club together and fly him out to Thailand, to stop the traveling population from ODing on Bob
On December 01, 2004, Dan said:
Yes, it is him. Apparently hes the only man to have visited every Wheatherspoons in the country which is quite commendable also.
Not seen him myself, Daz and Tim did the other weekend. He sounds very cool.