Today we were headed south to Ao Nang! This meant an early morning flight and an early wakeup. We packed up and checked out of our hotel before sunrise and walked a short distance to the nearest 7-11 to get one of their famous “toasties” for breakfast which is basically a pre-packaged grilled cheese panini. Our Grab picked us up from the 7-11 and we munched on the toasties and drank coffee as we were driven the short distance to the airport.

We had a connection at the smaller airport in Bangkok (the one we had flown out of to come to Chiang Mai) and strangely, even though we were on the same carrier for our flight from Bangkok to Krabi airport, we had to leave the secure area, and go back through security to get to our gate. Luckily the connection time wasn’t super tight so we were fine but it was a bit perplexing and took us a few minutes to figure out what we had to do since it was a rather atypical experience on a domestic flight.

When we arrived in Krabi, we were positively swarmed by aggressive cab drivers and transfer services standing in the arrivals lobby and we had to thread and shoulder our way through them. We had summoned a Grab and he was waiting for us. We put our bags into his car and then were treated to the ride of our lives. He was a risky chance taker and had some arbitrary and only known to him, time to beat for the drive to Ao Nang. It was hair-raising and wild. He was not one to wait in a line of traffic and would routinely just bypass a line of cars patiently waiting their turns to make a turn by just simply going around them, making his own lane and choosing his own adventure. I finally had to stop watching and just start reading on my phone because it was too nerve wracking to witness, so I chose the “ignorance is bliss” method instead.

Despite all odds, we somehow arrived alive and were dropped off across the street from the DeLoft hotel where we then had to play Frogger, and bobbed and weaved across the four lanes of traffic without dying. We survived this as well and then were able to check in. The room was spartan but functional. By this point in the trip I had come to the realization that all beds in Thailand were very hard and had reluctantly accepted this fact, and this bed was no exception. We stuck our hammocks in our daypacks and headed out in search of Ao Nang beach which was just 1.5 km away.

We could hear the beach before we could see, or rather, we could hear the infamous longtail boats whose repurposed automotive engine motors created an obnoxious din as the boats taxied tourists from one island to another. We hung the hammocks in trees near where the beachfront met the road that led to the resorts and we each took turns¹ taking a dip in the Andaman Sea.

The beach was absolutely packed which made for interesting people watching and the longtail boat traffic was wild. There was a steady stream of them constantly coming and going, and while we had learned from YouTube travel videos that they were prolific in their numbers and in their racket, we didn’t get a true sense of it until we saw it in person. They would pull up onto the beach and throw their anchors at the water’s edge, deposit some passengers who then waded to shore, wait a few minutes, then load their next haul of passengers and take off across the horizon to some other place- most likely Railay Beach which was close by.

We hung out on the beach and in our hammocks long enough to catch the sunset over the bay and then decided to go in search of some dinner. Scott had read about a food market near the beach so we went in search of it. As we walked through the beachtown of Ao Nang we quickly sensed that we were in the Thai equivalent of Myrtle Beach, just with better scenery, with the iconic limestone karsts as a charmingly redeeming backdrop and antidote to the seediness of the town. I might have been hangry by this point so it felt like we walked for miles, but we finally found the food market and picked a stall to order from. The food was good and refueled us for the walk back up the hill to our hotel.

The next morning we got up early so that we could be on one of the first waves of longtail boats transporting travelers to Railay Beach, a nearby peninsula that is only reachable by boat. (If you see Scott in person, ask him to say “Railay.” It has become his favorite word; “Ao Nang” is a close second, and he now says “Ao Nanggggg” when “Aw, dang!” would be an appropriate response.) Taking an early boat turned out to be a good idea² because it was less crowded when we arrived about 10 minutes later in Railay. The towering karsts were impressive to finally see up close and gave the impression of kudzu covered highrise buildings jutting straight out of the ocean and looming large overhead. We knew to head through the center of the little village of Railay to get to the other side for the famous Phra Nang beach that was home to a rather, um, titillating point of interest, the Phra Nang Cave, that has somehow come to be a shrine to fertility, and um, has a lot of, uhh… You know what? Just click on the link I included, just not from a work computer.

On our walk to Phra Nang, we encountered one of the many caves on the island that are part of the National Parks system. Thankfully the employee had on a National Parks polo shirt because otherwise we would have declined paying to go inside it, thinking that paying some guy admission to this place was a “common scam in Thailand.” He was legit, as was the cave, but the boardwalk that wandered through the cave system was not. It was a hot mess with missing boards and a patchwork of materials, all bonafide and significant tripping hazards. The cave itself was interesting and had a loud and noisy bat colony that lived inside it.

When we had seen the extent of what the cave had to offer, we worked our way back out and headed towards Phra Nang beach. We somehow took an alternate route that took us along a precarious sidewalk and through a trash dump before abruptly ending at the edge of a retaining wall with a 10 foot drop to the path below. Scott had already hopped down the drop while I was still complaining about it and running through a cost-benefit/danger analysis of it, and he told me to quit whining and just do it. I made him help me down, somewhat inelegantly, but I did it.

This path split and we Scott decided we should take it to the end before heading back to the beach. Along the way, we figured out that this end of the island had all the restaurants, hostels, souvenir shops, and eventually resorts. When we reached the terminus of the pathway, Scott ventured up the hill to see what lay up there (a resort), and I plopped down on a resort lounge chair for a rest. We were hot and sweaty by this point and decided to actually go find the beach now.

We retraced our steps and eventually reached an intersection near a floating dock and another spot where longtail boats and some other larger boats were dropping passengers off. We saw several areas where rock climbing lessons were taking place and while watching that, had our first monitor lizard and monkey spotting! The macaque monkeys would jump out of trees and land with a huge “thud” on the rooftop of the bathroom, before scrambling into the overhanging trees and climbing up the mountain. (Being inside the bathroom building while they were doing this was rather interesting and quite loud!)

By the time we finally reached Phra Nang Cave and beach, it was pretty crowded. Luckily there was not as much boat traffic on this side of the peninsula so it was much quieter. We took a brief peak into the cave to see all of the, um, unique offerings that had been left in it, took the requisite pictures, and then ventured off in search of a good place to hang our hammocks along the beach. We had to take turns swimming again since this beach was a prime spot to have your stuff stolen. The water was a clear turquoise and was stunning. There was a sandbar that you could wade waist deep along that led you to one of the huge karsts that had its own sandy beach. We spent several hours enjoying the beach, thoroughly soaking in both the sun and the surreal scenery, before deciding to eat a bite for lunch overlooking the bay, and then catch a longtail boat back to Ao Nang.

Along the pathway as we were heading back from lunch, we encountered an entire rowdy troop of macaques. I was thrilled to see them and even more thrilled to witness the moment that one of the rowdiest of the bunch plucked just-purchased food right off the plate of an unsuspecting tourist while baring his teeth at her, daring her to fight him off. The signs that were posted all over the island warning of aggressive monkeys were not put there just because. They were indeed aggressive. It was entertaining (and slightly unsettling) to watch them climb and swing on the electric utility wires above our heads. We saw one monkey that was perched atop a fence gnawing on part of a chicken carcass be chased by a mother monkey, her infant clinging tightly to her chest as the chase ensued. I could have sat there for hours and watched them but Scott summoned me and we headed through the shops of Railay (bustling and alive now that it was later in the day) and to the water’s edge for our water taxi.

We headed back to our hotel for a shower before venturing back into town for dinner at a spot near the beach. (We walked so much this day- it was our record for most steps taken during the whole trip at almost 25,000!) On our way to the restaurant we booked a catamaran trip for the next day at a kiosk in town. We then enjoyed a sit-down dinner and after, picked up some cold Chang beers³ to sip while sitting on the beach while we were waiting for the fire show that was hosted by a local beach club to start. While waiting we actually saw that another fire show was happening further down the beach so we strolled down to watch and were suitably impressed. When that one finished we headed back up the beach and we got front row seats on the lawn and were thankful that we had, because what a show it was! These guys were unbelievable and took their fire show to the next level compared to the warmup act that we had watched a few minutes before. I even got to hold one of the props while one of the performers held the other end of the spinning ring of fire. When it ended we made the 1.5 km trek back uphill to our hotel, exhausted from all the walking but also from all the fun that we’d had exploring Ao Nang and Railay.