Another couple hours on a ferry and we arrived at the port of Krabi town. We decided to stay a little further away from the main areas where everything is catered towards tourism. We stayed in a hostel called Seacation which was right near the markets where you could find fresh fruit, juices and foods all day and night, every night of the week. The benefit of these markets are that the food is fresher than most restaurants, they sell it at a quarter of the price and they always serve you with a smile because they are working for themselves and getting to watch you enjoy the same food they feed their children.

There is a sense of oneness and community when you see a family of three behind the stalls all working together to create these wonderfully unique meals for each other and for you.

We loved walking along through the market at night, they had a stage set up and locals would come on and play western songs or ‘ladyboys’ would put on cabaret shows while lip syncing songs from Disney movies or 90’s hits. It was a warm and welcoming atmosphere that we couldn’t get enough of.  Staying a little further from the beaches had its setbacks but they were worth it. I would only suggest this option if you know how to ride a scooter because the taxi fares are insanely high. It took us about twenty minutes to get to Ao Nang beach which was fine if it was sunny, but we weren’t always so lucky with our timing as we got caught in more than one rainstorm on our way home in the late afternoon.

As I mentioned in my previous blogs, customer service in Thailand has not been impressing us. We made our way to the port one morning to catch a boat to a neighbouring bay when we were confronted with some rather unfriendly ticket sales personnel. I understand better than most that everyone has personal battles going on in their lives, at the same time, I’m a strong advocate of not letting it affect people who are not a part of those battles. We quickly learned that the boat drivers where in equally horrible moods, our driver had missed our stop and then made us feel bad when we asked if he would take us back where we wanted to go.

Overall, the whole process of hopping from bay to bay was not a friendly one. We decided to put it all behind us as the moment we had been waiting for was upon us. The deep water solo, a free climb up the side of a mountain overhanging water and then a cliff jump back down. I had been looking forward to this for months and was too excited to be put off by troubled boat drivers. As luck would have it, one of the most renowned deep was solo camps was not staffed by lovely, welcoming people, they were just as dismissive and rude as everyone else we had met. We explained our time constraint to deaf ears and were simply told to write down our names and emails and we would hear from them when it was possible to go.

We passed the next day by climbing a mountain, 500 meters and two hours later we were looking down on the world and across the ocean, the day after we drove out to the emerald lake and outran a storm on our way back.

 

 

The days rolled by and still I hadn’t heard back from the rock climbing place, we were getting ready to leave Krabi but decided to extend the trip, I wouldn’t leave without experiencing the deep water solo. I emailed and called and explained I would pay for a private tour, and that I would be there the next morning. It turned out to be another disappointment as we arrived and were told that the captain did not feel like coming in today and that if we wanted we could go do some regular climbs in the next bay over. We had no other choice, and I wouldn’t leave Krabi without climbing at least once.

 

The experience was amazing, we had never climbed on real mountains before and it was exhilarating. Despite being so upset with the way we were treated, we really enjoyed the climbing experience we had and enjoyed most of Krabi in general.

 

We left Krabi the next day with a bitter sweet feeling.