Day 21 of The Big Adventure, according to Sarah. 

We woke up early and headed outside to wait for our transfer to the ferry. We arrived at the pier verrrry early and were on the boat 40mins before it was set to depart. With this in mind, we decided to go for a little wander to find some breakfast. Lauren had a very sensible croissant and a mandatory tea and I had a vanilla donut (perhaps an unwise choice so early in the morning). 

We got back on the boat and were soon on our way. The boat took maybe 2 hours so we had a little snooze on the way. 

When we finally reached the pier in Krabi we were all ushered out of the terminus building and into our respective taxis. We, of course, were ushered into a ‘first class’ luxury minibus. We were the last people to be dropped off so we got to see everyone else’s plush resorts where they were being dropped off. Ours wasn’t exactly what you’d call plush, but it wasn’t half bad for the price. 

We arrived at JP home and backpacker and checked in. The very friendly lady showed us upstairs to our room. A large airy room, with two single beds, air con AND a fan, a desk, a full size fridge, the nicest en suite of the trip so far and a little hallway with a drying rack for our clothes.

  

  

On booking.com the hostel had advertised use of a hairdryer… Which was a massive understatement. There was a full on salon chair, complete with 2 hair driers, 3 different hair straighteners and every brush and comb you could think of. There was even rebonding serum for if we spontaneously fancied a perm.

 
We settled ourselves and decided we should head to the beach. We popped our bikinis on and headed downstairs. The kind receptionist lady asked ‘Where you go?’ 

So we replied we wanted to go to the beach and asked for directions. She said it was a half an hour walk. In this heat, that was the last thing we wanted to do. We asked if there was any other way there and she said we were more than welcome to borrow some bicycles. Again, in the midday heat we weren’t overly keen. Then she offered to drive us both there on the back of her moped. With a certain amount of trepidation, we agreed. We both hopped on the back. Now this wasn’t the largest moped you’ve ever seen, and certainly wasn’t built to carry a grand total of 3. But we all manage to squeeze our little bums on the seat and Lauren and I held on for dear life. 

It was actually half as bad as we’d thought – the roads were in good condition, relatively straight and no steep inclines/declines. All in all, a surprisingly pleasant journey. She dropped us off in the middle of the beach front and said she’d see us later, not even expecting any payment. What a babe. We gave her 100 Baht (much to her surprise) and went on our way.

We wandered along the beach and had a look at the restaurants and shops and found ourselves a little spot on the beach. It wasn’t the nicest beach we’ve been to, but we have definitely been spoilt. We lay there and snoozed in the sun for the afternoon, going for occasional dips in the lukewarm water. 

We both decided we were massively craving salad because we had been warned many times that ordering salad here wasn’t safe incase they washed it with tap water. So we set about trying to devise a cunning plan so that we could make our own. We decided that we’d buy our own lettuce, cucumber, peppers etc and wash them at home with bottled water. We set off in search of a shop that would sell us fresh fruit and veg and were severely disappointed. All the shops either sold an array of useless beach paraphanelia or sold a million varieties of pot noodle. But no fresh fruit or veg. We had a look on google maps and found that there was a Tesco lotus about a half an hour walk away. That must have fresh fruit and veg we thought and so we set off in that direction. The walk seemed to take forever and it seemed like we were almost out of town before we arrived at Tesco lotus. It was a big supermarket and we were sure they would have some salad stuff. 

The choice was very limited. We managed to nab some of the last packets of lettuce (they had a huge array of cabbage, but lettuce was clearly a luxury). We managed to find some cucumbers (which looked suspiciously like gerkins) and some peppers which were a mix of red and green and a little bit wrinkly. 

That would have to do. 

We also bought some crisps and yummy biscuits for the snack pack, naturally. We made our way outside thinking there would be plenty of taxis waiting outside Tesco lotus. But there were none. 

So we wandered down to the main road and hailed a tuktuk and managed to haggle the price down so that it was only 200baht for the both of us to get home. Which was far more preferable to an hours walk laden with shopping bags. 

We got home and went downstairs to find the communal kitchen that had been advertised. We asked the receptionist and she showed us to what was definitely her family kitchen, which was basic at best. It was essentially a cabinet pushed up against the outside wall of the guesthouse, with a basin under hose-type tap. But all we really needed were plates to eat off, a knife to cut up the veggies and a basin to wash them in. We set about making our salad and the hostel receptionist seemed highly amused. Clearly not many people did their own cooking here.   

  

 

  

   
We decided to sit out the front of the hostel, where there were some wooden table and chairs and the hostel receptionist + some family members had just finished eating their dinner (the classic rice and fish-carcass curry).

We sat down and ate our salad, which enjoyably satisfied our cravings. All the while, being stared at by the family members of te hostel owner/receptionist. 

We finished our meal and went back to the kitchen to wash up.

The salad hadn’t really been enough for me and I, as always, had a craving for something sweet. I set my heart on a banana pancake and asked the receptionist where the nearest stall was that I could get one. 

She told us it was a two minute walk down the road so off we set. 

It was run by an entire family; the mother cooking the actual pancakes, the dad taking orders and a little girl (in her monkey pyjamas) dancing around and nibbling at some of the offcuts.

We ordered a banana Nutella pancake and waited. She seemed to be making pancakes for the entire town before she got around to making mine and some locals at the table next to ours seemed to find us fascinating. 

We finally got our pancake and tucked in – it was delicious. I loved that these pancake food stalls were never far away. 

We headed back to our hostel – it was definitely time for bed after a long day.