Monday, February 9, 2015

Sea Sand Sun @ Krabi, Thailand

 

Since Ray started schooling, we could only plan our annual family trip to coincide with his long school break. It has become kind of a family tradition to have at least one island trip per year. Last December we picked Krabi, Thailand as our destination.

Shared in the following are the highlights of the trip.

We started our action in the water on day 2 of our trip with a full day Island hopping itinerary covering 4 island - Phranang , Chicken, Tup and Poda Islands

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The Tup Island has its own unique phenomenon commonly referred to by the locals as Talay Waek which means divided sea. During high tide, the island is divided into 2 islands, 400metres apart. At the peak of low tide, a sandbank emerges to connect the two islands together allowing you to walk across freely between the two islands on a strip of sandbar seemingly dividing the sea to two.

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Well, I must say that Krabi may not have as white, as fine sandy beaches and as good snorkeling spots as compared with other islands we visited in the past such as Koh Lipe, Thailand and the Peninsular Malaysia East Coast Islands, but Krabi still has its own attractions.

On day 3, we had an inaugural experience with a new water sport – kayaking. It was the first experience for Ray and myself. Later, Ray rated this kayaking experience at Ao Thalan as his most fun and enjoyable activity out of all the activities we had in Krabi.

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After a full morning of kayaking, we were taken for an hour elephant trekking through a rubber estate rather than a jungle as stated in the tour brochure.

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Our final destination was the Tiger Cave temple. So, you might think we did not have enough of wild animal that we went for another close encounter with the tigers again? Sorry, your guess never come close.

The hidden attraction lies behind this temple façade, is a total of 1,237 steps to the summit of the mountain temple where you get to have a magnificent panoramic view of Krabi town.

We counted the steps as we were going up the strenuous flight of stairs. It was actually 1260 steps. After about of 25 minutes of hike, Ray made it to the top first.

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Panoramic view over Krabi from Tiger Cave Temple.

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After the tiring climb, up and down, we were delighted to have a great dip in a natural Mineral Hot Spring Waterfall.

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We ended our final fresh water activity at the famous crystal pool or Emerald pool. The pool was located 1.4KM from the entrance of the park. We got to enjoy the lush foliage of the forest and fresh air along this trail.

The pool to me was overrated. I found the pool as merely a cloudy green color pool with overly crowded tourists in it. This was also due to the not so right timing we visited on that day. It was a Thai public holiday and we only arrived after lunch when the tour group crowds had already built up.

To enjoy the claimed crystal Emerald pool view, it was advisable to go in the early morning when the water of the pool is still and the sediment in the pool is not yet kicked up by swimmers to cloud the water.

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While Ray was having his fun time in the pool, I decided to venture further to discover the legendary Blue pool which was another 15minutes trek away from the Emeral pool. Less people visited this pool as no swimming was allowed there due to the many quick sands in that pool.

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This blue pool lived up to its name, the water was crystal clear that one could see through to the bottom of the pool.The water was really amazingly blue, like a very clean swimming pool.

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The above were some attractions that we covered during our short 4 days 3 nights trip in Krabi.

For the next post, I will share the deliciously authentic Thai food we had in Krabi.

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