Krabi

Hey, Sua (I think you are the only one who reads this anyway. Sua, depending on how you say it in Thai, can mean tiger (or shirt I think)). I left Phuket early this morning on a minibus (van) for Krabi. Krabi is much more relaxed little town with many less tourists.

Upon my arrival, I of course took off walking in the opposite direction I wanted to go to get to soem of the guesthouses in my guidebook and consequently started melting in the heat with my pack on. I decided to get a cab, which meant a motorbike, since they were all that was available. The driver of course did not speak English, nor did he understand where I wanted to go when I pointed at the map. He flagged down another driver to help, to little avail. I wound up climbing on the motorbike, with my pack on, in addition to some other bags of souvenirs I was hoping to mail home today. I was scared that I would fall off, but it was pretty hilarious nonetheless. He drove to the big department store/shopping district, where one of the dispatchers who spoke English guided him in a direction toward a guesthouse. It wasn't one of the ones I was looking at, but I did get a very nice room. I probably paid a little too much, but at that point, I didn't really care.

I didn't sleep well last night, after having too many coffees, and having downgraded rooms to a budget hotel which was fan-cooled and had a crappy mattress, so I was just happy that I had airconditioning and a nice bed. I showered, got some food, and took a nap for a couple of hours. I then wandered out toward the river and pier, where I finally accepted one of the offers to go on a boat ride (songthaew boat, I think they're called. I will post a picture later). He took me along the river, which is surrounded by mangrove trees (I saw some monkeys in the mangroves), went to a cave that was supposedly in the movie The Beach and is going to be in some upcoming movie called Mysterious Cave or something, and then to a small fishing village. The man at the fishing village has all these fish in little pools with nets, which was really sad. He'd take the boxfish, pufferfish, and porcupinefish out and harrass them til they blew up, which made me very sad, and I kept telling him to throw them back in (not that their beign all caged up like that is any better).

I managed to book my travel to Bangkok tomorrow, but I have to leave kinda early (and it will take forever for me to actually get into Bangkok, but oh well), which means I can't go to the Tiger Cave Buddhist monastery that's in a limestone cave in the forest around here :(...perhaps next time. I will be travelling for pretty much the next two days; I will post again once I get into Hanoi.