Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 3544B/$118
Completely out of character, we slept in this morning. When we finally started moving, Patty spoke with her mom for a bit over Skype. Again, we were too late to have a proper breakfast because we were getting picked up for a sunset BBQ tour around 12pm, so we grabbed some yogurts and croissants from 7-11 and stuffed our faces on the patio of our guesthouse where we'd be picked up from. This was not the greatest start to the day. Unfortunately, it didn't really get much better from there.
Around 12pm, we were picked up in a large van. Almost as soon as the door was closed, we realized we didn't bring our sunscreen, and we were going to be on a boat all day. This was annoying.
At 12:30pm, we arrived at the port and went desperately in search of a store that had sunscreen before our tour left. Thankfully, there was a 7-11 relatively nearby so I ran there and picked up a way-too-expensive bottle of sunscreen. At least it’s one of the spray ones, so it’s convenient.
I got back as quickly as I could to the port, but there was really no rush. In fact, we didn't leave until 1:30pm on a long boat, which then docked with a larger boat. We waited while the long boat went back to land to retrieve the other half of the tourists. This was not a good start, although we kind of felt cool on the boat at first.
Finally, the boat started moving! Another 30 minutes later, we docked with another long boat with tourists from Railay. After this, a long boat approached us and asked for fuel. So another 10 minute delay and then we were off! We were in such a good mood by this point, I'm sure I don't have to tell you.
On our way to our first stop, we passed by Chicken Island, which, you guessed it, looked kinda like a chicken. It was amazing. So amazing that we didn't even take a picture. It was soo amazing.
It was around this time two other ladies, who were having just as much fun as we were, introduced themselves to us. Their names are Shirley and Lesley. Shirley is very talkative. She was explaining that the more bored she gets the more she talks. Boy, she must have been really bored. But she was funny and sarcastic and we really needed something to keep us sane.
At 3:15pm, more than 3 hours after we were initially picked up, we jumped into the water to do some snorkeling. Surely, you're thinking, this would be fun…but no, the water was so dark and hazy we could barely see three feet down. Now, I don’t like complaining or comparing, but when we snorkeled in Cayman Islands, we could literally see the bottom of the ocean 20 feet or more below us. This was more than disappointing.
When we all got back on the boat, we were told we were going to do some more snorkeling somewhere else. Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the water looking at nothing. This time, we felt some weird pinching all over our bodies, so we got the hell outta the water. Another wonderful stop!
We then went to the only worthwhile stop on the whole trip. We can’t remember the name of the island (maybe “Poda”?). Anyway, there were two islands connected by a sandbar that we could walk across. Unfortunately, the sand was quite rocky, so we decided to just stay on the one island, but it was beautiful anyway, so it didn't really matter. Seriously, the trip would have actually been worth it if we had just gone straight there and stayed there the whole day. We had about 45 minutes there so we did some exploring. For a while we followed this interesting looking primate. He looked through much of the garbage left on the beach. It was crazy how human he looked when he handled the waste. We then followed him to the coast where little crabs were scuttling all over the place. He jammed his hand into a hole in the rock and pulled out a poor little crab. He proceeded to pull off its legs and eat the thing. I watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust.
Another nearby island was gorgeous and we took way too many pictures of it. The natural beauty of this place is incredible. When it was time to leave, the first group of tourists boarded the long boat and we were left behind to wait. We were fine with this, as there’s nothing to do on the boat!
Shirley and Lesley waved good-bye to us, calling out that they would send a search party after us. They’re awesome. The long boat that came for us ended up getting stuck, so they decided to pick us up at a different point on the island. By this time it was close to sunset so we were eager to get to the island where we would be watching the sunset and having dinner on the beach.
The long boat just took us straight to a large island, which meant we didn't go back to the big boat. Curiously, this meant that all the people on the boat, who left the last island first, actually mostly missed the sunset, while we got to see it. What a terrible tour.
The sunset was gorgeous, and it was a nice place to watch it. We took about a billion pictures. None of them capture what we saw, though.
The dinner was more than disappointing. It was more of a snack. Just a couple kebabs and plain rice. No drink. No seats. Nothing, really. It tasted decent, but was simply not a dinner.
Once the sun had gone down, there was a bit of a show that was not at all affiliated with our tour, but we watched it anyway. Two guys were basically twirling balls of fire around. It was pretty cool to see in the darkness.
When we went back to the long boat and back to the ship it was around 7pm. We were desperate to get home, but first there was a night-time scuba-dive to see some small sea creatures that glow in the dark. I believe it's called phosphorescence. We didn't do it, but we heard from Shirley that it would have been worth it. We just wanted to go home.
The boat dropped off tourists at Railay and then meandered back to Krabi Town. We were beyond exhausted and frustrated with the whole thing. What a waste of time and money! We pulled into the port after 9pm. The driver of the longboat we had taken from the larger boat decided to try to ram his way between two other long boats and one of the rotors of the boats came up and nearly killed Patty and Lesley, who were sitting at the front of the long boat. What a disaster. We heard a lot of complaining after getting off that boat!
Before we parted from Shirley and Lesley, they invited us to join them on a real picnic tomorrow. Having quite enjoyed their company on the tour (to be honest, they probably saved our lives), we agreed wholeheartedly. They said they would plan most of the day. Should be fun!
We then took a surprisingly nice SUV back into town. This was actually the best part of the tour. Completely weird. Anyway, if you've done your math properly, you will know that we were in transit for about six hours today. Awesome!
When we got back into town, we went straight to the walking night market to grab a real dinner. Thankfully, it wasn't too late and we enjoyed a Pad Thai and a thick noodle stir fry. We also saw the kids break dancing again. Finally, we were enjoying ourselves again!
Of course, we vowed never to take a tour ever again. I sincerely hope we follow through on this this time!
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