3 days in Krabi Town

When I went to Vietnam, I had high expectations of the beauty of these karst mountains in the sea. From far away, they were beautiful but unfortunately up close it was crowded with too many tourists and very dirty because the Chinese tourists just throw all their garbage in the water. I was disappointed. However, I knew that Krabi had a similar landscape, so I wanted to give it another try and this time, I hit the check pot Wow, Krabi province is amazing and Krabi Town is a great starting point.

Where to eat in Krabi Town

Start with a breakfast at the morning market (in the street with the lion statues). It will be a bit hard to already smell fish and look at raw meat but it’s always a cool experience to be the only or one of a few tourists in a place. I had some great rice crisps and fruit and generally, everything was about 1/3 of the prices everywhere else. I only paid 15B for my daily iced Thai milk tea.

After lunchtime, the market in the center of Krabi starts, where you can find all kinds of delicious Thai food to very good prices. Sometimes, I had no idea what I was eating but everything was very tasty and I NEVER had any stomach problems. Again, it was proven that Thailand is very clean. So, whether you need lunch or just an appetizer before dinner, this market is a good place to go to. In the evening, there are two great choices. One is the night market at the pier, where you can have a 3 course meal with a huge fruit shake for less than $5, or you go to Poo Dam Sea Food restaurant. I went there on my second night, so unfortunately, I didn’t know then what a jewel I had found or I would have just ordered several dishes. You can pick your sea food from an ice buffet and you pay by weight. Then you tell them the way you want to have it prepared. I chose a crab as a curry because they told me it is better than steamed or bbq. And oh, it was sooooooo delicious!!! I haven’t found such good sea food anymore since then.

 

What to see on foot in Krabi Town

Statues

Just have a stroll around town and look at the different sculptures that are in Krabi. They are situated along the river, from where you also have a very nice  view on some karst mountains (they offer long tail boat tours to the mangroves if you want to get closer to the nature). And there are many statues on top of traffic lights and I discovered several elephants on lamp poles.

 

The white temple

That’s probably not it’s official name but I’ll call it like that anyways. It looks very pretty from town and since I hadn’t yet seen any temples this time, it was nice to walk up and look at the ornamented inside. It’s located at the second street away from the river and you will only need about 7minutes to visit it.

 

Things to do in the Krabi Town area

Have a massage

Here and in Ao Nang you can find hour long massages for 200B.

 

Ao Nang Beach

Rent a scooter or take a public “bus” (something like a tuk tuk truck for 50B) to Ao Nang. It’s about a 15min ride and it’s just a very touristy  place with many places to eat and a beach where you can swim. Here is also another pier with boats to the different islands.

 

Explore the islands

Now, that’s the main reason why you should come. Wow, you find several small paradises around here!!! I took a boat to Railey Beach and afterwards wished that I had stayed there over night. There are such beautiful beaches, a cave and a climb to a viewpoint. You can also rent canoes or climbing gear. Read more about my trip to Railey Beach in my next post.

 

Go to the hot springs and Emerald pool

This had been my initial plan but since it’s 70km from Krabi town and I didn’t want to take an expensive tour, my only other option was to take a scooter. If I wasn’t on my own, I’d have probably done it since it’s mostly highway to drive there and the Thai people told me that it’s not dangerous but I just didn’t feel like spending most of the day on a scooter by myself and therefore decided to visit Tiger Cave Temple instead.

Tiger Cave Temple or Wat Tham Suea

This temple is located about 5km north of Krabi. I took another public “bus” for 60B (but you can go for 50B as well if the driver treats you like a Thai person). My driver was so nice to drop me off at the entrance to the temple. Many drop you off at the road 1km in front of it and you either take an overpaid moto taxi, or you walk. At the temple there also is a cave but I only wanted to see the view from the top, so I started climbing the 1300 steps. My calfs still regret that decision. It was very hard, especially in this heat (although most of the time you are in the shade of plants). The good thing is that people along the way are very encouraging, so that everybody makes it to the top. At the top, there luckily is free drinking water. And the view is worth the exercise. I could see incredibly far. Walking down was much quicker but the whole thing still took me about 2 hours. It could go faster, if you don’t have to fan yourself after every flight of stairs. Ah, and I also was a bit afraid of the monkey but here they seem to be much less aggressive than on Bali.

Unfortunately, then there was no bus at the entrance and so I walked back to the main road to take a bus to Ao Nang. On the way, I bought some very delicious fried sweet potato. In the end, I nevertheless let a moto taxi bring me to Ao Nang (he first wanted 200B and then agreed on 80B and I just was tired of walking).

 

Yes, so you definitely can spend a few days in Krabi Town before heading on to Koh Lanta or Koh Phi Phi.

 

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