Finally, I got time to write about my recent travel to one of the place of attraction in Thailand which is Krabi. So, where is Krabi? Most of my friends don't know where heck is this place. Krabi is located at southern Thailand where the population of Muslim here is quite high which is approximately 50%. So alhamdulillah, to find halal food is not a challenge here..
Saturday
We landed at Krabi International Airport at 1.35 pm and we took a van directly to Aonang where we will be staying for the next 3 days. Aonang is a beach very similarly to Port Dickson in Malaysia. Many travel activities concentrates at Aonang so there are a lot of hotels, motels and guesthouses here. We checked in KL House Aonang which is located about 10 minutes walks to the beach. Our first activity for today was strolling around Aonang. There's a lot of shops and restaurants along the way. Some food vendor can be found here selling halal street food such as burgers, pancakes, fruit shakes and fried chicken.
We had our late lunch (or dinner) at an Indian food Restaurant there, namely Royal Tandoor Indian Restaurant. They sells Indian, Arab and Thai food and not forgetting that the price was quite ridiculous. Too Overprice.
At night, we took a van tuk tuk (a local public transport) to Krabi town and the journey took about 20 minutes. As today was weekend, there was a night market at the town and we didn't miss a chance to went there. Basically, the night market is just like a normal pasar malam in Malaysia. They sell food, clothes and toys. My local cuisines could be found in this market but since most of them aren't halal, we couldn't try them. But we did bought some spicy chicken from a Muslim auntie stall. I did shop nothing here. However, my mom found a Malaysian shop located beside the night market selling cloths, scarfs, telekung and other Muslim stuffs. My mom bought several cloths here.
Gambar tiada tujuan...
Sunday
After a quick breakfast which was just a few slices of bread and hot coffee bought from 7Eleven next door, we were now ready for our main activity here. Water activity! We had booked island hopping program from a local agent yesterday which cost about 1000 baht (~RM100) per person. You can find many travel agents around Aonang and they offered quite a different prices. So it will be wise to survey which agents has the best price so that you can spend your money on anything else. Today's program is called Phi Phi Island Tour. First, the agent fetched us at our hotel, then picked some other customers as well. Then we gathered in front of the beach and wrote our names on the customer list. From the list, I could see that the participants include several Thai, Japanese, Swedish, Finnish and English.
We took a speedboat first to the Bamboo Island. But before that, we were shown an island called Chicken Island because the shape looks like a chicken especially the head. At bamboo island, we took a swim around the beach. The beach is superb beautiful with clear water, white sand and sunshine which suits perfectly for sunbathe (sunbathe? seriously?). Ok sunbathe itu tipu, kulit dah gelap, nak gelap camne lagi kan? Here, we just swim here and there before we moved to the next island.
Snorkeling was our next activity. But before that, we got the chance to see the old Viking cave and a beautiful lagoon. On the boat, we were provided with a life jacket and a snorkel mask. We stopped at Maya Bay to snorkel for about 30 minutes before we rested at the beach. All of us went snorkel except my mom and a couple of foreigners. After snorkeled a bit, watched a few colourful fishes,the people on boat threw some bread to feed the fishes and posed for camera we hit the beach to rest up a bit. In my opinion, the snorkeling place wasn't very great because the corals I saw mostly dull and not cheerful. They looked dead to me. It's very scary watching the enormous coral because they looked like batu belah batu bertangkup. NGAAPP!!
We had our lunch at Phi Phi Island where a small accident occurred to me. When I was disembarked from the boat, I accidentally step on something sharp underneath the water. Like what the..... My right foot was bleeding heavily and my dad asked a plaster from the boat. But still, the plaster didn't manage to stop the bleeding. The blood was overflowing. So I put some tissues under it and went to lunch first. By the way, the lunch was provided by the package, so no need to pay extra for lunch. In addition, the food is halal as well. After lunch we looked out for some pharmacy on the island and found one. Bought antiseptics, bandages, plasters and iodine. Then we shopped for some Phi Phi Island t-shirts before we board the boat again.
Our last activity for today was snorkeling again, but at different spot. Sadly, I couldn't join my brothers and father because it can bleed my feet some more. =(
We reached Aonang at 4 o'clock and we went back to the hotel to refresh ourselves. After a while, we went out for dinner. Today we tried the food from the Muslim vendor. We tried the tom yam, green Thai curry and patprik rice. OMG, they were all so spicy until my mom couldn't finished her portion and sumbat it into me. No wonder I became fat so easy, everything unfinished went into my belly. My father tried the kuetiau soup from other stall. Our drinks?
Shakes of course! I tried chocolate, my brothers were having mango and coconut. It's slurpious~
Monday
We bought pancakes from the street vendor. All of the pancakes sold here were delicious. They were not ordinary pancakes, instead they were more like roti canai with fillings. So far, we had tried chocolate, chocolate banana, egg, tuna, egg tuna, and chicken. The fillings can be mix and match according to our desire.
We headed to Krabi town again, this time to shop at the local shopping complex which is Vogue. Vogue is much like The Store selling things exactly like departmental stores. I didn't buy anything buat my mom bought several cloths again from a Muslim shop outside the mall.
For lunch, we went back to Aonang and ate at Chaba Thai Restaurant. We tried many kinds of fried rice here. At first, mine was mackerel fried rice, but my mom couldn't stand the heat from the Thai fried rice and so we switched. My dad tried pad thai, a local cuisine here. It is a thai fried noodles serves with crushed groundnuts. The food was good and the price is quite affordable. The coconut drink was certainly refreshing.
At evening, we rest in the hotel, watching TV where most of the channel was dubbed into local language. Like wth?? I wanna watch English movies but the actors were speaking Thai with no subtitle.. Grrrrr....
At night, we went to Orchid Restaurant to have our dinner. Orchid Restaurant is located in front of Orchid Hotel and it serves halal food. We tried the local dishes with steamed rice. The dishes include sweet and sour chicken, shrimp omelet and garlic black pepper fried fish.
Before we retired to bed, we did some last minute shopping at the nearby shops.
Tuesday
We left the hotel with a sad face. The receptionists here were all nice and friendly. They always started conversation with us, asking what will we do today and gave suggestion about the local interesting places. After bye-bye with the hotel we took a van to the airport.
But before we reached the airport, we dropped by a couple of places for last last last minute shopping. First, we went to a souvenir shops. This shop sells t-shirts, souvenirs like key chains and prepacked foodstuffs. My mom bought some dried pancakes which tastes like wheat crackers. Then we went to the factory outlet. I bought several toys and a Giordano round neck t-shirt. My mom bought a Scholl shoes and several clothes for Arissa. My brothers bought Adidas sling bag and socks.
Finally, we arrived at the airport. The flight wasn't as full as our first flight here. Many empty seats could be observed. Back in LCCT, we had our dinner here first so that we wouldn't be so rush later. We dropped by my auntie's house at Banting and had some chit chat. After that, we dropped by Arissa's house to play with her for a while before we headed home.