I woke up to pouring rain, packed up and headed to the airport for my morning flight to Krabi. The rain clouds made for some nice scenery up in the air, and a bit of turbulence, but we landed safely. I couldn’t figure out where the heck the taxi stand was, and eventually gave up and jumped on a discount group bus to Aonang. I couldn’t check into my hotel until after 3pm anyway, so I wasn’t in a rush and it was nice to look at the scenery and see where other people were getting off at and going to. Eventually I did make it to my hotel, which is a pretty basic 3-star place with no frills, but it was cheap at $20ish a night with a king bed, balcony, and less than 5 minute walk to the beach. I quickly changed into my bathing suit, lathered up in sunscreen and bug spray, and hoofed it to the beach before the storms could roll in. I was able to shell hunt for about half an hour or so before the storm hit, and took shelter under the roof of a nearby massage place (seriously in Thailand if you close your eyes, spin around, and throw a stick you’re either going to hit a temple or a massage place). Once the rain eased up I went back out onto the beach and made my way to the monkey trail, but soon realized I wasn’t equipped to deal with mischievous monkeys at that moment and I was just looking to get the stuff in my hands stolen, as is known to happen on that trail. So I turned back around and will do that another day. I slowly walked back down the beach, looking for shells and watching the sun set over the horizon. The entire sky was a reddish orange for a long time, and with the storms passing through a beautiful rainbow popped up behind the cliffs. The sky shifted from orange to peach after the sun went behind the clouds, and then quickly turned blue afterwards. There are shells everywhere here, and the water is lukewarm like pool water.
After the beach I changed out of my bathing suit into regular clothes and walked down the street to a Thai restaurant where I noticed a lot of locals were eating. I decided to be a bit more adventurous with my food choices, so I ordered a local fish (no idea what it was) cooked in lemon and lime sauce stuff. What I didn’t expect was to get the ENTIRE fish, although I’m not sure why…this is Thailand after all. The waitress was really concerned, because I had asked for not spicy and the chef practically drowned the fish in spices and chili oil, but it really wasn’t that bad. I guess I’ve gotten used to chili oil since I put it in my ramen and udon all the time, but she was worried about me not liking it and kept checking in. I ate all but the head…sorry, I’m not that adventurous. Then of course I gave chin scritches to the resident restaurant cat and headed back to the hotel. I think I’m already falling in love with this place. I could totally retire here.
