Krabi - Life is THE Beach

Oddly enough, I had to change the time when I arrived in Thailand. We are in the time zone UTC +7 hours. It does make a difference regarding my running. I am still going running every second day as early as possible which basically means when the sun rise. In Malaysia it was between 7 and 7:15 in the morning. In Krabi, I went for my morning run before 6:30.

The mini marathon next week will start at 5:45 in the morning... better getting use to it!!!

So I did run a little on the bank of the river... Quite a few runners out there. Interval trainings it was, trying to get some speed. It is a training that makes me very inconfortable. I am out of breath most of the time, at a pace I can't handle... but it helps apparently. My brother suggested that I do intervals of 30 seconds for 10 minutes which means 30 sec very quick and 30 sec recovery for 10 minutes... then slow pace for 10 minutes just to have your heart rate going down... and do it again.

Impossible for me today. I went to bed very late the day before as I was speaking with a couple of English and an Australia at my hotel (the first persons I have met that did not enjoy their stay in Thailand at all). I completed only half of the training set by Simon... 5 minutes intervals of 30 seconds twice with a 5 minutes recovery run in between. I did not feel the sleep was missing, I should maybe just do this more often and increase slowly the reps. We will see in the coming weeks how I can squeeze this kind of specific trainings in the travelling plans.

I had booked a last minute tour to visit some islands located in the "bay" of Krabi (which, as I learnt, is called the Andaman sea... Thank you google...). Many many many (and many more) tour options... James Bond Islands, Monkey Island, Phi Phi Islands, etc etc etc.

I went full on Leo style and choose the Phi Phi Islands tour package. Phi Phi Islands are a group of 2 main islands known for the movie the Beach starring Leonardo Dicaprio... and Virginie Ledoyen. I really though she was forgotten by international audience by now, but seeing 95% of the girl getting recorded out of the water like this I understood how wrong I was.

The tour was taking out the group to places absolutely incredible. Again, it is hard to put words on the landscapes, the color of the water, the islands, the feeling of that perfect sand on your feet... You have to see it for yourself and make yourself an opinion about these places. I am not going to lie, it was amazing and as you probably guess, incredibly busy everywhere we went. 

Here is a small summary of the day and the visits.

Departure by boat from Ao Nang, a nice little beach resort 20 km away from Krabi town.

40 minutes wandering on Bamboo Island - an island without bamboo... but a LOT of corals.

We went for short picture stop where we stayed on the boat to see the Viking Cave. This is a place known for its bird nest. Apparently a bird nest found there can be sold up to 100.000 Bahts according to our guide (2600 euros approximately)... A delicatessen in Asia were we told.

We had a swim in Pileh lagoon together with doyens of other groups from alternative tour companies.

We spent 45min on Ko Phi Phi Lee. We were dropped off Maya Bay - the Beach of "The Beach".

We spent 5 minutes off shore of Monkeys Beach snapping a few pictures... and feeding the monkeys.

We then headed to Ko Phi Phi Don for lunch. A buffet for hungry tourists with local food.

Our final stop was for snorkeling close to Nui Beach, a little creek breathtaking.

We return to Ao Nang, all absolutely exhausted. I slept most of the 30 minutes return to my hotel... and therefore was ready for yet another my egg wrapped pad thai :D

Coming back from this and since I have been wondering how such a landscape was formed I did a little research. I learnt that these seascape elements are called karst and are (surprise, surprise!!) NOT the results of millions of years of erosion but of a chemical process acting over thousands and thousands of year. More info here and here.

There are worst ways to spend a day really.

Post Scriptum: It is hard to pick a few pictures from all these places. There are 2 that I really like: one from "the back of The Beach" on Ko Phi Phi Lee (everybody stays on the Beach while 2 minutes of walking takes you to a no man's land with that view) and one from the snorkeling. What do you think?

Island in the back of Maya Bay.

Fishes photo-bombing my selfie.