Thailand Part 1: Krabi Town/ Ao Nang

Scott and I began our trip to Thailand after nearly 24 hours of airplane travel, the worst leg of it spent overnight on the wooden benches of the ticket area at the Bangkok airport. We took a domestic flight and at 8 am, finally arrived at the Krabi airport. We then took a bus to Krabi town (an error we later realized) had a wonderful lunch and our first taste of a young Thai coconut smoothie (of which there would be many more) and boarded another bus to Ao Nang. We walked a bit to find our most luxurious hotel room of the Thailand stay. With help from Scott's friend Brad (a seasoned Thailand vet) we found an amazing half off deal on a fancy schmancy hotel with a porch that walked right into the pool, the Mercure Krabi Deevana, (setting us up for some disappointment at our less than stellar lodgings thereafter.)

We relaxed and swam at the hotel, then walked along the beach and had dinner with Brad at buffet. We attempted to see monkeys on the beach but it was getting dark and they were a no show, despite the girls arriving ahead of us yelling and throwing fruit into the trees. Can't imagine why...

The next morning we got in an "elephant trek" before departing for our ferry to our next stop, Koh Phi Phi. The supposed Elephant trek consisted of going in a well worn loop through a rubber tree plant, with mud holes so deep the elephants feet made loud plunger-like noises with the suction of air as they clomped in and out. The scary one eyed elephant driver who wasn't shy about the use of his hook to clock his elephant on the head was behind us as we went, smoke billowing into the faces of the Japanese tourists riding behind him. Scott and I had acted fast enough to bypass that experience and get the young, kind driver. It's at this point that I should mention the travel agent (the term meaning little more than people working at booths set up on the city streets collecting money and giving out paper reciepts) sold us the wrong elephant trek (despite us double checking the company with her). Perhaps this is incorrect, I'd like to maintain the idea that the one I had specifically chosen would have been a better experience. In any case the elephants seemed fine and taken care of. Most were just standing around batting the bugs off of themselves with palm fronds, though ours did have questionable purple marks behind it's ears and I felt pretty sorry for the baby alone in a pen, elephant babies need constant physical contact, though I'm not sure up til what age...

Scanned image of the proper elephant riding photo (as well as the yet to be developed fisheye shots) pending. Anyway, on with the shots I do have:

Day 1: Krabi        December 23, 2011

Playing around with my new underwater case:

Sunset in Ao Nang:










 This sign cracked me up:



Log Bridge

 Day 2: Krabi                December 24, 2011
Our elephant driver:








The driver with the bum eye and bad temper














My favorite shot:


The Idle Elephants... or perhaps they were working on something else? I couldn't tell.
 Will finish the trip in a couple more installments. :)