Krabi First Day On the Dragon Crest
Back in July 2020, when the COVID-19 situation in Thailand seemed better, I decided to make a trip to Krabi (again) for my birthday. My last visit was great. Unfortunately, I felt like I did not have enough.
I asked my friend, Ohm, if he would be interested in coming along. I did not expect that he would agree to come after all these years apart from each other. I felt I did not give him enough support. Plus, some of my personal issues prevented me from seeing him. Fortunately, he said Yes. So I considered that my birthday gift from him, a friendship rebounding.
In short, we decided to take a tour bus because I thought the flight ticket was more expensive than usual during the COVID-19 situation recovery in Thailand. Turned out to be a mistake. The tickets were not actually that pricey and the opportunity cost we had to pay was the suffering we had to go through on the bus for 13 hours. It wasn’t that bad (at least for me because I usually don’t sleep at night) until my phone and my laptop ran out of battery.
We arrived at the Krabi bus station at around 8 a.m. and decided to take a minibus to a hotel in Ao Nang Beach. For a moment, I realised that I forgot to book a hotel. Thank the power of the internet. I googled for a hotel with the best price and Ta-Da! We got a nice and cheap hotel booked in less than 5 minutes on the way.
When we had done with the hotel concerns, Ohm and I just realised that the air, we were breathing, was so fresh that we did not feel sleepy anymore. The sky was shaded in brightly blue and the wind was gently touching my face. There, the smell of the Andaman sea ran through my body and I felt relieved like — this is my home.
20 minutes from the bus station to Ao Nang, I forgot to check the exact location of our hotel. We ended up walking around for a while looking for our hotel. In the meantime, I texted Dalton to come over and hang out with us.
The side-road restaurant. It doesn’t look fancy but it’s super nice, clean, and cheap. 
PK & Dalton, the lady of Andaman sea 
a dream team climbers
Dalton is a friend of ours. He/She is a friendly person with a charismatic personality. I’m sure that everyone would love her when she’s around.
He was gonna take us to the top of the Dragon Crest. The first question that came into my head was “Is it safe?” By that question, I hope it wouldn’t be too steep, like a moderately steep hill was okay for me.
“It is only 3 km climbing,” said Dalton.
“There is no snake up there right?” I asked again.
“You do not have to worry about that” He replied, while I was rolling my eyes.
We rolled! The mountain is 15 kilometres north-west of Ao Nang beach, slightly inland from the coast. Not so many shops around the area were open. I guessed it’s because of the COVID. Then, we stopped by a 7/11 for a few bottles of water and coffee for me since I didn’t sleep at all last night.
I don’t know how much it is going to cost you for a tour guide but, fortunately, we had Dalton. He seemed to know everything around here (Of course after all these years working in Krabi and knowing nothing, I would kill her). Therefore, we could save our money for a boat tour exploring the islands tomorrow.
On the way up, I was so cheerful with all adrenaline rushing over my body. 30 minutes later, my exhaustion shut me. For some of you, the hike may not be oppressively difficult, but for me, I hadn’t been to the gym since COVID and the lockdown in Bangkok. So I keep pushing myself. When I felt like passing out, I shouted to those two ahead of me, asked them to stop, and took a break.
It was halfway to the top and I kept asking Dalton when we were going to be there. I thought it was going to be like walking in Lumpini Park for 10- 20 kilometres. Unfortunately, my calculation was wrong. I didn’t realise that there were differences between walking and climbing.
I took photos and videos but none of them looked good. Then I realised that we usually take pictures of mountain climbers at the top of the mountain. We’re smiling, ecstatic, triumphant. We don’t take the picture along the way because who wants to see and remember the rest of it?
We push ourselves because we have to, not because we like it. The relentless climb, the pain, and the anguish of taking it to the next level. Nobody takes pictures of that. No one wants to remember. We just want to remember the view from the top. The Breathtaking moment on the edge of the world.
That is what keeps us climbing and it is totally worth the pain. No matter how crazy that part is. It’s WORTH anything.
We hung out on the top of the Dragon Crest for a while and let that moment sink into our memory (phone camera too) before we started to climb down as the sky was telling us that it was going to rain soon. It turned out just like I thought. The sky was crumbling on us. After ten minutes pouring from the sky, the rain had turned itself and our pathway down to hill into a narrow and rapid stream,
I was scared and worried about my safety but Dalton told me that was going to be alright. I rolled my eyes, as always, and kept walking down silently and hoped that we would arrive soon to the exit.
For a person, who complained a lot about the climbing and the weather conditions at the time, I must say that I love it. The view on the top did take my breath away. Again with the rush of the adrenaline, I never felt so alive like this before. We left the Dragon Crest with relief and jubilance.
Before we went back to the hotel, we stopped by the beach and took a few moments to appreciate the beauty of the sea after the storm. Then, we headed back to the hotel, took a shower, and went out for dinner. We finished our first day in Krabi with a few beers and went to bed. I must say that I slept splendidly.
The 4 Islands Tour
The next day, I woke up with curiosity and excitement to walk around Ao Nang Beach in the morning. I woke Ohm and asked him if he would like to go for a morning walk with me. I believed it must be the best feeling ever. Well, he still seemed tired and sleepy. I didn’t push him. So I left.
On my way to the beach, the pavement was so quiet. Nothing was moving except the trees blown by the wind from the sea. I closed my eyes and let that emotion sink in: all the sound of nothingness and the wind from the morning sea holding against my body. It was wonderful. I wish I could describe it better, but sometimes the best way to know it is to feel it. A moment later, I saw Ohm driving our rented scooter after me.
“Hop on”, he said.
“Okay, thought you wouldn’t come along” I mumbled.
After a 3 minute drive to the beach, we started to explore the area. I took off my flip-flop and walked on the beach with my bare feet. I turned my face toward the sun. I felt such a blessing when the first ray of light from the sun touched my face while the wave washed up the sand onto my feet. I felt relieved and connected to nature again. All anxiety, anger, and sorrow were just gone — like it’s never there. I could not explain why I felt so much joy in my chest that it burst out into tears. Yes, I cried and I was so glad that it came from happiness.
If you are still reading this, you might think that I am a crazy person but, trust me! After all that I had been through over the years. The sea is like my therapeutic sanctuary. It always brings me back to life and takes all my stress away.
I tried not to let Ohm see me crying so I stuffed my emotions back inside. Like I said earlier… I don’t want people to think that I am a crazy person.
Later, we went back to the hotel and prepared for the 4 islands private tour. We bought the tour with the hotel for 2,500 baht. However, I negotiated it down to 2,000 baht. Lucky us! Dalton also came with us. I didn’t know how she managed to stay alive after working for the hotel at night and hang out with us during the day.
The four islands tour in Krabi is a classic. The boat will take us to some of Krabi’s most iconic landmarks, Koh Gai (Chicken Island), Koh Poda, Koh Mor, and Koh Tub. I was trying to recall my memories for the day. Unfortunately, I might not be able to go through all the details. Therefore, I’m going to put this part as a photos series;
Dalton looked great in this photo while Ohm looked like a Land Lady from Kung Fu Hustle. 
Thale Waek is a renowned natural attraction of Krabi and named one of the “Unseen Thailand” resulting from the natural wonder when the tide recedes; it reveals sand dunes that connect to 3 Islands; namely, Ko Kai, Ko Thap, and Ko Mo – Information form Amazing Thailand.
Later, we went to Porda Island for chilling and lunch. Since it was a bit stormy in that after noon, so I didn’t have a chance to take any photos from the island. Well, I did take some photos and later my phone got wet and become a paperweight. Here are some photo of Koh Porda from the Internet.
When the rain stopped, our boat driver took us snorkelling but the sky was still leaking a bit. So we didn’t see much of the coral or marine life because of the tide under the water. Besides the last when I visit Krabi, most of the coral was bleaching due to the rise of water temperature. It was disappointing because the Andaman sea was well known as one of the most spectacular topographies. Despite having been damaged by the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, some remain popular tourist destinations. Some of the National Parks were closed for recovery for example Maya Bay.
Next we headed to Railay Beach. It is known a small peninsula between the city of Krabi and Ao Nang in Thailand. The only way to access the area is by a boat due to high limestone cliffs cutting off mainland access.The four main areas of Railay consist of Phra Nang, West Railay, East Railay, and Ton Sai.
The boat driver dropped us off at the East Railay. The beach was filled with the greenishness of mangroves forests, which was very beautiful and comforting to look at. The driver told us that we could through the area to Railay Beach West & Phra Nang Beach.
We didn’t get a change to hang out around the Phra Nang Beach because the wave was so strong that we didn’t think it’s safe to get into the water. Then, we went back to Ao Nang, grabbed dinner, rest.
The Old Secret Path to the Crystal Cave
On our last day in Krabi, Andrea agreed to show us one of the oldest secret pathways to the crystal cave. I just made it up actually for the secret things. Anyways, Andrea is the founder of Coralyfe. He works on coral restoration, beach clean up, and more (I didn’t talk to him much because I was busy staring at him) (>_<).
It didn’t take us long to the cave but the climbing was, for me, quite steep and overgrown. I didn’t even know how could remember which way to go because there was no signage at all. On the Dragon Crest, there was also no signage for the climber but at least you could see the pathway. Here, I hoped that there wouldn’t be any snakes jump out. Otherwise, I would have died from a heart attack. I even told Andy that “If I died up here, you could leave my body around here. I’m 100% biodegradable”
From the outside, It was just a normal cave with a bunch of rocks. However, Andy told us to turned on our flashlights and light up those rocks in the dark. We did that and, somehow, they started to glittering by the light. It was incredibly fantastic. I felt like this trip to Krabi was the best vacation I’ve ever had, adventurous challenging, and reliving.
After we finished from the cave, we headed down to the beach and did come clean up a bit. It wan’t much. Dalton and Ohm helped me out before we chilled and played around.
We tried to picked up as much as we could but unfortunately this CleanUp was unplanned. I saw the beach was cover with all the trash and no body seemed to care about it at all. Thus, I hope this would help a bit. At least, 20-25 kg. was taken cared of.
