Ao Nang

New country alert: Thailand! We swapped the cultural calm of Penang for the chaotic crass of Ao Nang, with about 11 hours on various buses to cross from Malaysia to Thailand. On the Malaysian side, what should have been a 4-hour journey was cut to 2.5 by the driver’s refusal to stop at red lights or proceed below 140km/hr.

Fortunately immigration was extremely chill. We had been moderately worried (and did not tell our parents) as there was an insurgency bombing at a nearby border town the day before, but the revolutionaries of Songkhla gave us a clear run through. Dan did find a large, sharp knife hidden in the overhead storage on the bus, which we carefully ignored.

Someone told us Krabi was better than Phuket, more chill, less touristy, but no one has told the Ao Nang clubs that. (Unless Phuket is actually worse?! Heaven forfend). We picked a cheaper, 'party hostel', who were very insistent that they are only for under 35s who are keen for debauchery. We figured, how bad can it be? In summary: you access the hostel through 4 bars and a drag club. Bass thrums through the bunk bed until 3am, every single night. The shared bathrooms double as nightclub bathrooms during the evening, so if you're not partying then you have to queue for a midnight piss between drunk teenagers. Overall, it's a slight departure from our backpacking experience so far!

We launched ourselves into the spirit of things and joined a pub crawl as soon as we arrived in Ao Nang, on which we were the oldest people by 5 years. Dan lost his wallet, Chelsea lost Dan for a bit, and we ended the night crawling into bed around 4am, very much part of the problem. (Fortunately the wallet didn't contain much of value, so this isn't a crisis — don't worry, parents!)

We spent a lovely recovery afternoon visiting our jungle trekking friends Jess and Nathan at their resort pool on Railay Beach, and in the evening Chelsea got reacquainted with her beloved Pad Kee Mao: spicy drunken noodles. Our final day in Ao Nang we bought hash brownies (weed is lethal in Thailand) and had an *extremely* slow day on the beach, before sneaking into Jess & Nate’s resort again to make use of the loos and pool. Also enjoyed the freshest curry of our lives at Railay, and various treats at the famous Ao Nang night market 🤤

We also both had our bones rearranged via traditional Thai massage, and did a little shopping as well. Now, having proven to ourselves that we can still (just about) keep up with the kids and make silly decisions under the influence, we're going somewhere a bit less hectic. This morning we hopped on a speed boat to our next destination: a tiny, quiet, party-free island, inshallah.Читать далее