Ao Nang, Thailand

After a 12 hour trip from Penang, involving two minibuses, two questionable immigration checkpoints, twice being pulled over by local police and an outdoor tuk tuk ride in the rain, we finally arrived at Ao Nang beach.

Ao Nang is a beachside town close to the city of Krabi in southwest Thailand. It caters for all types of tourists from raging backpacker accomodation all the way through to beachside resorts. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool, close by the beach and markets.

On day one, we ventured out and did the monkey walk, which took us from Ao Nang across a headland and onto another, smaller beach. We followed the steep and rickety path up the headland and saw lots of little monkeys on the way. Once we were there, we had a walk and swim on the beach. The water was lovely albeit not as clear as I had hoped. After, we headed back and had PadThai on the beach. For dinner, we visited the Au Nang night markets. A large marketplace full of international and local cuisine at low prices attracts hundreds of tourists. After finishing our pinacoladas on the beach, we indulged in sushi, spring rolls and bbq kebabs. To end the evening, we tried thai pancakes, which were essentially fried pancakes with Nutella and banana (delish!).

The next day we did the 5 island tour. We visited a couple of islands in the morning (whose names escape me), where the water was beautiful and clear. You could follow a sandbar to cross between the different islands. In the afternoon we stopped by Railay beach, which is a beach not so far from AoNang but only accessible by boat. The whole bay is enclaved by huge limestone cliffs, which create beautiful caves and attract daring rock climbers.

On our second last day in Thailand we had to venture into the town of Krabi to get a PCR test for India. After returning from the international hospital, we joined a cooking class where we learnt to cook plenty of Thai dishes. It’s interesting to learn that many Thai dishes are not Thai but in fact influenced by Malaysia, China and India. I cooked papaya salad (sooo good), green curry, Pad Thai and mango sticky rice. Alex cooked the same but also spring rolls and Massaman curry. All our meals were very tasty but super ingredient heavy and probably difficult to reproduce at home.

On our final day, we headed back down to the beach and hired a kayak. We explored the huge cliff faces and caves. We were out for a couple of hours and paddled back around to Railay beach, stopping at a small secluded beach close by. The area is full of reef and semi-submerged rocks so we had to manoeuvre the kayak around while also avoiding the speeding longboats. On the way we spotted a group of wild monkeys (or possibly lemurs) playing in the tree.
We absolutely loved our time in Thailand and only wished we had more time to explore other areas and islands. We will be back!Read more