How We Learned to Love Thailand in Krabi

While our initial reaction to Thailand was “whoa- this is different…” and complete culture shock, we got over it pretty quick and learned to embrace it! It is warm here, in the 90’s everyday, but there is a breeze and the temperature dips down into the 70’s at night. Plus, it’s not super humid. Definitely not even close to Kansas City humid which is my gold standard of awful humidity. Overall, it gets warm, but not completely unpleasant. However, we are quite glad to have our little scooter and not have to walk everywhere. It took a few days but Nick says that he is used to driving on the left now and he would be in trouble if he suddenly went back to driving on the right.

Of course, its not just driving on the left that has almost killed us, it is the driving in general. Cars and scooters here swerve in and out of one another, scooters especially seem to have little regard for the rules of the road and are often seen driving the wrong way down the street, on sidewalks and blowing through stoplights. Mopeds are definitely the most popular mode of transportation and it seems that everyone from young kids to old ladies scoot about town. We have seen entire families (up to 4 people) on one scooter, we have seen people sitting sideways behind the driver holding onto large bundles and not much else. We have seen people holding their babies in their arms as they scoot down the streets. It is more than a little terrifying. Fortunately, we only live 2.8 kilometers from town and are able to do a big loop to get to and from our hotel to Krabi Town. We decided not to risk driving our scooter the 25 kilometers down to Ao Nang beach and opted to take the bus instead. The buses here are another adventure in living dangerously. Buses are essentially converted pickup trucks with benches running the length of the bed. They seat about 10 people comfortably and always wait until they fill up to depart. Fill up does not mean 10 people, it means as many people as can fit in the bed, the cab and hang onto the railing outside. On our way home from the beach our bus didn’t leave Ao Nang until there were 17 people in/on the bus- 17!

We have spent our days exploring Krabi Town, a small Thai town about 25 kilometers from the beach. It is home to a small but very beautiful Buddhist temple which we spent an afternoon wandering around enjoying the breezes on the hill where the temple is located and watching the monks do their thing. Which included a lot of goofing off, a surprise to me.

We spent a lot of time just wandering the town and exploring. We spent most of our days close to home, exploring the streets, trying the amazing street food and marveling at the street lights (which TripAdvisor ranks as a top ten attraction in Krabi Town, so that tells you how small it is).

We found an awesome little market which is full of foods that neither of us have ever seen before. We have tried a few completely new things, most of them we still have no idea what they are, we just know that they were a little spicy and delicious. Every meal we have had here has been incredible and nice and cheap. For example, the Pad Thai cost us just over a dollar apiece at the local street market. We went ahead and just dived in with the food here figuring we are going to be in Thailand for a long time we decided to just go ahead and get our systems used to the new bacteria. Fortunately, neither of us have gotten sick yet, but even if we do it will be completely worth it. After the sun sets and it starts to cool off the Krabi Walking Street starts, a large outdoor street fair with lots of food, fashion and even little kids break dancing (which hardly seems fair, their bodies can twist in any direction and they have no fear, of course they are good at it) and karaoke! We enjoyed walking through there, people watching and enjoying the cool evenings. It was a great starting point for Thailand and helped ease the transition into life in southeast Asia.

To talk a bit more on the driving in Krabi, here is Nick:
I would like to describe it as semi-organized chaos where everyone swerves around everyone else. Mopeds seem to drive everywhere- between lanes, on the sidewalks and sometimes even the wrong way down one way streets if they don’t feel like turning around. Despite all this, it actually seems to work. If someone pulls out into the street, oncoming traffic will just swerve around them, instead of riding their tail, blaring their horn and flashing their lights at them. This allows traffic to move swiftly as people tend to watch out for each other. Horns are used more as a “hey, I am here” alert instead of a means to vent frustrations.