On my first full day there I met a guy called Adrian while I was having lunch a street stall, an ex banker from Switzerland. Had gone travelling last year, when he went back to his banking job his heart just wasn't in it anymore so had quite and decided to come travelling again, possible start a new life in Malasia as a dive instructor. To help see the sights more easily we decided to hire a couple of scooters and head of to Tiger temple, a must see according to our hostel! (Our hostel was pak up Hostel excellent hostel great facilities and staff :-).
So we headed of, and 2 seconds later the heavens opened up, luckily it quickly dried up, however these downpours would continue to come and go throughout our trip eventually on the dual carriageway with no way of getting shelter. And when your going along at 60kph and its hammering it down, it feels like little hail stones pelting you.. ouch! It would appear, even with both our military backgrounds (Adrian had done Swiss national service with the mountain rescue division) that directions where not our strong point... After a very scenic route and a dozen U turns we eventually ended up on the approach to the Tiger Temple.
We went into the temple and after the hour plus it had taken us to get here, underwhelming is an understatement I don't even think I could be bothered to get my camera out! It was just a dirty old cave with some cheap lighting and a another Budhist statue... We decided to keep looking on past the tiger temple and this is where the real attraction is! Stretching away into the distance leading up around the cliff side was the biggest and steepest stair case I have ever seen... 1223 steps!!
It was a long slog up to the stop, but WOW where the views worth every step! I don't know if it was the hard work put in our just the view, but it was the most spectacular view I have ever seen. The pictures really don't do it justice!!
After the temple we made our way to the next biggest town of Au Nang, and again the scenery along the way was incredible! Winding road cutting in between massive stone crags jutting up each like a set of teeth, taking on the appearance with there tops covered in green foliage of giant afros. As you come into Au Nang, a long road cutting next to the beach lined on both sides with restaurants, coffee shops, souvenir shops, tattoo merchants and all the other touristy places. We had dinner and headed back to Krabi for a few beers on the roof top bar. Here I saw one of the strangest sights, Fuel by Mettalica done acoustically and two male Indians doing the traditional Indian dance along to it... quite the sight :-D
The next morning I headed of for a jungle kayak trip. There was me and another two couples in the group plus our guide. Great day, our guide didn't want to take us through the same way we had gone so we ended up scrabbling us and our kayaks through thick mangrove forest trees and over shallow rock falls, snapping branches, ducking our heads under giant roots and dragging the kayaks over rocks. At one point as we where scrambling under a tree our rustling dislodged a spider the size of an open hand which dropped onto my thigh, stifling a girly scream I flicked it off into the water... :-/ We looked in ancient caves that had been half submerged in water 1000s of years ago and you can make out old prehistoric cave paintings.
Looks like a snakes head
After the kayak trip we made our way to a part of the river where a branch cut off and you could go swimming, there was a swing rope you could throw yourself of from into the water, great fun until we spotted our friendly lizard who gave us a bit of a scare
I made preparations to head to Koh Pipi, I was going with a Canadian I met at the bar the previous night, he was heading of to a night island party on the 1st evening but we would meet up the next evening for drinks...
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