Krabi

The river in Krabi Town

After five days in Koh Lanta, we decided it was time to move on. The morning we left, Colin loaded the bikes while I walked into town to pick up breakfast. On my return stroll, as I looked down at the ground to avoid stepping off the pavement/into a hole/on something gross, a snake slithered across my path and into the grass on the side of the road. I paused to say hello (yes, I know it's odd to give pleasantries to animals, but I do) and admire its beautiful coloration – it had a red head and bluish body and was maybe 24 inches long, before continuing on my way. 

 We ate our breakfast (yogurt and cereal from the 7Eleven again) and then walked over to the Hutyee Bungalows to say goodbye to Mr Hutyee and give Turbo Dave one last cuddle before we geared up and rode away. We took the two ferries back to the mainland and rode north toward Krabi Town. 

Sculpture on the riverfront in Krabi

The scenery in this part of the country is absolutely gorgeous, with limestone karsts covered in lush greenery rising out of the ground in every direction. It was a short trip to Krabi, and we arrived sometime around noon. Since our guidebook doesn't say much about the town, besides the fact that it's a jumping off point for some of the islands off the coast, we decided to ride through and have a look around. If it seemed nice, we'd stay, if not, we'd continue on to Phuket. After riding on the main street, we decided to stay. We found a room for the night and went for a walk along the riverfront, stopping to eat lunch from the local market on the way. After enjoying our sticky rice, and fried chicken on the riverfront promenade, we decided to do the mangrove walk we'd seen signs for on the way into town. 

a tiny very blue crab in the mangroves

A glance at the sky showed that it was getting awfully dark in the direction we were headed. And I neglected to put our rain jackets in my daypack before we left the room. Never liking to backtrack, and feeling optimistic about the weather, we forged onward to the mangroves. The raised walkway wound through the mangrove trees, past muddy flats with tiny crabs in multiple and unbelievable colors (see pictures). We'd spent maybe 20 to 30 minutes on the walk when we heard rumbles of thunder, saw lightning flashed, and noticed that the sky through the trees had gotten even darker. At that, we decided we'd seen enough and turned around to hopefully miss the big rain that now seemed imminent. As we exited the trees and walked hurriedly to the road, the rain began to fall. About ten minutes into our trot back to the room, the sky opened and dumped buckets. We kept walking, staying under the business awnings when we could, until we could go no further without making a mad dash through the streets. After waiting for about a half an hour for the rain to taper off, we gave up and made a run for it, arriving at our hotel completely soaked. 

a red-headed krait

Since it was still raining, we spent some time on the internet, catching up on the news of the last week. And looking up the pretty snake I saw on Koh Lanta that morning. I think it may very well have been a red-headed krait. Their range includes southern Thailand, they're beautiful, shy, and extremely poisonous. Hmmm. Glad I didn't try to pick it up! When dinnertime rolled around, the rain had basically stopped, so we walked down to the now even bigger market. The array of choices was close to overwhelming, but we selected several noodle dishes, some grilled squid on skewers, a salad, and some fried sausages in wrappers. Yum.