Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Journey from Trang to Krabi

Woke up early to visit the wet market for breakfast because it is one of my favourite place to visit when I travel. The morning was gloomy and we were so unfortunate that it rained. It has been raining two days in a row now. Stuff sold in the market is pretty common and the space is pretty small. If you have katsaridaphobia (fear of cockroach) this will be best to avoid. They are everywhere! Crawling on your feet as you eat. I did abs crunch the entire time I was eating my breakfast by lifting up both my legs while sitting on the bench.

Trang wet and food market
Side dishes to go with our porridge
The only interesting part about the market is when you get to see locals go about their daily life like below.

Butcher removing the hair from pig with flames and scrapping it off
Pig's eye. No idea what are they gonna do with it.
Crispy pork for sale. I read a lot of recommendation on this. It looked very interesting, crispy and delicious.
Bought 200g to try out.Turn to be sweet and not as crispy as siew yoke (malaysian crispy pork). Good to try but not a fan.
While walking back to our hotel we received a heartbreaking news. The tour we were suppose to go for today have to be cancelled. The waves does not permit and in fact people who went to the island yesterday have to be stranded on the island.

Since there is nothing to do in Trang we decided to make out way to Krabi. With high hopes that the weather will turn for the better and we will get to do island hopping in Krabi (boyyy we thought wrong).

We departed from the hotel with the rain following us the entire journey! Our first stop was to have dim sum at Ruan Thai Dim Sum highly recommended by everyone. Having had Malaysian dim sum, I would give this 4/10. Malaysian dim sum is so much better in so many levels. Not sure if they had noodles or rice on their menu but the dim sum is passable.

Types of dim sum to choose from. My favourite would be the duck tongue.
Next we head to Hot Spring Waterfall (Nam Tok Rawn). I have never been a fan of hot water spring, especially the natural one, just because I think the water is super unhygienic. If you are a big fan or if you have nothing to do, this is a must go. If not, this is passable as well. We spent a good 30 minutes soaking our feet while it drizzle before heading to Emerald Pool.


Natural hot spring waterfall. Crowded even on rainy days.
Swimming pool version of hot spring much warmer than the waterfall
Before heading to Emerald Pool (Sa Morakot) we head for lunch. As usual with tour, we were brought to a restaurant where our driver will receive some sort of commission and expectedly the food was terrible! Couldn't recall the restaurant name but it was at the biggest and at the entrance of Emerald Pool. We got our ticket from the restaurant which cost THB200 per person, it would have cost us the same amount if we were to buy it at the entrance.

To reach the pool, you can either took a leisure walk on a bridge or on pebble roads
We took the bridge to the pool and the pebbles road returning. Someone sulking over the rain.
View along the way
We spent a good hour or so dipping in the pool hiding from the cold wind. If I ever return to Krabi I will definitely visit this place again. We missed the Blue Pool located further in because tree branches were falling due to the strong wind. Be reminded that you would need to walk a good 800m from entrance to the pool.

When you can't decide if you want to swim or to be sheltered from the rain. You do both.

Emerald
The pool could be very crowded during peak season, thankfully it was raining cats and dogs. In a way, blessing in disguise.

Next destination was suppose to be Tiger Cave Temple unfortunately the road to the temple in inaccessible due to flood.

All cars were slow moving trying to avoid the water causing massive jam in Krabi
Thank goodness for good samaritan who helped with the traffic
After hours on the road we finally reached Aonang. We actually booked 3 nights stay at 3 Bees Guesthouse for THB1,600 per night per room and we cut it short just for a night because the service was horrendous and the guest house is located pretty far from the beach. The receptionist was rude, not welcoming and not accommodating at all. I have been staying in plenty of guesthouse and this by far is the worse!

Pushing that aside, we had Mc Donald pork burger for dinner. The fast food in Krabi is really expensive! But the pork burger is amazing! When they say it is with spicy sauce they meant business. It was flaming hot!

Excellent awesome pork burger! I remember paying approx. RM30 for this though.
The ice cream is good too.
We walked around Aonang by foot while enjoying our to go cocktail drink.

Sipping our THB100 cocktail
 Look who greeted us along the way!

Sweetheart. He does look very much like Bui :'(
Street of Aonang
Night life at the bar
The beach
Day 2
Hotel: 3 Bees Guest House Price: THB1,600/room/night for 4 pax
Emerald Pool: THB200/person
Hot spring: THB90/person

 Nicole_

Trang, where people are all smiles

Never have I thought that I will visit Trang one day. In fact Trang came into the picture when I was doing research about Ko Rok Nai, the beautiful paradise located 1.5 to 2 hours ride from Pak Meng Pier.
Bus stop outside of Krabi Airport
There are few ways to get to Trang but since I am flying to Krabi and we are watching our budget, we hailed bus right outside of the Airport gate. You have an option to either go by bus or taxi. Taxi will cost THB1,200 for a four seater. While for bus you have the option to take it from Krabi town or hailing the bus at the bus stop outside of Krabi airport. It cost us about THB100 for a 2 hours ride. Pretty good road.

The real challenge is to hail the bus itself. Some buses will end their service in Trang while others will continue to Phuket, etc. We had waited for about 20 minutes before the first bus with the word "Trang" pass by. Unfortunately, the bus did not slow down to pick us up. Making things worse for us, it was raining cats and dogs that day. To our surprise the past weather prediction or season can no longer be relied upon.We were forced to wait for the next bus without any clue on which bus to stop and end up stopping every bus passing by. 45 minutes later we finally managed to hop on to the correct bus and making our way to Trang bus terminal.

Trang bus terminal
What is suppose to be super peak and hot season end up wet and worse of all. The worse flood for Southern Thailand in 30 years! (Nope.. I'm not making this up). More on that on the next post.

Tuk tuk ride to hotel
We have booked My Friend Hotel (1 star hotel) beforehand through Booking.com. and getting to the hotel cost us each THB50 by tuk tuk. One point worth noting is, if you come in big groups (and want to stay in one room) and is dragging few/heavy luggage, you might want to give this a pass because they do not have elevator. You would need to climb what I consider steep stairs.

My Friend Hotel
Since we had an early day, my tummy was growling to be fed. Decided to settle down at Kopii to have our very first Thai meal. The coffee shop is decent, so is the price. Very conveniently located next to Trang train station. Each of us ordered a cup of coffee, and boy it was yummy! The cup of coffee has the perfect balance of smokiness, nuttiness and bitterness.

Trang hot coffee. Good!
Honestly other than being a gateway to some of the most beautiful islands in Southern Thailand, there are literally nothing to do or visit in Trang. Mainland attraction are so close to Krabi that it made more sense to visit it on your way to Krabi or from Krabi. We spent our day in Trang walking around town to the clock tower while exploring their convenient and local stores, made arrangements for island hopping the next day and visiting their night market.

Trang clock tower
We had dinner at Kao Tom Pui, one of the top recommendation in Trang. All of us were satisfied and happy with the dinner. It was more than enough for four girls.
Open 5PM onwards
Dinner
Food we had in Trang is one of the top we had during our visit to Krabi-Trang this round.



Deep fried small prawn batter with curry leaves

Next we depart to the night market located opposite the train station. There were nothing much, since I have been to many better ones. Food were normal, no gory spare parts of animal nor crawly creature worth mentioning. Your typical everyday kind of food. However, their fruits, pomelo in particular is worth mentioning. Sweet, juicy and cheap!

Sweet juicy fruits at the night market
We booked our island hopping with Trang Happy Trip & Tour (a recommendation from My Friend Hotel) together with private land transfer to Krabi while stopping along the tourist attraction for THB1,800 per pax. They are one of the friendliest tour operator I have ever met.

Will I go back to Trang? I will, just to explore the neighbouring islands.

Day 1
Hotel: My Friend Hotel Price: RM119 for 4 pax
Food: Kopii (lunch), Kao Tom Pui (dinner), Night market
Tour package: Trang Happy Trip & Tour

Nicole_

Monday, 6 February 2017

New year new blog

I cannot believe it is 2017 already! Well the skeleton of this blog existed long before 2017 come into the picture. The two so called "inspired" writer were too busy running the rat race that they forget to write down their journey.

With better goals in mind, comes the first post. hahaha~

This will be just like any other blog out there. A food blogger wannabe, a travel blogger wannabe and a lifestyle blogger wannabe.

A proper write up is coming very soon.

Nicole_