After the quaint Ko Lanta I headed north to Krabi, a beach town highly recommended by some friends back home. Thanks Offir and Sarah for the rec!

Krabi’s vibe was in between Phuket’s and Ko Lanta’s – relaxed and not too touristy, but not sleepy either. After having just spent a few days alone in a romantic bungalow, still in emotional recovery after Alec’s departure and surrounded by families with kids, I needed to spice things up and meet some people my age.

I found the perfect spot: Slumber Party Hostel, which promised a buzzing (and buzzed) social life with adventurous day trips. I was sold and immediately booked 2 nights.

Arrival

Krabi was a bumpy 2-hour ferry ride away. I arrived in the afternoon and while checking in to my 4-bed dorm was informed, repeatedly and sternly, that I wasn’t allowed to bring guests to my room. Ironic for a place with “slumber party” in the name, but at least they tried to keep things classy.

After dropping off my stuff I went for lunch at a nearby Irish place where, sadly, the fish & chips were disappointing. Tired from my travels I went back to read, and after a few hours grabbed a quick KBBQ dinner. After returning to the hostel I finally met my roommates: a guy from Germany and 2 American girls from Ohio, all super nice and friendly.

That night the hostel held a beer pong tournament. The opening activity was free (diluted, probably for the best) vodka at 8pm, and the tournament itself was a blast. Lots of interesting people from all over, the most memorable ones being:

• a girl from Moscow who spent 8 months working at a Thai hotel;
• an Australian guy who worked as a mine electrician back home;
• an American girl from Queens (who at 31 was probably the oldest person there) and her Australian friend, who said I could stay with her family if I ever visited Sydney;
• a Canadian guy who used to be a pilot but injured himself boxing and now works as a driver (or was it “diver”?).

A lot of the people I met were backpacking in Asia for an extended time, not just a week or two. Some started with a short trip which later turned into a multi-month soul-searching journey.

I had a blast socializing and making new friends, though the whole experience felt somewhat transient.

Jungle Tour

The next day I signed up for the hostel’s “Jungle Tour.” The bus ride was rowdy and everyone was in a good mood, and I made friends with some American girls sitting nearby – Julie and Lexi. The girls had just graduated college and were teaching English in Taiwan as Fulbright Scholars. I told them Taiwan was on my itinerary and we made plans to meet up. They were excited about the fact that I quit my job to travel and I told them to read The 4-Hour Work Week for inspiration.

1.5 hours later we arrived at our first stop – Emerald Pool. As expected, a quick walk through the jungle led us to a natural pool filled with warm green water.

After a quick dip we headed to our next stop: Krabi Hot Springs.

After another (this time, warm) dip we headed to Tiger Cave Temple.

When we arrived our tour guide said that the temple was a bit of a hike and told us not to bring anything (not even stuff in our pockets) as the local monkeys would steal it. Of course, most Slumber Partiers didn’t believe her and ended up regretting it. The guide sounded pretty convincing to me, though, so I heeded her advice and brought only my phone, for which I was determined to fight tooth and nail.

The walk to the shrine was indeed intense: a series of steep stairs totaling over 1200 steps, with monkeys running around nearby. Our guide wasn’t kidding; these monkeys were crazy. One monkey snatched some guy’s opened water bottle and pretended to drink it, imitating the human motion by lifting up the bottle and tilting it to pour out water. At first it was cute but the monkey’s human resemblance creeped me out.

There were other amusing scenes as well. A little later, a different monkey jumped on some guy’s back and tried to get stuff out of his backpack. In yet another instance, a monkey jumped onto a girl in our group and tried to pull out her loop earring (attached to the girl’s ear). She wouldn’t let him, so he gave up at first but then jumped back on her and tried again, this time grabbing harder. The girl finally gave up and removed the earring herself to at least save her ear. Earring girl: 0, monkey: 1.

Apparently, tourists used to feed the monkeys but are now told not to, so the monkeys angrily look for food. Being monkeys, they can’t tell what’s edible and what’s not so they just go for everything. Sounds amusing but it’s quite scary when you’re there!

The strenuous walk up was 100% worth it – we got some amazing views at the top (and no tigers!).

After the Temple + monkeys we finished off the tour with the local night market, where our guide bought some dishes for us to try. We had Thai donuts with condensed milk, egg rolls, mangosteen, spicy beef soup, purple rice with veggies, and spicy fish curry. Delicious!

We then headed back to the hostel; tonight was Bar Crawl night. My Ohio roommates left and 2 new German-Turkish guys came in. They were fascinated with the fact that I was from California, and asked me if it was “just like in the movies.” I told them the truth: 100%!

The night started off with some casual flip cup – guys vs girls – which the guys lost. Besides being bar crawl nights, Fridays were also “tattoo” nights. This hostel took the concept of “tattoo night” very literally, setting up a mini tattoo salon by the bar. The deal was, buy 3 shots of fireball and get a free tattoo. What a bargain!

I personally couldn’t think of a worse idea but surprisingly (or in retrospect, unsurprisingly), lots of Slumber Partiers found this to be a good deal and the station was buzzing all night.

At this point it was time for the “bar crawl” portion of the night. We loaded up into several tuk tuks and headed to the downtown area. In my tuk tuk was an Australian guy from the jungle tour who told me that he and his friend got matching butt tattoos. I made a mental note to check up on him the next day.

The bars seemed cool but were pretty empty except for our group. Whenever I ran into the German Turkish guys they would cheer and yell out “Mr. California!!!” After “crawling” through a couple of bars I had had enough and decided to call it a night. On my walk back I came across a conveniently located McDonald’s, which I was in no position to refuse. My delicious Big Mac, McChicken, and fries tasted exactly the same as in the US. Great success!

Island Tour

The next day it was time to check out of Slumber Party Hostel. The rowdiness tired me out so instead I booked a private Airbnb across the street (but still went to all the hostel events). I was getting the best of both worlds without sacrificing sleep!

After checking out I signed up for the hostel’s “Island Tour.”

Our group took a tuk tuk to the boat and we headed to a nearby beach. While the beach was calm and quiet, our group was anything but – as soon as we arrived the guides told everyone to shotgun beers. I didn’t feel like chugging warm beer in the noon sun so I watched in amusement. The beers were followed by a game of egg toss, which involved tossing a raw egg between two people, gradually increasing the distance. My partner was Matilde from France and we did really well (possibly due to my lack of shotgunning), though eventually the egg broke in her hand.

Our next stop was another beach, though this one was more secluded and had a cave. To get to the cave we climbed a cliff while holding on to ropes; thankfully everyone somehow made it safely.

Next up was snorkeling, which turned out infinitely better than the previous time where I almost got stranded. I saw a bunch of cool stuff: coral reefs, sea urchins, and schools of colorful fish. One girl said she got bitten by a fish (she was OK), but I was lucky to avoid this fate.

After snorkeling we passed by the self-explanatory Chicken Island. With this lovely backdrop I made some new friends: Josephine and Matilda from Sweden. They laughed at my ultra-protective sunhat and my compulsive sunscreen application, though I’m sure this was out of empathy/jealousy as their Swedish complexion was equally as pale as mine.

Our last stop was Phra Nang Cave Beach, which had 2 points of interest. The first was a fertility temple, comprised of a large cave containing many wooden penises of all sizes. We were told that whoever touched them would get pregnant soon, so I made sure to keep my distance.

The second point of interest was a secluded swimming area, accessible through some rocks. The way back was through a pitch-black cave with sharp rocks hanging from the ceiling; it was so dark that you had to hold on to the person directly in front to know where to go. Impressively, no one got hurt on this “blind leading the blind” escapade either.

We returned to our boat and sailed back to Ao Nang in the setting sun.

I headed back to my Airbnb to shower, and then grabbed some fried chicken as recommended by our tour guide from Pennsylvania. He said he “knows fried chicken” and that this was the best chicken he’s ever had. The famed establishment was actually just a guy with a food cart on the street, selling chicken at $1 a piece. I grabbed 3 pieces with sticky rice, some snacks from 7-11, deep fried dough next door, and headed home to eat. The chicken was amazing and absolutely lived up to the hype – indeed, the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Amazingly, this whole feast only cost ~$5. Gotta love Thailand!

After eating I once again headed to Slumber Party for tonight’s “free vodka and beer pong” event. I was pretty tired so hung out for an hour with the Swedish girls (who turned out to be 20), and then went to bed.

Mikhail Day

The next day was Mikhail day. I woke up and FaceTimed my family, and then grabbed some breakfast from Family Mart. Afterwards I talked with Offir and Sarah and thanked them for the fantastic recommendation, and then stayed in bed to do some reading. Offir and Sarah gave me more recs for dinner so after a few hours I headed to Krabi Night Market. It was a 30 min drive away so I tried to get a tuk tuk, but the nice driver said it would cost 500 baht (~$15) and I’d be better off taking the bus. He said I should catch the bus on the other side of the street; it was supposed to be a “white van with an open back.”

I went to the hostel to confirm, and they told me the same thing: white van with an open back. I stood on the side of the road trying to flag down a “white van” but this proved rather difficult – there were just too many that fit the description. Needing a higher authority, I walked to a nearby tourist info booth and again was told the same thing.

Still confused, I found a photo on Google, which was literally worth 1000 words. This was exactly what I needed and I was finally able to flag down the right bus. Good thing I didn’t take that tuk tuk – the bus ride cost only 60 baht (~$2)!

Soon after, two girls got in, who turned out to be going to the same night market. The girls – Yoora and Subin – were nurses from Korea. One of them lived in Seoul and the other used to live in Korea but now lived in Saudi Arabia. She said she wanted to leave Korea because of its competitive and stressful life, and that Saudi Arabia had a generous vacation policy (80 days). Apparently, life there wasn’t great otherwise, since the strict culture meant there wasn’t much to do outside of work. No partying and mostly just shopping.

We got off at the night market and explored together, buying different foods to share. I got some pork liver and a Thai banana pancake, and the girls got some grilled pork and shrimp. After walking around and tasting things we got more food to sit down; I got mango sticky rice, papaya salad, and a yogurt smoothie. I wanted to also buy fried rice but it turned out the bill I had was not Thai currency but some leftover Indonesian money from Bali…

The market had a large stage in front of all the tables, with local bands playing music. The singers were honestly not that great and the girls were laughing at how bad it was, but listening to a mediocre rendition of Don’t Look Back In Anger added to the wonderful experience of sharing a meal with new friends.

We headed back after our nice dinner, with one small hiccup – I didn’t have any more Thai cash and the currency exchange places were closed. Lucky for me, the generous Yoora saved the day by graciously offering to pay for my ride home. Thanks Yoora!

On the ride back we met a friendly young newlywed couple from Guangzhou who were spending their honeymoon in Thailand. Yoora the polyglot spoke Chinese with them; the couple also spoke a bit of English so all 5 of us were able to communicate. The couple said they were going to a nice restaurant tomorrow for dinner and asked us to join them, but unfortunately I was flying out before then. It was soon time for everyone to get off on their respective stops, and Subin and I made plans to meet up in Korea in a few weeks.

And with that, it was time to say goodbye to Krabi. I had an amazing time here and made a lot of new friends, some of whom I would end up seeing again later on in my trip. I was sad to leave this slice of paradise but was excited to continue on with the rest of my journey.

Next stop: Chiang Mai!