It’s another birthday holiday! Where to this year?
Krabi! A province which lies along the coast of the Andaman sea in Southern Thailand, with its trademark karst formations curving along the coast like a giant limestone fortress.
Transport
We flew in from Singapore by Thai Air Asia. Took a bus from airport to Ao Nang town for just 150B and right to your hotel. Cheap and good. The journey took about 45 minutes to 1 hour as it travelled to Krabi Town first. We took a cab to the airport on our last day for 500B and the journey took about 30 minutes.
** Very funny, think the Thais have difficulty pronouncing the “s” and “f”, so they said the resort name as “Ao Nang Clip Bi”.. heee


Overlooking karst formation on the island, it was a very pleasant and comfortable stay at this resort. However, on the 2nd day of our stay, after we came back from our island hopping tour, I saw a dead and dry lizard stuck at one of the cabinets. Informed the staff to clean it, but I guess they failed to find it.. Seemed to be there already for quite awhile. Maybe if one day I were to go back and stayed in the same room, it will still be there…

The room is big and comfortable
View from the room’s balcony. You will have better and sea view for rooms at 3rd floor
The dead & dry…

On the 2nd day of our stay, we received an invitation for cocktail party and was pleasantly thrilled with the free flow cocktails and finger food. Nice gesture by the resort!

Cocktail Party!!

…and a birthday cake from the hotel for me 😀

Happy birthday to me!

The resort together with another resort shared a private beach which only the guests may go. There’s 4 fixed shuttle bus timing which bring you to the beach – Andaman Beach Club. The bus journey is about 8 mins. Really private, calm and peaceful.. but the sand and the sea… hmm… probably our Sentosa is better…

Andamana Beach Club

One last note on the resort, do try their cheap and popular buffet dinner at 390B nett per person. It starts at 630pm till 1030pm but go early as the food run out fast due to its popularity.

Food
Based on some of the great reviews on tripadvisor, we visited Longtail Boat Restaurant twice for its seafood. I must say it was really good although a little pricey but at least no regrets. The restaurant was located at the end of the stretch of the seafood street.

The Longtail Boat Restaurant
Come early to get a prime table to view the beautiful sunset while enjoying some cocktails.
View from the restaurant
Sipping my passion fruit margarita while enjoying the lovely sunset 
Wide variety of seafood as compared to the other restaurants and all looked very fresh.
 
Such big prawns
Many variety of fishes to choose from
Bought these as a set for 1000B for a whole fish, clams, exchanged 2 sotongs for 2 extra big prawns. Nicely grilled, and the prawn and fish meat tender and sweet.
1000B
Decided to order lobster. Not cheap, a small one cost about 600B (S$26). Finished after 2 bites :O The meat was really soft thou.
Some reviews mentioned that their Thai food sucks. However we cannot resist the tempting prawns with tang hoon dish. 350B, very delicious and tasty dish with many mushrooms but ONLY 1 tiger prawn!
Tiger prawn with tang hoon

The cocktails at 180B and smoothies at 100B.

Strawberry margaritas and dragon fruits smoothies
The Phi Phi Island Tour
There are many tours to choose from if you want to hop around the many islands along the Andaman sea. There’s the Phi Phi Island tour, 4 Island Tour, James Bond tour, etc.. Shop around to get the best price and one that best suit your needs.
I’ve never been to Phi Phi Island so decided to take the tour at 1200B. If you book with the hotel, it cost 1500B. We do encounter some agencices charging 1100B too.
The tour operator will pick you up from your hotel at around 815am and transfer you to the pier where you will be joined by many other island hoppers. Transfer to a speed boat which can hold about 30 – 40 people.
Walking to the “pier” to board the speedboat and start our tour

The 1st stop was Maya Bay, which was the filming of the Hollywood movie “The Beach”.  Supposed to be a stunningly beautiful bay sheltered by 100m high cliffs on 3 sides. The main beach is around 200m long with silky soft white sand and exceptionally clear water.. Well, speed boats, long tail boats, ferried tourists to and fro, docking at the beach, you see more boats and people than the blue sea and white sand. The sand and sea still nice but what a pity…

Approaching Maya Bay. Pristine blue water…
Oh gosh! Where’s the white sandy beach and the clear blue sea??

Than the guide lead us to the back of the bay – Lohsamah Bay where colourful fishes and corals exist, but well since not snorkelling there you don’t see much there and the little standing platform was so crowded that you feared it will collapse soon.

View of Lohsamah Bay

Next, the speedboat took us to Viking Cave where you see amazing karst limestone, than it cruised into the Pileh lagoon than it cruised on to Monkey Bay where many Monkeys hanging around there. There were 4 French on the boat very eager to jump out of the boat to play with the Monkey and insisted they got cheated when the boatman stop them and told them they can’t leave the boat… blah..

Amazing karst limestones
Lovely lagoon

Than the boat cruised to this Shark Point where you can do your snorkel.. nothing amazing just that many many small fishes swam around you, the corals are not interesting at all.. yawwnnn….

A 1 hour lunch was provided at a restaurant in Phi Phi Don island, buffet style. Meh….
The last stop was Bamboo Island where you will get 1hr+ to laze on the sandy white beach, swim in the clear blue water or snorkel around. Not bad place but really too crowded…
50 shades of blue @ Bamboo Island
Coral colour beach theme for beach holiday 😀

Not a fantastic tour, I much prefer the one I did at Nha Trang, Vietnam!

Phra Nang (Princess) Cave Beach
Took a long tail boat from Ao Nang beach to Phra Nang cave beach which is one of Railay’s 4 beaches. The boat ride cost 100B one-way and the journey took about 10 mins. The boat will only go if they get 8 people to travel on. We reached the pier at around 10am+ and less than 5 minutes we were on our way to Phra Nang.
Lomg tail boat from Ao Nang Beach to Phra Nang or Railay Beach
There’s a shrine at the cave which was located on the east side of the Railay Bay. Since ancient times, fishermen before going out to sea, made offerings to the Phallus of Shiva at the cave, said to bring them success in their fishing and protect them from danger. The cave contains a large collection of carved wooden phallic symbols… hmmm….
The shrine…

Bizarre it is… but the beach next to the cave is great, recommend to just remain there for sunbathing and dipping in the blue sea. If you walk further down the beach, it will be crowded with many boats selling food, tour boats docked by the beach area.

Try to go in the morning as after noon time, most of the tour boats will arrive with loads of tourists.
Beautiful beach when it is less crowded
View from the cave