32 km

After breakfast and some internet time at our guest house, we set out for the short ride to Ao Nang beach. This is where we planned to stay for a few days to get our Open Water Diver certification. We had a booklet from the Krabi tourism office with prices of the guest houses in the Krabi area, with several in Ao Nang that were in our budget category.

We rode through grove after grove of rubber plantations between patches of coconut trees and limestone cliffs jutting out of the landscape. We saw a sign for a wat (Buddhist temple) on the roadside and decided to take a look. We parked our bikes and walked up to the side of the cliff, where underneath the rock overhang there was a huge gold-painted Buddha lying on his side. There were other little shrines, but the Buddha was the central attraction. A monk, dressed in the yellow and orange cloth draped around him and with a shaved head, approached us with a big smile. He pointed to the top of the cliff where we could see a small roof, maybe to a shrine, poking out of the jungle. He motioned for us to follow him, and he showed us the hidden pathway and handed us a bottle of water, wanting us to head up there. So, we did. It was a short but steep climb, and all of a sudden we were above the trees with an open view of the valley we were riding through, which headed down to the beach. We leaned out and waved to the monk, who was standing down there waiting to see if we made it. We looked to the direction we were heading but couldn’t see the water yet, because we had to go around other limestone cliffs nearer the water. It was a nice preview of what we’d be seeing.

Alter in front of the Buddha.

We got to Ao Nang and were overwhelmed with the busyness. Tourists crowded the sidewalks and the two-lane road was congested with cars, pickups fitted with benches and coverings for carting around tourists, and many scooters and motorcycles. Westerners were everywhere, though not all were white. There were many with bright red sunburns that made us wince just to see them.

We took out our handy booklet with the budget guest houses marked and started looking. What we found very quickly was that the booklet was very out of date, and the prices had all tripled at the very least. These places were no longer in our price range. So we ditched the booklet and went back up the road we had come in on, away from the beach, and started asking prices up there. We definitely couldn’t afford air conditioning, and even the bleakest fan rooms were ridiculously priced. We settled on a room finally, nearly as far up the road as we could go. It had no windows except one that opened up to the hallway, which had no outside ventilation at all. The fan was good, but it blew only hot air on us. We weren’t sure this was the place we wanted to spend a few days in while doing our dive training, a four-day event.

We then walked around to talk to the various dive shops and get prices and information. The first shop we came to was near our hotel, with a nice German guy at the desk who was very helpful. He filled us in on a lot of the details and told us how the course would go. He also told us about going down to the next beach to find a more affordable place which might be nicer to stay for a few days. The shop seemed nice and professional, and we immediately liked it. We then went to several other dive shops and talked with them, and found that all the shops charge exactly the same thing and went to the same places, and since the first shop seemed the most professional and knowledgeable, we decided to go back there and sign up. But not until we looked around for another place to stay so the evenings would be tolerable.

We looked and looked, and many of the places were also ridiculously priced. We finally found a place, the Laughing Gecko, with affordable rustic bungalows. It’s run by a Thai man and his Canadian wife. They offer dinner each night, served up family style and everyone eats together. People were hanging out in the big main house, an open, wooden structure with a thatched roof. This is where the meals are served. We liked the feel of the place and said we’d be back the next day to stay for a few days. We headed back into Ao Nang and signed up for our diving course, starting in two days.

We went out to find dinner and decided on various street-food items and were happy with our choices. It was fun to be out on the street with people walking everywhere and lots to see. We walked around a bit, and eventually made our way back to the hotel to sit outside and chat with the front desk guy. All the shops and hotels here in Southeast Asia so far are completely open on the bottom story, with accordion-folding gates that they pull shut to close them at night. So there is open seating here in all the restaurants and places, except a very few (touristy) places with air conditioning. We eventually made our way up to the room to sleep, and with the fan directly on us we slept OK.