Ao Nang, Krabi

After Khao Lak and the diving trip, we had been discussing where to go. Somehow Martin had come up with a free apartment in a place called Ao Nang, close to Krabi. I had never heard about the place before and was afraid it was going to be just like Khao Lak. But since I had a few days to burn anyway, I decided to tag along after having read about Ao Nang on the Internet.

We hired a taxi driver to drive us and just when he drove out of Khao Lak, Christian made a comment that he thought we had gotten the most sensitive and responsible driver, who drove carefully and in an orderly manner.10 minutes later the roads got narrow and twisty and at some point the taxi was speeding through the wrong lane passing everything it could on it's way. Oncoming traffic, no problem, just a pair of flashing lights and people would move. Sometimes... At some point, Christian sitting behind Martin in the car jumped up screaming, "Pas nu på for satan" to the Thai taxi driver. Sorry boss, sorry. I tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder and said, "We are not in a hurry". I am pretty sure he did not understand too much English because moments later we were again flying through the traffic.
We finally arrived and I gave him some tip for driving fast, and he told me that someone had told him to hurry. Apparently that was the only word he understood in my sentence, hahaha
The place turned out to be a 5 level apartment on a hillside, we were given 2 rooms to share.
We settled and decided to explore the area. It seemed to be a little far from everything, but after a few minutes walk we came to the beach, where there were plenty of restaurants and even a few bars where we could get a drink and get fully acclimatized for the new town.

Next morning Martin had been reading a book about Thailand and we decided to take the boat to Railey Beach, which was 10 minutes away in a taxi boat, by the way the only way to get there. There are no roads or alternative routes. The taxi boat takes 8 people, but 5 is enough. If there are only 3 people, they will wait until 2 more comes around.
The entire area here is well known for it's lime stone cliffs, that are very popular among people who know how to climb. It wasn't easy to see from a distance, but these places were quite flat and mostly vertical.
We arrived at the beach and wow, it was beautiful. Even more beautiful when we were sitting in a beach bar overlooking the bay and mountains on both sides, something my camera could not capture in one picture.
Martin had a friend who was spending his time between jobs on a nearby beach, Ton Sai beach, which was even more deserted compared to this one. To get to the beach, we had to go through a jungle path, and of course we ended up taking the wrong route and so went through the entire jungle of this place.
Up over hills, down through mud holes, through thick vegetation where no man had ever been before. We also passed a lot of "resorts" in the jungle, I bet some of these must be super cheap as there is nothing there. We finally made it to the beach and just had to pass out. It was close to 35 degrees and walking in the jungle for an hour without too much to drink, bad mistake. So we had to hydrate on a proper made Pina Colada asap, haha.
We left with the last taxi boat back to Ao Nang for dinner and the guys wanted some massage. I have never been a big fan of massage, in fact I think it it hurts and I get really sore afterward. They suggested I should take the oil massage which is not very tough, but I guess it all depends on who is giving the massage. The place we went to had just opened and the Thai lady who owned the place was here just for a few weeks before going back to LA. Strange to find someone who spoke fluently English, I had not heard that for a while now.
So I had my first massage ever, an oil massage. I must have been too tense and a little afraid of getting injured. But they were right, this type was not very hard and I must have reached relaxation at some point because I did doze off a few times. I am never going to be an addict of this, at least I don't think so.
We checked out some better food place this night, as we went out a lot earlier. After dinner it was time to check out the party scene of Ao Nang. The guide book had said it was very family tourist minded city, so I had no expectations what so ever.
Every corner was packed with the small tuc-tuc's, now I am wondering if every place in Thailand has their own version of tuc-tuc. Some of them were really pimped up, someone here has too much time
Lots of places with Scandinavian flags around and people trying to sell stuff to us started speaking some kind of Danish or Swedish to us. Travel to Thailand to eat at a Danish restaurant or go to a Danish bar? The first place with music was playing something that sounded like Danish music for oldies. Same thing over and over again, it made me a little sick, I thought I was caught in hell.
Then finally I heard some disco tunes with a big bass in the distance. A little more searching, wrong turns and over a few walls, we had found the local bar street. Local girls would stand outside their bar trying to lure us into their place. Martin was not too keen on going to any bar, as he said, I don't want to party my entire vacation. That's good, but sometimes you need to hydrate, it is Thailand and very hot, haha
We got us a few drinks and then later we ordered some buckets, Thai whiskey mixed with Coke. They for sure started the party and a few more of those and we were all in a good mood. Even the guy who did not want to party was having a good time, haha
We ended up going to the local disco with some of the people working at the bar, we probably would not have found that place otherwise. Somehow, someone ordered another few buckets and the party kept going until we got thrown out of the place as they closed. It was close to sunrise now and I guess the people we met on the way back were people on their way to work.
Next "morning" we crawled down to the beach and took the taxi boat back to the nice beach, where we deserved some relaxing time. This was actually a pretty good place to recover from our dive trip, but more importantly from our late night partying. Laying on the beach with a cold drink and an occasional trip to the water, life is almost bearable here, haha

Martin and Christian are avid beach volley players and they found a few people to play with on the beach. Turned out that one of the guys playing there was one of the two playing on the Danish National Beach Volley team, pretty good as they came in 3rd at the last world championship.
They played a little and after a few hours, the Thai people started assembling around the net. Every evening a Thai team plays a team of tourists on the beach, playing until sunset. Even though the Thai players were pretty short, they had no problems jumping almost as high as the taller guys, which suddenly made the match pretty fair. The funny thing though was that it was a mix of men and women playing, but none of us could really tell who was who, they all sounded like girls when something funny happened
Back in Ao Nang again later that night, Christian and I had agreed to try some back waxing, I guess I had a weak moment. I didn't really know what to expect, so the girls just laughed when I wiggling like a worm as they put on the hot wax on the side of my back. It didn't hurt because the wax was hot, but because it cooled down and they were still spreading it around, now grabbing onto hairs... Ouch!!! 20 minutes they said it would take, we got out after 1 hour, I left the place sweaty and felt totally beaten up.
Martin was in a massage place next to ours getting Thai massage. We got in and waited for him, and they somehow sold the idea to us that we should have massage too.
So it happened that I got my first Thai massage. Ouch. I am not really flexible and I don't like people messing around with my muscles around the spine. I was beaten up by the back waxing already and thought it could not get any worse... Oh well, I am still learning it seems. I was pulled, broken, hammered, squeezed, twisted - in some countries this would be considered torture I am sure.
I don't want to be negative or anything like that, I just don't see the entire purpose of the massage. I didn't have any pain before it started, now the entire body is hurting. Never again I say... At least not for a few days