My first visit to Thailand came in November of 2018, my bachelorette party. Ah!!! The good times. My sisters were my accomplice in that trip. We, visited the usual suspects back then, Phuket, Bangkok, Phi Phi island but not Krabi. To be honest, we didn’t feel as we missed anything. I came back happy and crossed off Thailand on my map as well. Fast forward it to one year, I am here again. This time with my husband, celebrating one year of tolerating each other
If you go through any of my other blogs, you would realize that I am a control freak. I like to plan my trips to the very core. I would search about the hotels, the road facing water bodies, the weather, the places to roam. But this time I didn’t do anything.
He chose Krabi to be the first place of our trip. And my God, what a decision it turned out to be. We (read women) like to crib. At anything. About anything. For anything. But Krabi and of course my husband, didn’t give my any reason to say anything about anything while we were there.
Inside secrets of visa on arrival visa in Thailand:
We started from Mumbai (India) to Bangkok. Pretty easy journey. For any of you who doesn’t know, Thailand offers Visa on Arrival for almost every country. We headed straight to Immigration counter. After filling out the required immigration form, we became part of a queue. That queue was excruciatingly slow. Reason: Thailand has exempted the VoA (Visa on Arrival) fee. We waited to 10-15 minutes and realized that there is another queue which had like 10 people in there. We enquired and came to know that you have to pay 200 Baht per person (Thailand currency) for the swift queue. And these guys only take CASH. We jumped out from our current queue, went to one of the money exchange counter. You would find 2-3 such counters there. It is really hard to miss those. Got the currency exchanged. Made it to the quick line. Paid 400 Bahts, And we were standing in front of the immigration officer within 15 minutes. Do note that when you pay the money, they take your passport, give you a number. You go around that room and on the other side, they give back your passport after verifying everything. Once you have the passport, you will go see an Immigration officer and Voila you are in Thailand.
Day -1
We booked Holiday Inn for our stay in Krabi. The guy from the hotel was already there with the placard.
We embarked on a luxurious journey no not at all pricey but he picked us in a big van. This van had exquisite golden embroidery and mirrors everywhere and I felt royal just like a princess traveling in her vanity.
Holiday Inn as we all believe it is so English with white light all around the corridors and contemporary design interiors. While coming I saw beautiful sunset at the Krabi beach and kept asking to stop and let me click some pictures. So as soon as we reached our room, we threw our luggage, picked up the camera and went out. Every sunset is different, and every sea (Andaman sea in this case) has its own unique horizon.
Things to do in Krabi on first day
Stroll around the Ao nang bay. The beach pathway is decorated with beautiful lights and I felt Krabi is slow on crowd and traffic front, so it was a relaxed walk. The street has a lot of beach side restaurants and pubs. All the restaurants still play 90’s music, a refreshing change, and they set the rhythm right on top.
Ao Nang street food is famous for Thai food including the best of best Thai Banana and chocolate Pan cake. I highly recommend you try this. Husband tried shawarma wrap from the adjacent stall. If you were roaming all day in scorching sun try Mango or kiwi or strawberry smoothie at any of these local stalls.
For next day, we had booked 4 islands tour. It included Phra nang caves, Tup island, Ko Poda island and Chicken head islands.
