Pink bus entertainment
The pink bus took 5 hours to go from the Satun bus station to Krabi town. The guys running the bus made the passengers feel comfortable throughout the journey. They played Thai pop music videos through a nice screen and sound system with amplifier built into the inside of the bus. They also played one of the Fast and Furious movies for us in Thai. I enjoyed listening to music and looking out my window to see the road and occasional Thai town along the way.
I found the logistical planning with the bus systems in Thailand quite interesting. Tickets were issued by writing things down on a piece of paper, I don’t recall seeing any computers at the bus stations, although there might’ve been some. Along the way to Phuket (I only rode halfway to Krabi), the bus stopped to drop some people off, pick others up, etc. It seemed that the guys running the bus coordinated all the switching of seats, without any flaws (as far as I could tell). The cost of this 5-hour bus ride was less than $8 USD.
Karaoke in Krabi
Luckily I arrived on a Sunday evening, which meant there was a huge weekend night market happening in town – one of the biggest I saw during my entire trip. I found some vegetarian food, and a really tasty smoothie made with banana, mango and passion fruit.
I made some local friends at the night market. We sat down and watched some of the performances of that night, including a man playing with fire in a wheelchair, and a little kid on the stage singing Bruno Mars in his broken english.
Afterward, these Thai friends invited me to go to a bar owned by a Brazillian and his Thai wife. After sharing a cold Chang beer, he turned on the mic and we sang Karaoke until midnight. Mostly songs in English but also some in Thai and maybe one in Indonesian. Luckily, these friends spoke English quite well, so it was easy to talk to them and learn what it’s like to live in Thailand.
This was one of my main goals throughout my SE Asia trip, to talk to locals and learn what life is like for them. Before coming to this city in Thailand, I had the perception that larger cities might be too touristy for locals to be willing to talk to me. The locals might just want to sell you things or do business. Or maybe they wouldn’t know the language. Sure I had a little bit of luck in finding very friendly Thai people that spoke conversational English, but I also now realized my perceptions were wrong. It’s possible to talk to people about their lives anywhere you go. Even if you have to pull out google translate and have awkward conversations, it’s still exciting and fascinating to learn about others’ lives. Friendly people are eveywhere, especially in Thailand.
Who’s Kayak is this?
The next day in Krabi town I rented a motorbike and scootied over to Ao Nang beach, about a 30 min drive. The beach wasn’t incredible, and the water was waveless.
Although the beach didn’t feel particularly amazing, as sunset neared, I noticed literal boatloads of tourists docking into the beach and coming off.
I had heard about these before. These day (or multi-day) trips to nearby islands were sold on every busy street in Thailand. These trips seemed pretty cool, but I wondered if there was any other way to get out there and see these islands, without having the strict limit of a day or two to admire their beauty. Due to the lack of time, creativity and money (I am a student after all), I wasn’t able to pursue this idea and see any of these beautiful islands.
However, walking down the beach watching the sunset, I walked into a potential answer:
I saw this Kayak sitting on the beach. Sadly, the owner wasn’t around, but I wondered what the kayak was being used for. Inside I saw a mat (maybe for sleeping?), and a bunch of grocery bags with food. I had no evidence or confirmation of anything, but I thought that someone might’ve gotten onto this kayak and gone island hopping around Krabi. The water in Ao Nang was surprisingly still with no currents, and the temperature throughout the day was also not too hot. Also, a Kayak can carry a lot of weight and equipment.
This was just an idea I had, and I could have been completely wrong, but it got me really excited.
Time to go
I had under a week left in Thailand, and I realized Bangkok was really far away. At this point, I hadn’t seen a nice beach since Langkawi, and I hadn’t seen a nice beach and a cold beer at the same time since Bali, so I decided I’d spend a couple of days looking for nice beaches and cheap beer. The next morning I got on a bus headed for Phuket, the epicenter of Thailand tourism, known for its beaches.
Perspective and Spontaneity.
In the taxi ride into Krabi town, the guys I shared the taxi with told me there wasn’t much to do in Krabi town. Sure, it doesn’t have stunning beaches, crazy clubs, or any other flashy things around, but that doesn’t mean it’s an uninteresting town.
It occurred to me that a single place or a single thing can be seen and experienced in infinitely many ways possible. You as a traveler, have the freedom to choose to do whatever you want to do at whatever time (within the bounds of safety and the well-being of others) and see whatever you want to see from your experience, depending on how you feel. This might seem obvious, but realizing this helped me have a much better time traveling. If you run across an amazing place or meet wonderful people, you can choose to spend more time and energy there. If you find a place that you absolutely hate, you can choose to take a bus out of there the next morning. If you feel tired or jetlagged in a beautiful city, you can choose to stay in bed all day and read or watch movies. I enjoyed taking it day-by-day. I booked my hotel on the bus en route to Krabi for one night, and I wasn’t sure where I was staying the next day, where I was going, what I was doing. When I met some cool friends and started to like Krabi, I decided to spend another night there. The ability to feel a place out and instantly decide what you want to do next is one of the best things about traveling. What happens if you plan every single hotel and way of transport for an entire month? What if you realize you like someplace and want to stay longer? What if you want to leave and see a new place altogether?
Knowing that your future holds infinite possibilities, which you can determine instantaneously based on how you feel, gets me really excited. I find this to be one of the best things about traveling. You arrive in a place you know nothing about. What you do is entirely up to you based on how you feel. You don’t know where you could be, or what you could be doing a couple hours from now, but you’ll most probably be having a great time because you’re doing what you want to do! Seeing things in this way makes traveling much more thrilling for me.