As you can see, the hotel is really integrated with the natural surroundings, as they took great pains not to make the place look like so many other Thai beach resorts with towering cement blocks lining the beach. Krabi also has no nightlife, sex trade, night markets etc that make Phuket and others such a circus. There's somewhere in Thailand for just about anything you're looking for, but in Krabi, it's all about relaxing. At left is the beautifully situated pool, between the mountains and the ocean, and at right is the second beach with the boat you arrive on from the airport. This beach is quite shallow and is often muddy, so it's not used very much.

The hotel was great, although there's not much point talking about it since it's been through quite a lot since we stayed there. It was bought by the Dusit chain, which supposedly didn't do a very good job with it, then it became an independent hotel again, then the tsunami came and hit Krabi very hard. The hotel was rebuilt and is open, but with all the changes and destruction, it may be quite different than our visit. The location is beautiful, on a narrow strip of land between two beaches, and huge rock formations hemming it in on the sides. There's really no way to leave the area except by boat. All the guests stay in these little hobbit houses, which most people find really charming but I think look pretty funny. There's probably about 60 of them dotted all over the place, and it looks like a mushroom field. Insides are typical Thai design, on a two floor layout with the bedrooms on the second floor. Staff was very friendly, and I remember the breakfast being really good, but you had to compete with pretty aggressive monkeys who were always invading the place and carting off the best food.

10. Krabi, Sept '98

I've adopted a go slow approach on the blog since there's no evidence that anyone other than Stolidog, whoever the hell that is, is reading this, and he's on vacation this week. But this is an easy entry on Krabi, a southern province in Thailand near Phuket. It used to be very isolated, and when we went, the only way to get there was to fly to Phuket. You then had to drive a few hours, then were transferred to a boat and went by boat for about 30 minutes, then the boat drove up to the shore and you waded up to the hotel. Now Krabi has its own airport and is quite popular with tourists. The pic at left is of our hotel, the Rayavadee, while the right pic is the beach at the hotel.