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Tonsai or Bust
11:15 PM
After regaining my appetite, we tried another restaurant. It wasn't disgusting but that's a pretty low bar so let's not call that an accomplishment. Bad food in a place where fantastic simple local food is the norm, really hurts our feelings. We ended the night on the upswing with the cheapest and absolute BEST Thai massages ever. I would go back to that lady everyday if I could. Being that we're in the jungle and our expectations are very low for accommodations and we're more than fine with that or so we thought. Our biggest factor in comfort is that we have internet for Ryan to be able to do whatever schoolwork he's assigned. But after sitting where the wifi connection is, in the steamy jungle, surrounded by excited locals and young climbers, being bit by flies and red ants crawling up his legs while trying to research and write his 20 page paper, we changed our definition of low expectations. He had a lot more work to do than we thought and was losing his mind trying to get through it. We had to get out of there asap. So I wouldn't say we got to know Tonsai very well. I would think it's probably a ton of fun if you're much younger, have more money to spend, are bananas for climbing or don't have to write a paper. The only longtail boat ride out of there was north to Ao Nang.
Ao Nang is the Atlantic City of Thailand, it's awful. We decided to stay here for two nights thinking Ryan could get some schoolwork done and I would just have some chill time on the beach. What I didn't realize is that the beach here sucks... At high tide there is only 10' of dry beach so it's completely PACKED with white people in resort wear. Everyone is walking over you, it's just awful. The ocean is extremely shallow here too so at low tide, the formerly covered sand becomes a mud pit with crabs running everywhere and the water is 200 yards from there. The fishermen pulling up traps at sunset are in water only up to their lower thighs. Not exactly fun for swimming. Certain areas are roped off for swimming as the shore is used by tons of longtail boats ferrying the tourists everywhere and that swimming area is completely dry at low tide. We could manage the less than desirable city if only we could find good food but the food is dumbed down for us white folk and priced for us as well. Many lessons learned, but always a pretty sunset.
We hopped over to Krabi Town for our last two nights in Thailand before heading to Vietnam. On our first walk around the town, we ran into an American couple we met on the longtail from Tonsai to Ao Nang, Emily and Dave. They had very similar feelings about Tonsai so it was good to know we weren't the only curmudgeons around. We made plans for dinner that night and after all of the crappy food we had lately, decided to splurg on a big seafood dinner and plenty of drinks. We had a blast swapping stories with them and even enjoyed the awful cover band who sang "Heart of Gold" twice in the time we were there.
The plan for our last day in Krabi Town was to leave Thailand with a bang. We'd rent a scooter, head to Khao Phanombencha National Park, hike to the eleven tiered waterfall and swim in every pool. Alas, our night out with the Americans put us in rough shape the next day. We took turns being sick, Ryan in the morning, me in the afternoon. We opted for Netflix "Making a Murderer" instead of the great outdoors. By the evening we were both ok to finally stretch our legs and venture to the night market. This market is put up every weekend, is full of delicious eats and the huge stage is open to whomever would like to display their talents from karaoke to breakdancing. We ran smack into our American buds who had met another American couple so we finished the evening with them. It wasn't the big bang that we wanted to part with Thailand on but it was still a good day.
Mom, you'd be so excited, we witnessed a Traffic Police helmet trap for scooter riders! The cops lined up along the busiest road in Krabi Town, spread out throughout a few lights and each radioed when they saw someone without a helmet. The rider was pulled over, issued a ticket, including tourists and man that would suck trying to figure out how much, who and how to pay that ticket.
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