The best way to end your Thailand vacation is ending it at the beach. After 2 great weeks in Thailand we ended our adventure in Krabi, a beautiful island with some of the most amazing sunsets that I have ever seen. To get to Krabi we took a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and ended up in Krabi. From the airport we hopped onto a shuttle that took us to a boat that would transport us to our final destination.
We thought that we would take the boat (pictured above) right to the island, but we were up for a little surprise once we reached the island. The tide was too low (which I think is a common occurrence) for the boat to get to the island, so a tractor with a trailer attached to it came out to our boat to get us. We hopped onto the trailer and the tractor took us the rest of the way. I am so not joking about this…
After our little tractor adventure, we were escorted to Rayavadee, the resort that we would be hanging out at for the next two days. As soon as we entered the resort, we were handed refreshing lime drinks to enjoy while we were checking in.
After we finished our beverages, we were escorted to our room.
Our room was more like a tiny house and it had the biggest bed that I have ever seen!
The bed was basically two queen beds smooshed together and it was the most magical bed that I have ever slept in.
In addition to giant beds, there were MONKEYS hanging out outside of our room!!
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Yes you read that right! I did in fact say that there were real live MONKEYS hanging out on the resort property! I could have watched them all day.
After we hung out with the monkeys and got settled, we headed to one of the restaurants at the resort for our final cooking class of the trip. Poo…I hate the end of vacations. However, I was really excited about this class. Krabi is known for their love of spicy food and I couldn’t wait to try it, because I LOVE spicy food!
We were suppose to have the cooking class outside, but since it was raining they held it in the open-air part of the restaurant, which was perfect. They partnered us up, introduced us to the Thai chef who runs the restaurants at the resort and we started cooking. The cooking class was neat, because this was the first time that this chef has ever hosted a cooking class for a group. This class was also a bit different from the other Thai cooking classes that we had taken on this trip, because this class was structured like a Top Chef episode, which was a fun twist. We were given instructions on how to cook each dish, the Chef would float around and offer cooking suggestions and tips, and then she would come back and taste each group’s dish and pick a winner.
It was a fun spin on your average cooking class. Derika and I had a great time, (we might have won two out of the three cooking competitions) and we learned how to cook a ton of new Thai dishes.
After cooking school, we went to our rooms to freshen up before dinner. For dinner, the chef took the menu that we made earlier that day, and cooked it for us. This was a great bonus; because we got to see how a professional chef prepared each dish that we learned how to cook earlier. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out with the group and exploring the resort property.
The next morning we woke up bright and early and enjoyed an amazing breakfast at the hotel. This breakfast bar was stocked with a bunch on American breakfast options, with a ton of Thai options sprinkled in. I even got to have soup! I love a good brothy noodle soup with ALL of the condiments for breakfast!
The cool thing about Thai food in Thailand is that they always give you a bunch of condiments to go with whatever dish you order, so that you can season it to your own desired spice level.
After our amazing breakfast we hopped on a boat with our group and spent the rest of the day snorkeling, island hopping and sipping on frosty beers. Krabi is surrounded by a bunch of islands that are easy to get to in a short amount of time by boat.
Our first stop on the island hopping adventure was a cave where they harvest the nests for the famous bird nest soup. I have never had bird soup, but apparently it is really popular in Chinese cultures. The boat that you see hanging out by this site, belongs to the people who regulate the harvesting of the nests.
After that, we went into a little alcove to snorkel and swim a bit. Can you believe the color of the water, look how clear the it is! Soooo many fishes!
After snorkeling we headed to an island where we got to enjoy lunch on the beach.
After lunch we enjoyed some cocktails in the water for a while and tried not to swim in each others pee… 😉
There wasn’t anyone else on the island most of the time that we were there. I could have stayed there for hours sipping on beers and taking photos. It was just so so beautiful!
After lunch and swimming we headed back to our resort, but not before we stopped to see Turkey Rock, a rock that is in the shape of a turkey.
We also stopped by a cliff where there were people cliff jumping.
If you look in the middle of that red circle you can see a tiny person jumping! Julia even got in on the fun too!
After a fun day in the sun we headed back to our resort to check out the pool and to hang out a bit before dinner.
The relaxing did not last too long, because we realized that we only had one sunset left on our vacation so we decided to make the most of it. Before dinner we hopped onto a water taxi (which was the first one that we have ever been on), so that we could check out some local shopping and catch a sunset from another island.
On our way to the taxi I made a friend.
Chef T and Danny from our group joined us on this adventure. While I was making friends, Chef T did all of the negotiating with the water taxi driver and we just worried about getting into the taxi without falling into the water.
Here is a picture of our friendly water taxi driver. 🙂
We just sat back and enjoyed the ride and tried to stay dry!
We got to the island just in time to do a little shopping and to grab a quick beer before the sunset, which I have to say was totally worth being a late to dinner for.
After the sunset we hopped back onto our water taxi in the dark and zipped back to Krabi for our final dinner. I just have to say that the water taxi is much more magical when you can see your surroundings. We quickly freshened up and headed to the Rayavadee Grotto restaurant that was situated on the beach and located in a grotto! I have never eaten in a grotto on the beach before.
We had the place to ourselves, and I did manage to get a fuzzy picture of our whole group enjoying dinner.
We spent the evening eating a ton of amazing Thai food (which I was still not sick of after two full weeks) and swapping stories and photos from all of our adventures. It was the perfect way to end a magical trip.
The next day we had a few hours to spend by the pool and the beach,
before we headed back home to chilly NYC.
I hope you enjoyed our Krabi adventure, and if you haven’t already checked out my other Thailand posts, you can read about our Bangkok and Chiang Mai adventures here.
Happy Traveling!