Another Winding Road and A Flight to Krabi
By Lauren Gerzina & Justin Hayes
More Nausea, A Beach Town, and Delicious GF Pasta
[Photos to Come!]
Today was a long travel day. We woke up early, packed our bags, and ate breakfast at the hotel. Lauren decided she wanted the “good coffee” from the breakfast restaurant yesterday – so she set off to pick up two lattes – a pumpkin spice for her and a cinnamon dolce for Justin. When she got back, it was time to load into the private car transfer. Luckily, we had the same driver from the last two days of shuttling us around Pai. We never caught his name, since he spoke VERY little English. He was a MUCH better driver than the one we had on the way to Pai from Chiang Mai.
The first two hours of the drive back to Chiang Mai were very windy. We learned from Clementine that the trip has over 1000 curves, and boy did our stomachs not like it. Lauren doesn’t get car sick often (because she mostly drives or rides shotgun) but when she does, its on a windy road up and down mountains in the backseat of a pickup truck headed to Chiang Mai. We both took Dramamine and had some peppermint gum, and Justin seems to have avoided nausea mostly . . . but Lauren was feeling sick the whole way through the mountains (luckily with no expulsion).
After three and a half hours and a couple bathroom stops, we arrived at the Chiang Mai airport. We dropped off our bags at the Bangkok Airways check-in desk and then went upstairs. The security area had no line, and we didn’t see any food on the other side of it, so we decided to eat before going through security. We found a Bangkok Airways lounge (with Priority pass access) and entered. They had no food Justin could eat, so we left about two minutes after entering. We found a restaurant called “Thai Restaurant” — a little on the nose if you ask us. We entered, ordered Pad Thai for Justin (the only thing on the menu we were sure he could eat), and Lauren got Kao Soi. After eating, we went through security and got in line to board the plane.
We boarded and sat across the aisle from each other, completely surrounded by people speaking French. Justin may or may not have been listening to their conversations trying to see how much he understood and practicing. The flight was about two hours – and then we arrived in Krabi!
Krabi is a beach town in southern Thailand and is a great jumping off point to get to many of the islands between Krabi and Phuket. We had decided NOT to go to Phuket after basically everyone we know that has been there and every vlog we watched told us it was completely overrun with tourists and had lost all of its charm. So Krabi was the better alternative.
We actually have a hotel in an area of Krabi known as Ao Nang, which was a 45-minute Grab ride from the airport. We got to the hotel (Anda Sea Tales) around 6pm, checked in and dropped our bags off. We took the elevator to the roof to watch the last of the sunset – and it was beautiful.
We caught a Grab to a GF restaurant Justin found (Brightside Bistro). We both ordered Amethyst Lemonade (butterfly pea mixed with lemonade) which was delicious. Justin ordered a GF Mediterranean pasta dish which had bacon, and he was so in love with it, he proclaimed that we must come back so he could eat it again. Lauren ordered Ratatouille, which was also super delicious – but both of us were still hungry afterwards. So we ordered some “small plates” of Spanish style shrimp and a chicken kabob plate. Everything was very good. After dinner, we walked to a mini mart to buy some snacks and waters for the next few days.
While we stayed in Krabi for the night, we were actually leaving the next day for a two day trip to Khao Sok National Park where we will stay at a hotel on the water called Panvaree The Greenery. We are SO excited for this excursion. Don’t worry gentle reader – we will be back to Krabi for 5 nights after the national park.
When we got back to the hotel, we rearranged all of our luggage so that everything we needed for Khao Sok was in one of our packable duffel bags. The rest of the bags were prepped to be left at the hotel since we plan to come back in two days. Then we both hit the hay.
[Photos to Come!]
