RPCV love doesn't always mean Krabs

(By Miller)
Sometimes unplanned detours are the best and this proved to be true with the south of Thailand. While still in India we received an email from a friend of the family who had built a house in Ao Nang and just happened to be a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Ghana. LOVE the community! We hadn’t planned to go south of Bangkok at all, except to take the train to Singapore. I didn’t need much convincing as sand, crystal clear water, and scuba diving galore sounded slightly more enticing than the streets of Calcutta. After all, we ARE on a vacation of sorts, right?

For about $10, we took an overnight bus from Bangkok to Ao Nang, a smaller ‘burb of Krabi (said crab-EE). The bus was the most comfortable thing to sleep on we’d seen in a long time as I couldn’t fit in the Calcutta bed and the short reprieve we had with an ex-pat friend in Bangkok just didn’t placate my back. The seats reclined to a visually pleasing angle but after two hours of sleep, woke up to numb feet and knees the size of grapefruits. Whatever, we arrived soon enough, looking glamorous. The local taxis in Ao Nang are pickup trucks with benches in the back so we took on to the end of the road, where our soon-to-be new best friend, Mark lived. He said we shouldn’t have a problem finding his house, as it was the one that looked out of place on the road. After a kilometer in the muggiest weather we’ve felt yet, this palatial estate complete with pool appeared and we figured it must have been it. JACKPOT! Mark and his incredibly adorable 8-month old were fabulous hosts.

We rented a moto for a couple days and decided to take it easy and tool around. The “strip” consists of McDonalds, Starbucks, endless restaurants, tattoo parlors, dive shops; and of course, the obligatory 7-11. Checked out the sites, made a plan for the next day, and headed home to cook some noodles and veggies in a real kitchen! Did I mention that Mark treated us to Starbucks filter coffee? Travelers on vacation we are! Stumbled onto a Karaoke bar and Annie got to sing the Romanian dance song so near and dear to all Peace Corps Benin volunteers. You all know the words…my-a-hee my-a-ha…Betsi Frei would have been on cloud 9!

Had a lazy morning and decided to conquer the beach…but not before a rousing game of mini-golf and a Thai massage. The golf course was closed, which was a serious blow to Annie but as some of you may know I’m just not a gamer and wasn’t too broken up about it. She didn’t go in for a massage so while she lounged on the beach, I got worked over for an hour by a small Thai man twisting me in all directions and hitting pressure points I didn’t know I had. It was heaven, they even gave me tea and pineapple afterwards  The afternoon was spent wading around in the bathwater warm Indian ocean and watching the boats zip around. Apparently we missed the memo and were caught in a huge rainstorm. Once it let up, we tooled our moto back to Mark’s.

There was a festival of lights and lanterns, something about asking protections and forgiveness from the ocean. People wove palm leaves into floating candle and incense holders and set them out to sea. More stunning still were the lanterns about 2 feet high which are lit from underneath and the hot air makes them rise up to the heavens, carrying good wishes with the flames. Amazing to see the night sky full of floating lights.

Returned the moto, said goodbye to Mark and his baby boy, and hopped a boat to Koh Phi Phi. This was a little more expensive than anything we had planned but OH MY GAWD it was worth it. Phi Phi (said pee-pee) was far grander than anything I expected.