A rest in southern Thailand?

Phew so hot out here. Arrived in the town of Krabi in Southern Thailand, which is on a river where the local taxis are long tailed canoe type boats.
 

 And some rather different tuktuks for on land!

 
 We visited the village and the resort across the river through the mangroves on a tuktuk taxi

 

 

Everything goes by long tail boat here

 

 
The Buddhist temple here was the most interesting building for sight seeing, but Krabi had a down to earth welcoming feel to it as well!

 

 

 Next we made the very big mistake of going to PhiPhi Island - Don't go is the advice we would give!! Even the cats were too hot and had to escape the crowds! (they could get in and out easily!)

 

 We did eventually find a quieter place and the scenery was pretty but just spoilt by crowds and shanty town development. We did go on a snorkelling trip around the sheer cliffs of the which was fun but the coral and fish were not spectacular.

 

We left after one night and moved on to a much quieter and prettier island called Ko Lanta.

 Malcolm trying to get away on a tuktuk taxi!

 We stayed in a lovely hotel that we had been told about by someone we met in Krabi. Narima Lodge

 Malcolm photo-bombing my cocktails at sunset photo! - great cocktails but not much sunset, it goes down very fast! (the cocktails too!)

 This is more like it!

 

We hired a moped and went exploring around the island, being very careful of other drivers etc.


Fuel came in pop bottles for 30 bhat!

 The hotel was right on the beach and Malcolm had his first ever Thai massage! I had checked it out first! We also practiced a bit of yoga! before jumping in the pool. Sweet as!

 

 Some local delicacies - black rice pudding and mango, washed down with fresh coconut smoothie - yum

We visited beaches, bars, bat caves and rubber trees 

 

 Before going on another snorkelling and island hopping day. the highlight was a visit to the Emerald Cave - you have to swim through this hole in the rock in the dark to get to the cove inside the island on the other side. All a bit scary but AWESOME at the same time!

 

 

 This is the beach inside the island!

 

 

After a lovely relaxing few days we moved back to the mainland to what turned out to be the prettiest part of the trip - Railey resort near Krabi and Phuket. We were on a slightly bigger boat for this section!

 

 The karst scenery is really dramatic in this area - just like the 007 island!

 

 

 Again MVT found us a superb hotel, with two lovely pools!

  Some of the rocks looked like melted wax!

 Fancy lunch anyone??

 We climbed the hill behind the resort t look down at both bays - very nice!

 

 

 

 

 It was a bit of a climb though!

All in all a beautiful place but after a week of relaxing by the pool we were ready for our homeward journey.

So farewell to the Far East and Down Under - for now!