Happiness is A Warm Sun
Hopping on a local bus (songthaew), we caught a ride to Klong Muong, about 30 minutes north of Krabi - this is a small local village on the Andamen sea, still relatively undeveloped other than the Sheraton and a Sofitel resort.
As usual we got an upgraded executive suite - it's kind of embarrassing to get these upgrades when we're only paying $30/night. This is probably the prettiest property we've
been to so far. Because of it's location being sheltered by Phuket island, it managed to avoid much of the tsunami
damage. So for six nights we'll call this home.
One day we were sitting poolside and an elephant came up the beach. This is the famous RaRa, a female elephant adopted by the Sheraton five years ago. Quite friendly and very smart, she's a big hit with the people here especially when everyone goes swimming with her in the afternoon. Marge is very keen on feeding her cucumbers every morning.
We went over to Rai Leh beach one day - a day trip that demonstrates how we use local transport - songthaew to tuk tuk to longtail boat - maybe one hour in duration for about $4. Rai Leh beach is too popular and not large enough to support the throngs of tourists who flock there during the day. Not to mention the long tail boats - I didn't believe that in my lifetime I would come across something more obnoxious than a Harley, but I have ! These longtail boats are powered by unmuffled car engines - and there are scores of them that go back and forth
dropping people off and picking people up
- it really distracts from the tranquility of the beach.
Marge and I both bought new swimming suits and are now trying to blend in the old tan
lines so are now concentrating on expanded beach time. And did I mention that the people here are very friendly ? We're trying to pick up useful phrases, but Thai pronunciation is a little difficult to get at first - and pronunciation is everything - unless you pronounce Klong Muong exactly right, the bus driver thinks you want a ride to Mars. Difficult to understand why they cannot extrapolate what I'm trying to communicate. More on this later...
