Postcards To Ethel: Week 7 Krabi, Thailand

Dear Ethel, family and friends,

Well what a week it’s been, after a month of staying in one place, it feels like we have jammed a lot into the last week. When I left off last, I was about to go white water rafting with Michael in Kota Kinabalu. It was tame by Tully standards, only being grade 1 and 2 rapids. The more experienced course was washed away by heavy rain and could not be reached as the train ended up in the river. It was a lot of fun all the same, we shared our raft with a group of Koreans who were a lot of fun also. You can see a video (photos) on the Youtube site.

We spent 3 nights in KK before moving on to Sandakan and we had booked into the Sepilok Jungle Resort. Wow, resort was really not the right word for it, what a dump. I’m glad we were in the luxury suite??? The only redeeming feature of the place was the restaurant. The whole point of staying at Sepilok was to visit the Orangutan rehabilitation centre next door which was run by the resort. So we went to the 3pm feeding and only saw 3 Orangutans, two adults and a baby, it was a bit disappointing as the monkeys tend to take over. However I was glad to see that they appear to spend more money on the Orangutans than on the guests, as centre seemed reasonably well maintained. We only found out the following day that the 10am feeding time is better. See Orangutan video on Youtube.

The following morning we all decided that we should move into town at Sandakan, and after paying an exorbitant fair into town, we settled into the Hotel London for half the price and twice the comfort. The town’s claim to fame is that it once was home to more millionaires than anywhere else, although I really can’t see why. It’s a very rundown little town. They are refurbishing the wharf area and maybe in a year or two it will be worth visiting again. We did have an excellent meal at the Wharf that night.

Our next big surprise was when we arrived back in Kota Kinabalu. We booked into the Tune hotel over the internet, a subsidiary of Air Asia. I inquired at Air Asia customer service office in Sandakan if Tune had a shuttle to transfer us to the hotel. They said no. It turns out that the Tune Hotel is 11 km out of KK... on the opposite side of town to the airport. So we hired a taxi to take us there. When we arrived at the hotel lobby that doubles as a site shed for the building work that is still in progress, we walked past the Airport shuttle counter and enquire about our rooms. Oh, so sorry but we cancelled your booking and didn’t bother to inform you!!! Fine, we say, we’ll stay in town, and can you arrange a shuttle back to town? No, that’s for paying guests. You will have to get a taxi.....aaahhh, enough said.

All’s well that ends well. We stayed in the Best Western in the centre of town had a great meal, said good bye to Michael & Joyce, got up early and flew to Krabi Thailand. We have spent 3 night in Krabi town itself and did a Kayaking trip through the Bor Thor mangrove forest and through the caves. Fantastic, see the video on Youtube. Krabi is very quite at this time of year, being Monsoon season, as you have no doubt heard about. We found an old friend, Captain Bou who runs a resort on Koh Jum, an Island not far from here, but its closed for low season, so we had a few drinks with him instead. We are now out at Ao Nang, a touristy beach area, where nearly everything is twice the price. We thought we would spend another three nights here, next to the pool.