Krabi
We were staying near Ao Nang, which is around one hours transfer from the airport. All arrangements went very smoothly and our driver was waiting for us as we exited the domestic arrival hall.
Our hotel was the Centara Grand. The only way to reach the hotel (with luggage) is by boat, and we only had a short wait until the next available one to ferry us over.
It is only a 15 minute journey, and you can quickly see why this hotel is special, reminding me of the film Close Encounters. The hotel is surrounded by limestone peaks on all sides, sheltering it and the beach from the early morning sun, and maximising those long sunny afternoons and early evenings.
The hotel itself was quite compact, the rooms being in two or three storey buildings, easily reached by a short walk or golf type buggy.
You’d be very picky not to enjoy the breakfast spread with everything from western style food to Asian and Japanese staples. There is also an egg station for freshly cooked requests.
The beach itself was very safe, with a gentle shelf, and soft sand. At low tide you could almost walk to the nearby limestone rocks, the water barely deeper than knee level.
There are many excursions to be had from Ao Nang. Most days we could see the armada of boats taking people to the local islands. As we had visited several on previous trips, this visit we decided to do some diving, and opted for a three dive package with onsite dive company Kontiki.
We were very impressed with their organisation, equipment and professionalism. Diving isn’t an exact science, you take a dive never really knowing what to expect, so we were actually undersold the experience, as it turned out to be much better than expected.
We experienced a deep wreck dive (this dive is only available to advanced open water divers), where we were surrounded by many types of fish at every turn, and all too quick it was time to return to the surface.
The second dive was over Anemone Reef, and it was well named, decorated with beautiful types of anemones and coral. It was hear we saw our first sea horse, very elusive and shy, and we also saw lion fish and scorpion fish. At our decompression stop the view of the reef was incredible, we all commented on the boat that it was a very pleasant place to spend the final three minutes of the dive.
We then had lunch, and prepared for our final dive, which was to be a drift dive off Shark Point. Named because of its shape, and not for its inhabitants, as we saw no sharks at all. Sad to see quite a bit of dead coral, we were told local fishermen had abused the area for years, and it is only now with education that it is regenerating, and there was still some stunning underwater scenery to behold. Again all too quickly the dive was over and we updated all our log books and shared stories on the two hour trip back to port.
The isolation was one of the main reasons we chose the Centara, and you don’t have to take a boat to civilisation. There is a 15 minute walk over the hill to Ao Nang on the monkey trail. It is very well lit and well used by hotel guests, bringing you into one end of the beach where there are several bars, restaurants and spas. A short walk further on brings you to the main strip of the resort, which is around one mile long and has every type of restaurant you could want. Most serve a variety of Thai, Indian and Western food, at very reasonable prices. We tried to sample as many different types, but ended up eating Thai most nights, well it would be rude not to.
The week we spent there passed over far too quickly, I guess it always does when you are on holiday enjoying yourself, though we did both agree that it would be nice to return at some point in the future.