Mon 30/07/12 00:51
Today was going to be mostly a traveling day, or at least that’s what were were told. After breakfast we headed out back to the dock and eventually back to the bus station that would take us to a town on the Andaman seaboard known as Krabi. I guess it’s a famous beach city in Thailand, almost as famous as Phuket. I had never heard about it, but to be honest I was happily surprised when we arrived. If you can imagine almost any city whose income is derived from tourism, you can pretty much imagine Krabi. It’s touristy and it’s gaudy, not to mention all the other things that you may think about when you envision a town based on tourism, but it is also kind of nice. It’s small, so you don’t feel overwhelmed—at least I didn’t.
We arrived at about 12 and by 1230 I was headed to the beach. The water was warm and the waves were big enough to get in some decent body surfing. I ended up swimming for about 30 minutes, and I would have stayed in longer if not for being stung by jellyfish. Nothing serious and except for ending my time in the water I really didn’t get too bothered by it. What was kind of different as I was in the water the spot where I was stung was burning, so I kept looking at it. I guess one of the locals who walks along the beach selling drinks to the tourists saw me and went to get some leaves. I didn’t see him get the leaves, but on his first pass he didn’t have any and then when I was on my towel there he was with a couple handfuls of some leaves. He didn’t speak very much English, but he could say, “jellyfish” about three times, motions for me to pour my water on the leaves, so I comply. He crunches and tears the leaves stopping every now and again for me to add more water until the leaves getting close to being kind of paste-like. He tells me to lay back and then rubs it all over my arm. He was always smiling and trying to tell me what he was doing, and I was trying to tell him that I didn’t bring any money with me, “No problem. Okay.” I know that it probably sounds bad that my first thought is that this guy had just found a new way to get some money from me, but in my defense it does happen all the time. After he applied the “paste” to my arm, he grabbed his bucket of soft drinks and took off down the beach. Nice guy, and I did feel a little guilty thinking the worst of him. The leaves did soothe the sting too.
After doing a little exploring I headed back to the hotel. Later the group went out to dinner beside the beach. It was a very “romantic” spot and would have been best served if I were with a date.
