November 14, 2014 Mandawee Resort, Land Tour

Friday, November 14

This morning everyone is up by 6:30 and we head for breakfast, as we have a land tour today beginning at 8:30.  Many more people have arrived and most if not all are Thai.  Nice air-conditioned van picks us up and we have a driver and a tour guide.

We pass quite a few rubber trees which are being tapped.  This and palms grown for the coconut and palmoil are the main agricultural products here.  The apparent attitude of drivers here is to use the entire width of the road as long as all vehicles fit.  There are many motorbikes with side carts, tuk tuk's, pick-up trucks, vans, buses, cars and motorbikes and what appears to be two wider interior lanes and two narrower one on the outside.  Traffic just sort of flows...

First stop is a souvenir shop - everyone here encourages you to support the economy!  We buy some postage stamps and soon are back on the road.  We notice many single pump gas stations (Happy Oil and others) which service the scooters and motorbikes.  Gas is $1 per liter.  There are massive amounts of electrical wiring on concrete poles - looks like they just keep adding more as things develop! Quite a lot of vegetation including flowers.

First stop is a trail through the jungle to Crystal Pond, Blue Pool and Emerald Pool. Nice walk, nice water but not spectacular.  Unfortunately they allow swimming and it seems to us that things will be ruined sooner rather than later....

Pretty dong fern along the way.  Trail begins as raised concrete, then there is some wood and then muddy dirt.

Next is Ron (Hot) Waterfall.  Another trail leads to some pretty falls formed by hot springs.

 At a small pavillion near the river we notice this curious python popping his head out of the rafters.  He soon withdrew so we never saw more than his head but it was large!  Saw this cute lizard there as well - about 8".

We go to a nice little open-air restaurant for lunch, again typical Thai food, though it is not very spicy at all for us "farangs" foreigners.  Most dishes are chicken or pork or shrimp.  Some fish, but beef is seldom seen.

Next stop is Tiger Cave and Wat Thumsula.  There is a cave which was once occupied by a tiger and later converted to a buddhist temple. There are both monks and nuns at Tiger Cave.  The monks are in orange, the nuns have shaved heads and wear white.
 They are building a huge wat nearby with cool dragons, tigers and a big gong which we see several people rubbing for luck.

 The Thai people do lots of things for luck and consider many things (tigers, rats, etc.) signs of luck.  Having our photo taken with Leaw, the tiger, is also supposed to bring luck.

We have seen very very few policemen, though we do see several signs touting "Tourist Police - Your First Friend".  We return to Mandawee at 4:30, do a quick change and catch a shuttle to Krabi town.  No dinner at the resort tonight, so we find a nice seafood restaurant along the water called Ao-Nang Seafood.  We order and share an assortment of foods including pineapple rice, curried seafood in coconut, fish cakes and fruit.

The walk along the beach is very busy and has many shops and restaurants.  There is a cabaret and a couple of "lady boys" dressed to the 9's trying to get customers.  They take a liking to Tom - all in good fun.  What good looking "women"!!

Catch a shuttle back to Mandawee, go for a swim and call it a night.