Our trip to the beach!!! In Krabi, Thailand

I would like to first say that Thailand has beautiful beaches!  Look at the water!  I LOVE it when it is turquoise!!!  Was this my favorite beach trip ever?  Probably not.  Let me explain.  I am the type of person who loves going to the beach and being alone.  I love sitting on our strip of sand that stretches from our little beach tent all the way down to the water.  I love the sound of the waves and the kids playing in the sand.  I think my favorite part about going to the beach is finding beautiful seashells.  I am an OBX, North Carolina kind of girl.

All the beaches we went to in Krabi were packed with people.  I'm sure there are beaches in Thailand that are secret little havens that the Thai people know about, but all the ones that are advertised... the ones you can actually get to are full of people from all over the world.  Some of these people have a completely different idea on modesty than my family so there were several times we had to direct our young boys' attention so that they didn't notice the topless women sunbathing or pulling down the bikini bottoms completely off of their bum so that they can get a nice, even tan.  I get it... it there are no signs anywhere saying that nudity is not allowed, and I would like to point out that I am an artist and find the human body beautiful.  So when we saw people doing their thing we stayed away.  But when you come within 30 feet of where we have been for more than an hour and let your DD's be free, I have a problem with that.  I totally gave that chick several dirty looks until she finally covered up.

On to more happy things...

This is where we stayed!  It is called Thai Village Resort and it is beautiful!  The staff were great, the free breakfast every morning was amazing, and my kids loved the pools.  They have a kids shallow pool, and a regular one, one for adults only, and one with a swim up bar!

The very first hing we did after check in and lunch was go to the beach.  The closest one is called Ao Nang (ow- nong).  The Taxi driver told us when we got out that there was monkey beach at the far end of Ao Nang beach.  Ao Nang Beach is not my cup of tea, this was the only time we went to this beach and it was just to walk through it to get to Monkey Beach.  The sand was made up small rocks and broken seashells so very difficult to walk on barefoot.  If there wasn't the poky sand that my kids refused to walk on, there was mud (not wet sand) covered in gooshy moss that stuck to your feet and under that was the poky rock sand.  Our first impression of Thailand beaches was not good.

Then we found Monkey Beach and things got better.  The sand was better over here and there were a ton of wild monkeys there that were not afraid of humans.  Actually, they were really good at stealing food from them.  I was bent over with Beckham as he was looking at a monkey about a foot away from him when a monkey climbed on to my back and onto my head!  Jason was too far away to give him the camera to take a picture so I was on my own to take a selfie... my camera must have been zoomed out because this is the picture I got... the only proof that there was a monkey on my head.  I had a backpack on and he was probably trying to find food in the backpack.

There were many times after that experience that we got the monkeys to hang out with us.  Both Will and Beckham loved feeding them (a lady gave us some peanuts) and holding them.

Aren't they cute?!?  I thought this would be my only time I could get a close up picture of a monkey and I'm glad I go this one!

Jason was finally around to take a picture of a monkey on me.  This one was trying to get in the backpack as well!

So I wouldn't call myself an expert on this, but I think this is how a beach trip goes in Thailand.  You take a vacation and go to a beach.  We chose Krabi, but Phuket is another option.  Then from there, you hire a boat taxi or a tour to take you to other beaches.  The first trip we did was the 4 Island Tour.  It took us to Phra Nang Beach, Tup Island, Chicken Island, and Poda Island.  We all got sunburned from this trip.  I was the worst, Will got it on his face because he didn't wear his hat and Beckham got a little on his arm.  So the rest of our trip was spent covered with clothes... 

Chicken Island was a place where we had the option to go snorkeling.  Will didn't go snorkeling, the gear was too big but he really wanted to.  NOTE:  You borrow their equipment.  That grossed me out so I didn't do it, but I would suggest bringing your own.  I thought Will looked adorable with the gear on his face.

Not having face gear didn't deter Will though, he just rode on my husband's back!  There were beautiful fish everywhere!!!  Schools and schools swimming all around you. 

This food boat was at Phra Nang Beach.  Here there are 2 caves that are devoted to fertility Gods that many Thai people come to visit.  When you see them, you will recognize it easily based on the men's body part you see as statues everywhere.

This is Tup Island.  When the tide is low, the water is shallow enough to walk all the way to the neighboring Island!

There was a street market full of food vendors and we went their a couple times to get some grub.

The whole reason we booked our hotel was because they had "babysitting available".  So we made sure we booked over Valentine's Day and planned to get a babysitter that night.  We asked several times at the front desk and no one knew what we were talking about.  I was so sad!  I finally tried one more time and I happened to be talking to the manager who spoke better English and we got it all set up!  For 200 baht an hour, we got someone from housekeeping to watch our kids... HA!  I never thought I would hear those words coming from my mouth because I am one of those parents afraid of leaving my kids with anyone I don't know really well.  Luckily our hotel had a cool dinner and show going on that night so we stayed at the hotel and very close by.  We had a lot of fun especially since I'm pretty sure we saw my cousin's doppleganger!  Jason figured out a way to sneak a picture of him.  Hilarious!  ☺ 

So there are 2 different beaches close by to our hotel.  To the left, is the beach I was talking about earlier and to the right, is this beach I think it is called Nopparat Thara Beach.  This place is a lot less crowded with a lot more families there and the sand is much nicer.

We went to the Snake and Monkey Show which was a fun experience at the beginning when we were waiting for the show to start and got a tour of the snakes.  The snake guy let the boys hold the snakes that weren't poisonous.  And Will and Beckham loved the chance to hold a snake!  Beckham was too brave in my opinion.  He would grab and squeeze the snake's head!

This is a green tree snake.

And he did this... see?!?  This kid is never going into a jungle by himself!  He's going to want to kiss the King Cobras or something else just as deadly.  This is a python by the way...

Seeing the snakes was great, but the snake show was super freaky and the monkey show was so sad.  All the monkeys had a metal collar tied to a rope and you could see in their eyes that they weren't happy.  Nobody that came to see this show was happy or impressed.

 We took a boat taxi to Railay (ra-lay) Beach which was fun.  It had nice sand but the sand got super hot when the sun hit it around noon.  I think our family was wearing 40% of the clothes that was worn on that beach. Ha!  The boat Taxi was nice because we could come and go when we wanted.  The Tours you have a guide and you don't go home until they take you home.

We also took a Phi Phi Island Tour.  We heard lots of good things about Phi Phi (pronounced pee-pee) so we felt like we had to experience it!  Funny side story:  Will told us that he didn't want to go to Phi Phi Island, he wanted to go to Poo Poo Island!  Ha!

The first place we went was Maya Bay.  This is the famous beach used for the movie called "The Island" with Leonardo Dicaprio in it.  I exaggerate not, the entire beach was this packed!  There was no room for the boats so the drivers would push their boats to the side so that another boat could jam himself in between the other boats.  There were so many people, there was no room to lay down or even to really sit down!

We found this little cave crevice that didn't have as many people and we took this picture.  But then Jason looked over and saw a little, chunky Asian kid pooping in the corner!  I guess we did go to Poo Poo Island after all!  The sand was perfect at this beach and the water was beautiful.  There was a jungle to walk through with trails that had the soft sand everywhere so you didn't need shoes to go explore the jungle.  But if you stopped to take a picture, you almost got trampled!  Okay not really, but upset people walked around you with grumpy faces... 

We went to another area, I think it was called Lohsamah Bay, were we did snorkeling.  the water was really rough and a lot of people (including me) got sea sick here.  But the water was beautiful and there were a ton of fish to discover!  The captain gave Beckham some bread to feed the fish and we had fun seeing them swarm the bread while Jason and Will were out in the water.  (Both tours we went on had kid life jackets available.)

The captain guy caught a sea urchin for us to see!

Then they dropped us off at Phi Phi Don for lunch.  Population there is 4000.  The food was great and they even had spaghetti for the kids since they don't like spicy Thai food.  There was an ice cream lady there too!  This is the second time I have bought homemade ice cream here in Thailand and both times I wasn't impressed.  It was still ice cream and cold and a nice, refreshing treat so I was grateful since it helped with my sea sickness too!

We lost one of our sun hats for the kids so before we went on our Phi Phi Tour, I went searching for another one.  I went to almost 20 shops along the beach strip and nobody had them!  Two of them had girl hats like the one Beckham is wearing in the picture above, but not boy ones!  So I found this cowboy hat and I remembered that Will wanted one so I grabbed it and called it good. ☺  He loved it and wore it all day and talked like a cowboy too, so funny! 

I was trying to take a picture of the beach but silly Will kept jumping in front of me photo bombing my picture!

We went to a pretty lagoon, LOVE the color of the water!

And apparently there is a Viking Cave here.  They found viking drawings or something back on the walls of the cave.  Cool right?

This was the last stop of our Phi Phi Island tour and it was my favorite out of all the places we went.  It is called Bamboo Island.  The sand was soft, and there was shade the whole time we were there!  So relaxing!

All and all we had fun on our trip!  It was a great experience!