Start of something great

Boats waiting in the harbor at Ao Nang beach

We quickly discovered the wonders of southern Thailand, not the islands full of westerners getting drunk and WAY too much sun (like a walking skin cancer ward), but the quiet roads that cut through flooded plains filled with water buffalo, birds of every variety, local fisherman and happy smiling locals.  On the way north toward our next stop, Krabi, we saw all of these things and except for the heat we were enthralled by Thailand.  As it had in the past this good energy gets tested a bit whenever we enter more touristy locations, and Krabi is certainly one of those.  We were lucky enough to have a nice Russian warmshowers host named Andrey allow us to stay at his home while we explored so that we were able to escape paying the usual overpriced rates for substandard accomodation you find in all of these beach resort locals.  Not so fortunately (or so we thought at first) Andrey was "double-booked" foor guests at this time.  Apparently he was also expecting a French family to arrive that evening.  While we were sitting and drinking a local beer of choice (ie Chang, Singha, Leo) they arrived and it turned out this amazing husband and wife were on a similar tour as us only in reverse order AND with a 6 year old son!!  Our figurative jaws dropped as Chiara and I only days before were in the midst of throwing in the towel just short of the 5 month mark on our journey over some petty, insignificant trifle that we could not agree upon and here Albon, Delphine, and their son Vincent had spent the same 5 month period touring eastern Europe with their young son and seemed almost unscathed?!  Seemed these folks had a thing or two to teach us and we were excited to hear more as they had just come through Turkey, the country we plan to start our Europe leg of the tour.  

    

Andrey, Bruce, and Alban, reading to Vincent on Andrey's porch aka our living quarters, Delphine and Vincent cycling

But first the Tetris game of tent accomodation must begin in order to get everyone a place to sleep.  Andrey's place was modest and therefore we figured we would stay on the porch in our tents in order to not completey take over his space.  The next two days we ate, drank, compared tour "notes" and decided that maybe ths was the time for our "Tourist" part of our Thailand trip.  We would team up with the "French Connection" and take a boat trip to a small island to camp and snorkel for a few days.  After a large amount of recon work to discover where was ok to camp and what we would have to bring with us, we finally made our way out to Bamboo Island by long-tail boat with minimal gear and lots of excitement.  Turns out this island is one of many that gets flooded with a daily stream of boat that plop tourists of all shapes and sizes for short visits before scooping them back up and taking them to another island.  Usually 4 in a day, which must be a whirl-wind of chaotic boat travel.  However for us the true enjoyment started around 4pm  when the last of the day boats left the island and we were left to enjoy the peace and beauty of this place with no one but the few national park staff that remained to clean up from the day and prepare for the next days onslaught of sun-reddened, selfie-stick carrying travelers that would make the journey.  But for us a beautiful sunset, meager meal of rice and vegetables, a couple sips of Mekong (local whiskey type drink) and good company of new friends was all we needed.  Until about 10am the next morning this little island was all but ours and early morning swims and stretches on the beach were ours for the taking.  Though to now we are till not sure if anything we did was 'legal' the small family of staff were wonderful to us and we felt like one of their crew.  

Turns out, however, that getting off these islands can be a bit tougher when not pre-arranged.  After 2 nights we decided that it was time to move on so we started searching the seemingly endless line of charter boats for an open spot to hitch back to the mainland.  The only one we found was not exactly heading straight back to the mainland but would be doing the before-mentioned "4 island tour" of which we were the first.  We resigned ourselvess to the fact that we would be in for a long day and boarded the long-tail.  This, to our pleasant surprise, may have been the bet thing that could have happened as we became part pf a tour that took us around to other islands where we swam, hiked, climbed on rocks and were amazed by the beauty that is southern Thailand.  Who needs one of those package trips?!

    

A beautiful beach sunset,climbing and snorkeling around Bs,boo island, the dramatic cliffs around Krabi 

We made our 'triumphant' return to Andrey's house in a horrendous thunderstorm and  torrential downpour.  One that Chiara and I were very familiar with by this time but one that appeared to have spooked our new French companions a bit regarding the weather they would be facing in SE Asia as their trip began in earnest.  Our last night was spent exchanging emails and hopes and plans for visiting each other in the future in our respective home lands.  This burgwoning friendship we hope will be one that carries foward into the future as we truly enjoyed the companionship of this young family and were inspired by their will and determination to live their lives and raise their family in a truly unique way.