Thailand Beaches

Other than food, Thailand is probably best known for its beaches, so we had no choice but to check out a few! We focused our time on three beaches on the Andaman Sea: Krabi, Koh Lanta and Phuket.

From Chiang Mai, we flew to the resort town of Krabi. Our hotel was beautiful, so we were pretty content to relax by the pool and beach during the day.

All along the beach, crabs make elaborate designs in the sand at low tide. We decided this is why the beach was called Krabi, but pretty sure that's 100% made up. Regardless, it really is quite pretty.

At the resort, we also took advantage of a tennis lesson to tune up our game. Our instructor only spoke a few words of English, so over the course of the lesson, he just screamed them louder and louder to us. I guess we aren't quick studies...we just laughed along, but I think he might actually have been angry about the number of balls that flew over the fence.

Hoping to get a break from the resort - and a bit more local flavor - we found our favorite hangout in Thailand - Sunset Bar. This place was the best - amazing views, great food, cheap drinks, and friendly service. What more can you ask for?!

It was literally the perfect, picturesque beach bar that could have been in a Corona ad, and we probably spent 50% of our time in Krabi here. We did learn on our final visit that they actually do have a very nice restroom as well, but until that point we opted for a more natural alternative...

Our last day in Krabi, we took a long tail boat ride to see a few of the smaller islands off the coast.

At the end of the boat ride, we were dropped off at a beach that was overcrowded with tourists. After about 15 minutes, we decided it was time to head back to Sunset Bar!

Koh Lanta

Our next stop was Koh Lanta - about a 2 hour ferry ride south of Krabi. Alexis was pleased with the travel, as usual.

Less developed than Krabi, Koh Lanta has series of small hotels, restaurants, and bars along the beach (though none quite as cool as Sunset Bar, obviously).

This stop was particularly exciting to Mike for a number of reasons:

1. Our "swim out" room:

2. The happy hour special: free cocktail with the purchase of any beverage. We didn't ask questions, just ordered a booze-less mango juice and then asked for mojitos.

3. Beach BBQ:

Koh Lanta is also recognized for the best sunsets of the region and it certainly did not disappoint:

After so much time around motorbikes in SE Asia, we were interested in trying them out and signed up for a dirt bike ride across Koh Lanta and through the jungle. Though we mentioned repeatedly we were beginners and needed automatic bikes while booking, something was lost in translation....

Here we are with the huge, 250 cc manual transmission bikes we were supposed to ride...

And here we are with the bikes we actually rode (after our instructor came to the conclusion we were hopeless)...

These bikes had never been through the jungle...and I'm pretty sure our instructor hopes they never have to again.

Don't worry, we kept on the outfits, because nothing looks more tough when on a pink scooter.

In all seriousness, the ride was pretty cool. Although Alexis may or may not have spent some time on the ground, we were able to see some pretty remote parts of the island we would never have explored on our own.

In addition to the jungle, we cruised up and down a few km of empty, untouched beach.

The Dirt Ride was all the excitement we could handle on one island, so it was off to Phuket.

Phuket

The 4 hour ferry ride to Phuket was the final leg of Katie's visit before she headed further north for some scuba diving. As you can see, the ferry was not particularly crowded, so we had plenty of time for a heartfelt goodbye...with a pretty nice backdrop.

We spent a couple more days on the beach, relaxing, swimming, and - most notably - watching the Pats.

We did venture out into the infamous Patong Beach area to check out the nightlife. It certainly lived up to its party town reputation - the clubs are over the top and unlike anything we've seen before (think Vegas plus New Orleans mixed with a little bit of Myrtle Beach). Many of the happenings in this area are not necessarily blog-appropriate, but we were fully entertained just sitting back and taking it all in.

The main strip:

Just one of many tiger themed mega clubs:

And, on that note, our time in Thailand was up and it was time to head to Cambodia.