Our place, first anniversary, and birthday

Two weeks ago we were finally able to move into a place we can call our home here in Krabi. It is a little outside of town in a pretty quiet neighborhood, but everything is still within close proximity.

Here is a little tour of the house:

It is a townhouse and right next door are our landlords. The couple speaks no English, but they are very nice and go out of their way to make things comfortable for us.

Entering the house you come into the living room; complete with pictures of the Thai king and queen. Pretty much every house and building here has them.

A pretty big kitchen with access to a tiny backyard.

On the second floor are the sleeping quarters and a very large deck.

Here we have the guest bedroom. This place is quite spacious for the two of us, so if you are in the area or just would like to visit us, come on by!


Slowly we are making this place homey and comfortable for us. But we are also quite busy getting to know the surrounding areas.

For our first anniversary (last week) we spent some quality time at a quiet beach in a secluded bay. We didn't know about this bay before, but ended up here while looking for another place recommended to us.

In order to get to Phaiplong Bay we had to walk past the more touristy beach in Ao Nang and walk over the monkey trail through forest and cliffs. We actually saw the monkeys before we even knew the name of the trail.

Climbing the steps of the monkey trail

View through the trees into the bay

There is only one resort located in the bay. They don't make their guests walk the monkey trail (and actually discourage it) but transport them via boat shuttle. We used the floating dock for a nice picture opportunity.

On the way back from the bay we spent a little more time with the monkeys. They were very tame and (especially) Konrad took a great liking to them...

... and they to him.

This type of monkeys are called long-tailed or crab-eating macaque, which would explain why they reside on the beach side.

One of the little ones even stretched out his hand to me.

This wet macaque (it was playing under water with another monkey) was very curious and interested in Konrad's camera. Had he not held on to it tightly, the macaque would have taken off with it.

We ended the day spending some more fun and quality time in Ao Nang.

For my birthday the next day we wanted to try a new culinary experience and went to a fresh seafood restaurant.

The catch of the day is displayed in a stall on your way in.

Neither of us are great seafood lovers, but we both were positively surprised.
Konrad chickened out literally on the main course (he got chicken instead of seafood), but as an appetizer we had something like fried wontons which we suspect were filled with crab meat. Very delicious actually.

I ordered a shrimp dish and had probably the biggest, freshest, and best tasting shrimp of my life.

That is it for today's update. Stay tuned though - we had a surprise visit from Canada and will be sharing the juicy details of that (along with our other Thai adventures) in our next update.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas,

Konrad & Regina

Arrived in Krabi, Thailand

We are here in Thailand for over a week now, nearing two, so it's definitely time for an entry about the place we'd like to call home for the next little while.

Interestingly, in all of our time here we didn't take half as many pictures as in the 3 days in Beijing. I guess, we are "home" in a sense. There will still be lots of picture opportunities.

This is one of the first pictures we took while having breakfast one morning:
A monkey "walking the line".

Krabi Town itself has no beaches but is right at the river that leads to the ocean. A lot of boats go out from here to some of the nicest beaches that can't be reached by any road or to the gorgeous islands around here.

We often enjoy walking along the river taking in the view of karst mountains and mangrove forests on the other side and convincing the boatsmen that we are not planning to go on a boat trip, which they so eagerly offer.

Konrad enjoying a coconut on the pier.

There are many of these karst mountains that you see in the background around here. If you ever watched James Bond "The Man with the Golden Gun" they might be familiar for you.

"James Bond Tours" are offered which will take you to the exact same ones from the movie.

This particular formation they call the "Dog Ears". I took the picture on a walk in the morning. Notice the high water level on the pier and also the mangroves.

This picture was taken not too far away in the evening, right before it started raining pretty good. In the evenings the tide goes down and water level is very low, exposing all kinds of crabs and other critters in the sand.

We are enjoying very good and inexpensive food around here. There are many restaurants, street stalls, and markets to choose from. This is a traditional dish called Pad Thai.

I had it three times at three different locations already, and it is slightly different every time. But every time it is fried noodles with a choice of chicken, shrimp, or sometimes beef, with different greens and sauces.

This is Pad Thai as well, this time from the night market.

Konrad had a fried rice dish that night.

We also enjoy going to the city market often, mainly for the great abundance of fresh fruit. Some are unknown and exotic for us, but so far we have not been disappointed.

There are no pictures of our place yet, because we are still renting a room in a guesthouse.

On our search for a place we are really learning the meaning of "Thai Time". People live a laid back life style which we really enjoy, but are not very used to when it comes to important decisions.

But, Lord willing, sometime next week we should be able to move out of the guesthouse into our own place.

Next layover.... Beijing

The planned layover time for Beijing was 14 hours and we were hoping to get a "day pass" or something that would allow us to leave the airport and see a little bit of the city.

Well, plans were about to change when we landed.

There was much back and forth between immigration and the first airline counter. A really nice lady from immigration did most of the talking for us, in Chinese, so most of the time we didn't quite know what was going on.

But in the end we got a stamp into our passports for that day. Off they send us by train to get our luggage at a different terminal.

Since we don't want to haul around our suitcases through Beijing all day long, we go searching for the Air China check-in counter. Again, there is some back and forth, some misleading information, until finally we find an able airline worker.

And suddenly all the back and forth started making sense. This was to be the first ever flight of Air China from Beijing to Phuket. BUT... it was delayed by 2 days!

Air China would look after a hotel for us and would help us sort things out regarding a visa.

We were very excited about this turn of things, as it would definitely give us a chance to do some sight-seeing in Beijing. And there was no where we had to be at, as we decided against reserving a place in Thailand beforehand.

At the hotel we were led to a breakfast buffet of rather unfamiliar food items.

There was something like a rice porridge, steamed cabbage leaves with hot peppers, and some steamed wheat flour squares in gravy. If anyone knows the right names for these foods, we would love to learn them.

Although it was quite unusual, we liked most parts of this breakfast.

After sleeping off our jet-lag we started exploring the hotel and its surroundings.

Turns out the hotel is pretty close to the airport, but rather far away from all the sight seeing spots that are located in the center of the city.

There were many conference rooms in the hotel, and one of them had this nice set-up. Later on we found out it was for one of two weddings that were taking place here on the weekend.


Since we couldn't do much exploring of Beijing on our own we booked a tour for the next day that would bring us to the Badaling Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. But not without stopping by some factories on the way, as we later figured out :)

First stop was a jade processing factory.

Among many other things they were making these "family balls" from one piece of jade. Depending on the size there are 2, 3, 5, and up to 7 layers inside one ball; one for each generation.

This jade ship was not made from one piece, but still it is an impressive piece of skilled craftsmanship.

Now it's on to the Great Wall. We were both very excited that our unplanned layover would give us an opportunity to visit this great monument that is part of the seven wonders of the world.

There were two paths to choose from, the shorter and steeper or the longer and easier one. We took the first one. This is the look onto the longer route.

It was a rather cold day with temperatures just barely in the plus (Celsius), but the sunshine made it a really nice day.

Climbing the wall wasn't exactly easy, with steps in all different heights and widths. Sometimes so high that I had to pull myself up a step on the railing, and sometimes so narrow that only one person could walk them.

This was at the highest point we climbed to since we were given limited time before we had to be back at the bus.

Rather exhausted, but in awe. And really soaked through all the layers we were wearing :)

The way down was much faster and easier, hence the more cheerful faces.

After the wall climb we were served some really delicious Chinese food. But I have a feeling that it was adjusted to the North America palate and understanding of Chinese food. Nonetheless, it tasted really amazing.

Next stop were the Ming tombs. We actually saw only one tomb as the other ones are spread out over a pretty large valley.

Behind this red box is the actual tomb. It has been sealed by the government to prevent fresh air eroding whatever may be left there.

The next stop was a silk factory. We were shown the different stages of the silk worm before it builds its cocoon which basically is the silk thread.

For our last stop we could decide between foot massages or a traditional tea ceremony. Since the wall climb turned out to be a rather sweaty exercise, we didn't want to torture a Chinese masseuse with our smelly feet. So the decision fell on the tea ceremony.

On our way through the city the bus stopped on the side of the road to give us an opportunity to take pictures of the Bird's Nest, the stadium of the 2008 Olympics, and another building called Pangu Plaza that is shaped like a long dragon.

Exhausted from a long tour day we had some noodle soup (with chop sticks) at the hotel before crashing for the night.

On our last day we had some cookie breakfast (you can read more about that here) and some coffee at the cafe before heading to the airport for our flight to Thailand.

Working a bit at the airport to kill time. Unfortunately we couldn't update the blog in China, as this and other pages were blocked there.

And chillaxing on some great lounge chairs before boarding out plane to Phuket.

On board the plane we were invited to celebrate a little with the airline and stewardesses because it was Air China's very first flight on this route from Beijing to Phuket.