Ko Lipe
(All photos in this entry are from Ko Lipe)
From Langkawi, I took a ferry via Satun to Ko Lipe – a small, relatively undeveloped island in the Ko Tarutao group off the west coast of southern Thailand. It's still relatively undiscovered, with young families and hippies seeming to dominate (quite a few Russians, for some strange reason???), and I get the feeling a lot of the tourists there want to keep it that way – good luck with that! The lack of development means it's still quite beautiful, although make sure you've got adequate money as there's no banking facilities and prices are higher than elsewhere in Thailand. The huts are basic – bucket toilets, mosquito net (bring tape in case patching is needed!) with electricity between 6pm and 6am only – but cosy enough.

The island is beautiful, of course, although I got some pretty heavy weather and was convinced by a Scandinavian couple to leave for Krabi after only one night, which turned out to be a stupid decision...

Krabi
Okay, I'll admit up front that I'm not in a position to give an impartial verdict on the merits of Krabi, due largely to how pissed off I was during my brief visit. I took the ferry back to Satun with the Scandinavians, and we were then scammed into a private taxi for the long road trip up to Krabi. On arriving in Krabi, the Scandinavians were more interested in getting food and farting around than trying to get accommodation, despite it getting late. It was only once we arrived in the tourist strip that my new “friends” confessed that they already have accommodation arranged. The bastards could have told me that before I subsidised their road trip, wasted time eating dinner with them, and found myself stranded with no cheap beds available at 11pm... The cheapest room I could find was 700B, although because it hadn't been cleaned they were forced to upgrade me to what turned out to be the fanciest room I stayed in during my whole trip. Pity I was too pissed off and tired to appreciate it.

Krabi was the first rowdy British holiday spot I visited in the trip, and I wasn't ready for it after the laid-back attitude on Langkawi and Ko Lipe. Because of this, and because I wanted to put as much distance between myself and the Scandinavians as possible, I left ASAP the following morning. On the drive out, I got a glimpse of the natural beauty of the place with huge karst formations that are popular with rock-climbers, but I'd made my decision...