On the Tourist Trail Part 2

Krabi has a pleasant feel to it, low rise and very spread out and built on the Krabi River which gently flows into the Andaman Sea. It is a major staging post for the islands and playgrounds of southern Thailand.

We had a very unsatisfactory experience at the City Seaview Hotel which advertised a deal of stay for three nights and get the fourth free. This is on the internet and it is the only deal on offer from this establishment and it started 1st May 2009. Except the receptionist did not know about it, claimed she would have to check with her boss and in effect denied us the deal. So we stayed one night only and the hotel got 800 baht from us instead of 2,400 had we been able to take the promotion. A major problem with the toilets in the standard rooms which have no ventilation and stink! Great location, great views over the Krabi river but another place where the agenda is sadly to screw customers.

We had a very pleasant afternoon at Ao Nang beach about 20 kilometres west and possibly one of the nicest beaches I have seen in Thailand, post card stuff really, golden sands, clear aquamarine seas, distant craggy limestone out crops. I had to arm myself with a stick to beat off the barrel of monkeys that hang out at the eastern end of the beach where the path leads up over the rocks leading to one of the these very exotic and expensive resorts....this one with no road access. Some kids came along with bags of stuff from the local stores and the monkeys quite literally had the contents and one little miscreant ran off with a little boy's plastic toy! We treated ourselves to an extremely expensive ice cream from the Haagen Daz store.....yummy! A mango passion that cost something like 280 baht! Ao Nang is very touristy with MacDonalds and Irish theme bars but no obvious seediness. I liked it a lot and would recommend it for a seaside break.

Then I saw something that restored my hopes in Thai tourism. A beach side massage joint had a sign up saying "50% discount".....guess what? It was swarming with customers, that is if horizontal customers can swarm, in stark contrast to every other enterprise which was virtually empty fronted by glum stuff reminiscent of sad labradors. Are you really going to go into a place with that as the welcome?

In Krabi town a nice woman did our washing and stitched up my ripped strides, in fact she did an excellent job. She charged a reasonable price, less than I expected and guess what? She got a tip which brought a big smile to her face and she would get my business every time if I lived in that area.

I mean this stuff is not rocket science, I learned it all in the mini cab game back in London. You have to minimise your losses and that means getting as much money in as you can. You can't afford to lose customers. For instance there were a number of occasions when I had people who did not have the money to pay the full fare....I took what they had simply to get them out the car and get the next customer in and invariably some one tipped me later and that more than made up for any losses. Thereafter there was no point moaning or even thinking about it.... just get on with it, smile and be happy because for sure your next punter is not going to be interested in your problems! Hey that is life, look after your existing customers, make them happy and they'll look after you!

We went to mass in St Agnes Church, Ao Nang, Sunday and connected with a truly small but very catholic community! Note the small "c"! A Brunei Chinese & Hong Kong Chinese couple on holiday from Vancouver, Canada, Brits from Staines and the Channel Islands, Indians, Filipino teachers and Thais. An Indian couple provide Indian food after the service so we had a very pleasant lunch of samosas, rice and chicken curry and nan bread. I did not understand a word of the service which was said in Thai but it is a beautiful church and worth a visit.

As an alternative to staying in Krabi we decided to head for nearby Koh Phi Phi, the legendary island of The Beach fame and full moon raves. We made a major error in not pre-booking a hotel and allowed ourselves to pay an obscene amount to a travel agent on arrival in Phi Phi. We paid 1050 baht a night for a room which should have cost about 400. The resort had one saving grace, it included a decent buffet breakfast. However we were carrying baggage and with Luna being so advanced in her pregnancy we did not want to be walking around looking for a room. I must say I was fizzing mad with anger so I threw my toys out of the pram for about an hour and then decided to make the most of it. Get over it, Gerry, I heard myself saying, enjoy your stay.

Our request for a sea view meant we were facing the back of a row of bungalows with not so much as a glimmer of the sea. The room looked as if the door had been kicked off and would duly oblige if you leant against it; most of the furniture was broken! Over the next few days I saw what happened as our neighbours moved to better rooms and presumably paid a lot more for the privilege. Get the punters in and then try to get them to pay more for better facilities. Plus the receptionist looked at me as if I was stupid when I enquired about drinking water! I guess it is all part of the learning curve! In fairness though most of the staff in the place were very helpful and cheerful and as I say the breakfast was good.

Koh Phi Phi is stunningly beautiful, a visual feast, beautiful beaches and rocky inlets, eagles and kites soaring high in the sky. But it is a tourist ghetto and seems to be very popular with the under 40s and day trippers who arrive in their thousands from Krabi and Phuket. By night it was pretty laid back after the day trippers had gone.

I imagine however that at peak periods PhiPhi must be a nightmare place and even though there are no cars or motorbikes it must get very crowded. But PhiPhi has some charm. I had a few day trips by boat and did some snorkelling which was fun. Quite literally it is a case of get under and start admiring the colourful fish and marine life, zero effort required.

We headed to the southern islet of Bida and off that we saw thousands of frigate birds, big black and white fellows, probably greater frigate birds, but as the sea was swelling up and fairly rough it was difficult to get a good sight of them. Kay our boatman did not want to go further into the sea to get nearer to the birds as it would leave us more exposed to rough sea and we were both happy to go with his judgement.

Elsewhere there are abundant imperial pied pigeons, black-naped terns, collared kingfisher, pacific reef egrets and all manner of the usual suspects....sunbirds,flower peckers and bulbuls, nb white vented bulbul ...... plus we had fun watching the very noisy antics of shiny asian starlings, males and females, with very groovy red eyes. PhiPhi is brahminy kite territory par exellence; there is a viewpoint which is not exactly easy to get to because the signage runs out but once I got there towards dusk I had a magical half hour or so watching a group of about 10 brahminy kites hovering and soaring above the forest canopy and then pouncing on likely quarry before....all against the back drop of the shimmering Andaman Sea as the sun went down. We saw a number of white-bellied sea eagles and possibly an osprey which we rumbled in cliffs and whatever it was it dramatically swooped up and appeared to be clutching a fish in its feet. I was hoping to sight a nicobar pigeon but alas no. I reckon the birding in PhiPhi is possibly underrated and in fact has a lot to offer and most of all it takes you away from the Bob Marley aficionados!

Phi Phi is absurdly expensive and we started calling it Kho PairngPairng but it is beautiful and if you don't mind paying there is some very fine fish and sea food on offer. It also appears to be the dive centre of Thailand and I suspect it possibly represents very good value for that sort of activity. Every other enterprise appeared to be a diving company, most of them Western managed. I spoke to an English guy who runs a company and he said it had been a very difficult year and that it had started very promisingly until the Bangkok airport debâcle in December and thereafter it had just been quiet.

After four days with a sore back from the bed I have to say I was happy to get back on the boat and back to Krabi and hit the Phetchakasem to get home to dear old Ratchaburi. The drive to Chompung was truly spectacular. 900 kilometres and 12.5 hours later we crawled into our bed at about 0130 the next day. Good to be back home. It was lovely to have a break together and see more of this fantastic country notwithstanding some of the setbacks mentioned.

I would be concerned if I depended on tourism for a living. The global economic situation clearly has had a big effect on numbers this year and that is likely to continue into next year; Thailand's fragile political situation has definitely not helped; the swine fever also has had some short term impact. However my impression is that Thailand represents bad value right now and that too many business are putting money ahead of quality of service when clearly it has to be the other way around. The service brings in the revenue, duh! I suspect many people have had unsatisfactory experiences in Thailand over the last few months and this will influence their future choices and their opinions. In my humble opinion the future for Thai tourism is pretty bleak but in such an environment there are clearly opportunities for those who are prepared to be bold.