Krabi Day 2

Day 2 – 16/10/09
The Rainforest Tour

As mentioned, we booked a private van (and spanking new) for the whole day to bring us wherever we fancy ;-) We started off to Thung Thieo Emerald Pool Natural Park (or Khao Phra Bang Khram Nature Reserve) Took us about an hour from our hotel. Entrance fee was 200 Baht.

The trail

We trekked a bit (800m flat trail) to reach Emerald Pool. The pool was indeed green. Hot springs from the underground are sedimented with layers of alkaline limestone, resulting in a crystal clear large pool. Depending on the temperature and other factors, the water can be anything from crystal clear to deep green (source here).

The pool was shallow, just about the height of my neck. When we arrived, there were not many people around, so we immediately took a plunge. While we were swimming, more people came, until the pool became quite full, so we decided to leave, and it was really hot by then (it was around 11am). We decided to trek to Blue Pool next.

Emerald pool

Inside the pool

Happy bathers!

Blue Pool was a bit further inland, some 1 km away. But it was worth the trek. The water really is azure (due to CaCO3), but we couldn’t swim there. We could see the water whirling at the bottom of the pool, and bubbles coming up. The signage there was in Thai, so it was anybody’s guess whatever it was that caused the whirl (it did say there magma- hot water maybe?). I searched the net and found this: It is a hot spring originated from underground volcanic chambers. Source here

Blue pool

Video of Blue Pool:

We then trekked back to the entry point, but using a different trail which was a bit further than the first trail we took to Emerald Pool. We crossed Crystal Pool on the way, which was also not swimmable as it was full of tree debris. One starkly different thing we noticed here was that the water flowed freely all over, like the place was flooded. It didn’t seem like a river where you normally see a trough/ditch filled with water. This is water ON a FLAT surface flowing freely in all directions.

Looks like flooded area more than stream

Next destination was Bang Kram Hot Spring, a short drive from Emerald Pool. Entrance fee was 80 Baht. The Hot Spring is a natural mineral water source. The temperature is around 40-42 deg C. We took a dip in the natural Jacuzzi, it was nice to soak a bit in warm water, although for not too long, as you could feel dizzy if you stayed longer. As it is a mineral water source, I gulped in the water that I dipped in heheh as I was feeling thirsty. It tasted just like bottled water, and I didn’t fall sick after, so it was fine ;-)

Hot spring

As it was drizzling, we left hurriedly to the shelter of (what else!) a warm, welcoming food stall. We had a sumptuous lunch of tom yam (less spicy this time, to my relief hehe), green curry (yummy), vegetable soup (just OK) and vegetable tempura (which was accidentally ordered – we asked for calamari a.k.a sotong goreng tepung – but the waitress misunderstood – but it tasted really good!)

After lunch (just around RM14/person), we stopped by the airport to fetch Amin. We went to the Factory Outlet next. It just stopped raining, we were still damp from swimming, with no change of clothes and the air cond in the building was at full blast, with not much customer around. We were freezing so much (in supposedly sunny Krabi – such irony!) that we darted to the restroom for some relief. Not much to be found here though– no Le Sports Sac sigh – and the price wasn’t really cheap. However, Zairul and Liza got themselves a vest each.

Factory Outlet

We went back to the hotel next for a quick shower/rest. Then we continued back to Krabi town to the night market. We browsed around here for about 1.5hours. Not really big, but there were more variety compared to our pasar malam. They had all sorts of food, drinks (they even sell cocktails / alcoholic beverages openly at the stalls), musical bands and a stage – a small girl sang that night. They had tables and chairs at an open area for patrons to enjoy their food while it’s still hot – a good idea to emulate for our local pasar malam.

Ketupat daun palas pun ada!

Can sit & enjoy the food

Band

Girl singing

Cocktail pun ada

The others were feeling adventurous, so they tried everything from the Muslim stalls – the most adventurous being the normal/horseshoe crab hybrid (I dunno what type of crab it is really). I didn’t try it though, as I have allergies to seafood (but I ignore them for calamaris though heheh). At the night market, we saw a CIMB Thai branch across the road. Just wanted to tell that.

Not sure what type of crab this is

Tak dpt tmpt duduk...diri je

We then head back to the hotel. We were already full, except for Mas & Razeif. They proceeded to have dinner while the rest went back to retire for the day. I wanted to watch Mr Kayu (Keanu Reeves hehe) acting (on Constantine) but was too sleepy and fell asleep before the movie even started (on Filmax channel).