Krabi - Road Trippin'

Krabi town was not as lively as we thought it could be. The town was a mere 2km by 5km in size and, to us, had nothing interesting. So we decided to head back to Aonang after all the vehicular trouble we had.

With an overcast sky and an impending storm, our options in Krabi were limited. We could not do cave kayaking at the Ao Luk region of Krabi nor sail to and snorkel around the Chicken Island, Dog Island or Phi Phi Islands (pronounced as pee pee).

Brewing storm

"I heard Phuket's kinda nearby."

According to the receptionists at the resort, Phuket Island was 200 km away from where we were. According to Google Maps, it was exactly 178 km away. 178 km was a mere 2 hours of driving at 90 km/h. According to us, it was time to go.

In our excitement to leave the dark skies in Krabi, we forgot an important article for a road trip. A real map. Instead, we memorised a generic map for the journey.

See red lines for directions: go north, go west, go south.

On a pseudo-highway with scooters moving against the flow of traffic, 178 km appeared distant. After an hour of driving, our primary manual car driver Yakki began to wonder if we were off-track. Refusing to incur hefty overseas data charges on our iPhones or BlackBerry maps, we turned to a compass, scouts-style.

"I believe we should turn left to head west now, yeah?"
Yes, turn left and drive Y km, then turn left and keep going. We'll be in Phuket-land.

We did not worry about the absence of a true map or the lack of road lamps or the performance of our car's toy headlights. Because we were brave men, we did not worry about losing our way in unfamiliar territories. We had no fear. Right.

Creepy-looking skies and roads

Truth is, we had bigger things to worry after reaching Phuket.