We arrived into Krabi in Thailand on Monday morning and made our way to Ao Nang, a beach with a strip of restaurants and bars reminiscent of Malaga or Miami, rather than an authentic Thai experience. But it was a good spot for chilling on the balcony, swimming in the pool, and getting back into Thai food and snacks. Our one excursion was a bike trip to a hilltop cafe with the most stunning view, before calling that enough excitement for the day and heading back to the hotel pool to escape the heat. Otherwise it was all lazy mornings, sociable evenings, and lots of curries.

Our friends Mel and Thomas arrived on Tuesday. Creed met Thomas in Guatemala 2 and a half years ago and convinced him to go to Utila in Honduras. The rest of us all met each other in Utila, where we shared a house together for two months and had the best time scuba diving, partying, cooking, playing boardgames, singing karaoke, and becoming best friends. After our whole friendship group travelled to Colombia together for New Year 2022, Creed and I continued travelling with Mel and Thomas through Ecuador and the Galapagos for another 5 weeks. That was the last time we saw Mel! We managed to meet up with Thomas in France last summer, and agreed to try to all meet up in Asia this year, since they have been travelling and working in Malaysia, Thailand and the Phillipines for the past 7 months. It took a lot of back and forth and plan changes and failed attempts, but we were finally reunited!

And on Friday, Louis, another of our friends from Utila arrived! Louis has just finished up a year working and travelling in Australia with a friend, and was meeting up with his sisters, one of whom has recently been travelling through Indonesia with a friend, and the other who is on a shorter holiday with her boyfriend. Another couple of Louis’ sister’s friends who were travelling in the area also joined them, and one of Thomas’ friends from home joined us, and suddenly our group was 13 people, made up of 5 different nationalities.

Saturday was Songkran, Thai New Year, also known as the water festival. There are no real events – it’s not religious, so there are no temple visits, and it’s not super cultural, so there are no local shows or performances. It’s literally just an enormous country-wide water fight. Everyone takes to the streets with water pistols and buckets, and everyone is fair game. It’s so hot here at the moment that being frequently sprayed – or completely drenched – is actually quite refreshing. Every shop has large water tubs for refilling guns, and the locals set up paddling pools and claim street corners ready to attack any passerby. The streets are packed with pickup trucks full of people in the back squirting all the pedestrians as they roll slowly by, or more accurately as they wait, stuck in traffic, allowing the pedestrians to retaliate.

We acquired our weapons from 7-Eleven, which exists everywhere in Thailand and sells anything you could possibly want at an impossibly low price: Grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate muffins, weird flavours of soda, and water pistols. We geared up with the tiniest available water guns just because they were in the shape of dinosaurs, and took to the streets. The festival is a lot of fun, but since there are no actual events it’s definitely something you want to participate in in small doses! We got suitably wet and fought as hard as our little guns would allow, before retreating to the safety of our peaceful and dry room.

On Sunday we moved to Krabi Town, around 30 minutes drive from the beach. It’s definitely a less touristy area, which usually all of us prefer, but we weren’t sure how it would feel during the Songkran festival. It turned out that while Songkran in most places in Thailand lasts 3 days, in Krabi Town it is only 1 day, and it was the day before! So instead of a continued water fight, we spent the afternoon exploring the mangroves by boat, and the evening exploring the night market. On Monday we headed to Railay Beach, a famous tourist hotspot thanks to its large stretch of white sand and stunning rock formations jutting out from the beautiful turquoise water. It was lovely in the morning, not too crowded with plenty of shade, but by midday the crowds had arrived and the shade was shrinking fast. I unfortunately got quite burnt, which of course was entirely my own fault, but meant the afternoon was all about running away from the sun rather than enjoying the beauty with my friends! On Tuesday we headed to a temple at the top of 1260 steps, and were wise enough this time to leave at 5.30 am in order to avoid the heat. It was a fun outing, we were back by 10, and relaxed for the rest of the day before heading out to the night market for a final dinner all together as a large group.

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!