In Continuum.

Day four started really late in the morning,  simply because we were in no hurry to do anything in particular. Azhar's left leg was still pretty much swollen, which meant that any climbing expeditions would have to be canceled thereafter. Not to say that it was his fault, but I guess all of us wanted and needed a real good sleep after the sleepless nights previously. I guess living in huts with rats running about and monkeys looking through your thrash in the morning, you just got to make yourself as comfortable as possible even if it is not exactly possible. I mean, we didn't have heaters and electricity is as foreign as the Caucasians on the beaches in the day. A good sleep is probably the least we could ask for, and that morning was a great day to sleep in for the whole morning, waking up only to have breakfast which became my lunch at the same time. That day, we planned to visit The Fourth Beach, the beach that we have yet to visit aside from The Other Beach and Another Beach. So that was what we did after our brunch, and we headed down in one of those long-tail boats again.

The Fourth Beach in development to become yet another tourist resort, the expensive ones that are taking over the cheap economical ones like the Banyan Tree, which we stayed in for ten dollars a night. It was a sad sight indeed, to see a beautiful beach turned into a tourist resort, making the place no different from Koh Phi Phi or Phuket the usual island paradises. I mean, there is nothing wrong in luxury sure, but I guess there is just that timelessness in Krabi that I love, the way it reminded me of that orange farm my friend's uncle owned in Taiwan. Everything smelled old and worn out there, but we had a lot of fun back then plucking oranges off the trees and eating them after we've gathered enough of them. Anyway, this day was the day the boys decided to have some serious sun tanning, and Kevin aimed to turn purple by the end of the trip. So we brought the straw mat along, rubbed ourselves in layers of thick oil, and the lot of them laid down on the sands like dead bodies while Joel and I hung out by the shore and took a stroll down the crowded beach. 

It was amazing to have vendors parking their restaurants by the beach almost literally on boats. The Thais are smart people, they know how to earn money from the tourists. If the tourists can't find your food, then you bring your food to them. So that is what they did, bringing along with them fried rice and roasted chicken on their boats as they parked there by the beach. That beach was probably out first real experience with a whole bunch of Europeans sunbathing in the nude, something which is somewhat of a rarity in Singapore. OK, I think it is against the law - like everything else - in Singapore to have such indecent exposure. But if you think about it, it is pretty much the only way for you to not have ugly tan lines around your breasts. Anyway, here's the thing about Krabi that I have observed: Krabi is over-rated and under-rated in different aspects at the very same time. You see, nudity on the beach must be something a lot of red blooded males out there look forward to. But when we were just hanging out there on the beach, it became just another part of the beach, and nudity was as common as sand on a beach, nothing special really. Krabi is under-rated simply because of how overlooked it is compared to the other holiday destinations in Thailand. But then again, I like it like that, pretty much like the love of mine for anything that is not mainstream.

Children ran around in the nude as well, running their fingers through the sand and eating them without their parents knowing whatsoever. There was this particular girl that we noticed, who strolled out into the middle of the bay with a book in her hands, in nude all the while. Kevin started wondering what is the point in reading in the middle of the sea naked, but Jonno argued that there are some perfection in this world that needn't an answer. I thought she was just sick of her boyfriend, whom she kept shunning away from most of the time. He joined her in the sea and she went back to the beach almost immediately. He rejoined her at the beach and she came out into the bay again. It felt a little strange for us really, we felt a little alien especially with the number of Caucasians around. It was as if we were in Europe or something, when in fact we were less than two hours away from Singapore. They are the visitors, we are really more local than them. Still, we cared little for them and minded our own businesses - which sucked, because I was actually hoping to have a good time just talking about things with somebody there. 

That was my very first day when I got my major sunburn. It became so bad that I couldn't sleep that night, random stinging in the back and shoulders kept me up all night, and I couldn't sleep in any position whatsoever. But that is besides the point for now, because the damage is already done. The sun in Thailand is just different from the one in Singapore, though they are essentially the same. There is a running motto on the island, and you are probably going to find the t-shirt with the words "Same Same, But Different" printed on. It pretty much describes everything in Krabi really. The food are different, but equally good everywhere. The drinks are different as well, and like the food they are equally great too. The sun in Krabi is the same as the one in Singapore, but - once again - different. It's just way stronger and more scorching, and you start to wonder if half the people on the beaches are going to get skin cancer in ten years' time. 

After the trip to the Fourth Beach, we decided to chill out back at Banyan Tree all over again. I took my book and iPod to the lounge for a drink and some quality time alone. But the Scottish guy who only just arrived in Krabi kept on talking about his trip to the rest of Southeast Asia to two other American girls that it became pretty distracting. Besides, Chai, the guy at the counter, started playing a noisy game of Connect Four with one of the girls, which was definitely an unique way for a bartender to pick up a girl at a bar, very unique and different I must say. I love the bar, how laid back everything is. On one side you have the wall of old books, the bar counter itself is lighted only by small little points of red bulbs at the back. There are graphic novels in the bar too, and board games for people to play, plus a guitar that nobody ever uses and a brand I have never heard of. Either way, it is a nice bar and I liked the ambience there a lot. I didn't manage to stay there for very long, simply because of the distractions from the people and the endless mosquitoes that threatened to devour me alive. So I retreated back to Azhar and Kevin's room as we waited for Joel to return from the beach alone. He figured, that if he wasn't able to take shots of the sunrise, then the sunset would do just as good. So that was what he did that afternoon, for the most part.

The bunch of us decided to make a trip down to Krabi town that night, and hopefully grab something to eat there and a few good bargains for gifts and presents for the poor souls back home who failed to experience the brilliance of friend yellow noodle with curry powder and chicken, or the greatest porridge I have ever tasted in my life. But anyway, the food aside, the trip back to Krabi town was pretty interesting. I mean, though it was the same situation there - with there being more foreigners than locals - it still felt a little different on the mainland, simply because people there were staying in expensive resorts right off the bay. We came out of the dirtbag, baptized through mud and everything. It just felt like they were taking the easy way out, but then maybe we were just being cheap Singaporeans. The resort next to our beach cost US$200 a night, while ours cost about SGD$12 a night, give or take. So you see, we paid our price and we are getting the better experiences. All those people congregated in town that night, and it was a bustling and busy night on the streets of Ao Nang.

We visited the stores for some gifts for the people back home, and we decided that it'd be nice to buy a couple of things for the people who wanted to come, but couldn't make it somehow. Jonno got Chelsea a scarf with hibiscus on it, while I got Jeannie, Sherry and my sister a little something after some bargaining from Jonno. That guy is ruthless when it comes to cutting prices, and if he does that any more often than what he has already been doing for the past few times he has been in Krabi, half of the town are going to boycott him sooner or later as a customer altogether. They fear him and you could tell from the look in the eyes of the shopkeeper. Still, he managed to get us good prices and we kept our mouths shut, though I felt a hint of guilt as I walked away from the shop - thoroughly satisfied. Kevin should be kept away from bargaining altogether, simply because he is a "World Class Asshole" as Jonno called him, and he can't make a bargain work at all. He is too nice to make a bargain work, you need someone who is capable of saying "Never mind!" in the face of the shopkeeper when the prices you set are way too low for them to earn any profits. 

On the streets of Ao Nang that night, Azhar and I realized one truth - we were born on the wrong side of the world. Everywhere on the streets, the people were so beautiful and mesmerizing that Azhar and I had to stop in our steps to just stare at them for a few minutes. We are not talking about the locals though, because they were - to be honest - a little disappointing. The tourists were beautiful, or they were beyond beautiful. Even the ordinary ones were astounding and breathtaking, and almost all of them were stunning. The both of us saw a Maria Sharapova lookalike, while I thought I saw Gwyneth Paltrow on the streets as well. Seriously, beautiful people were everywhere, and the sad thing was that none of them would have been interested in the short Asian - Azhar - or the dorky looking sunburnt kid - me. It was a sad sight to see the kind of people they have in Krabi and the people we have in Singapore. Those lucky Krabi men, you lucky bastards.

After getting a bottle of sunburn relief cream, we visited Kevin and Jonno back in the tattoo parlor where Kevin was getting his lizard tattoo. You see, at the beginning of this climbing trip, he was pretty determined to scale the walls of Krabi with ease. So he coined the name "Lizard" and demanded everybody to call him that while he climbed. But when he realized that he gets stuck on almost every rock he attempted, he started calling himself "Baby Lizard", and probably thought the tattoo of a lizard would help him climb better. He was into transforming himself on this trip, everything from the suntan to the tattoo, from the tribal bracelets to the necklace with the shark tooth, everything was in an attempt to make himself look more rugged and attractive for the ladies - or lady - back in school. Let's see on Monday if it all pans out for him. For now, Kevin is known as Baby Lizard, World Class Asshole, or Captain Sunburn because the temperature sensory part of his brain was completely fried. More on that on the next post, the last day. For now, we returned to the main island with happy shopping and a burning sensation in my back, which only grew worse deeper into the night.