Ao Nang, Muay Thai and some sun at last!

We made it to Krabi and jumped on a local bus to Ao nang which is on the coast as it sounded quieter in guide book. A good choice and even though the weather was still a bit cloudy for the first few days, the sun did come out and it was hot! Ao Nang is still a bit toursity but it had everything we needed so we decided to call it home for 12 days or so until it was time to move onto Phi Phi to meet up with Jodi for Christmas and New Year. We found a great place to stay, reasonable, clean, balcony and a huge fridge - what more could you want? We had a favourite, local restaurant 'Ao Nang boat noodle' which was cheap and delicious and we ended up here most nights much to the owners amusement.
While in Ao Nang, we passed the time exploring the area on our moped, sunbathing on the beach, generally relaxing with a couple of trips  and I Thai boxed every day for a couple of hours. John even gave me a moped lesson, which was harder than it looked!
We went on a kayaking trip through the mangroves of a national park. This was great for us as the scenery was very different to our usual kayaks at home and we were in a double which we are not used to! This prompted some discussion on how best to proceed!!! and ended with us mainly taking it in turns to paddle while the other relaxed and enjoyed the sights. This seemed to work the best through the very tight mangroves, until wwe ere heading back to the jetty through the sea again and managed to pull together as a team for a final spurt and passed everyone to the finish! Our driver on the jetty had to comment that we came back very fast and even overtook the instructor! You've always got to be first in my book, so a good day was had by all!




We did a half day cooking course and it turned out it was only John and I doing it so we got proper one to one training (much needed by me!). The woman recogised straight away who did the cooking and asked John if he cooked!! I don't know how she might have worked this out when we were only chopping vegetables!!! Food was lovely but far too much of it for us to eat while there. Look forward to some Thai themed cooking on our return!
  
On another day we chose to go out on a sunset cruise, which was a 6 hour snorkelling trip on a longtail. For once we chose a trip really well, there weren't too many people and the 3 snorkelling sights were fab too. We avoided a jelly fish and John even managed to see a black tip reef shark hunting close to the sea bed. We stopped off at a deserted island with a gorgeous beach for sunset and watched thousands of giant bats making their way out of their bat cave for a hunting trip. Then we headed back with one last snorkelling stop at night to see the phospherence under the water. This was amazing! It was completely black under the water and the more you flapped your arms and legs the more the flourescent plankton and bubbles lit up around you.

Me floating around at the surface

John sitting on the bottom

Th\e boat driver feeding the fish banana!

Sunset

Me drowning John again! while snorkelling at night.

I Thai boxed the whole time I was in Ao nang for 2 hours per day. Emerald gym was a pretty serious gym where the French owner and many of the other guys were training for actual fights. The head trainer told every one early on that I was like a boy with lots of power . He was very amused by this and took pleasure in pushing me and giving me a  light hit around the head if my guard dropped! It was definitely hard work in the heat; a whole new level of sweaty working out and I spent most of the time covered in bruises and blisters but I loved every minute.
We could have stayed in Ao Nang a lot longer but Phi Phi Island and Jodi were calling so eventually we packed our bags and moved on again.