Situated in the commonly known area of Krabi, the little town of Ao Nang is enclosed by a limestone jungle and engulfed with famous Thai cuisine.
The islands in the South of Thailand are not to be missed and there’s so many to choose from. After spending Christmas and New Year on the Gili Islands in Bali, and with now being on limited time and budget, we opted for a few days in the easy to get to, popular Krabi region.
We arrived to Ao Nang in the dark but when sunrise shone, I was pleasantly surprised to wake up to jungle-like plantation and limestone heights surrounding the road-sides.
The best Thai food in Ao Nang
Considering it’s a small town, Ao Nang was bursting with great places to eat. Here’s our favourites:
Jungle Kitchen – this alfresco, family-run spot is ranked 8th on Trip Advisor for the best priced food in the whole of Thailand, and comes up on top with 1st position for Ao Nang, and it’s no wonder! Jungle Kitchen lives up to its name and hosts a bamboo framed outdoor setting with a laidback feel. The traditional Thai food tastes incredible and Tom was literally blown away by the spicy Massaman curry.
110 baht for curry and rice. Must make a reservation.
1/11 – another beautiful setting in Ao Nang but with more of a modern feel.
140 baht for veggie curry.
Ton my Yong – a great selection of traditional Thai food with a friendly atmosphere.
120 baht for curry.
Things to do in the Krabi region
Railay Beach
Ao Nang does have its own beautiful white-sand beach, but with limited time, we chose to hop on a tail boat to the well-known site of Railay Beach. The boat trip across to the beach was really fun and took around 20 minutes for 200 baht return each – worth it! Once arriving you were immediately confronted by the huge limestone peaks which put the south of Thailand on the map.
Emerald Pool and Hot Springs
We wouldn’t usually book onto an excursion because we like to do things our own way and on our own time, but transport to the other side of Krabi was going to be immensely expensive. So we opted for a half day tour combining both the Emerald Pool and the Hot Springs. In Ao Nang town, there’s numerous booking offices and they were all pricing the trip at around 1,200 baht each, but we managed to haggle our last minute tour to 650 baht each. On reflection, it definitely isn’t worth the asking price.
We firstly arrived at the Hot Springs which were amazing to sit and relax in, however there was a constant stream of people climbing over you, so it did defeat the point of visiting them. If other tourists weren’t there, it would have been paradise, but I’m a part of the pack so can’t complain.
Next up was the lovely walk across to the ‘Blue Pool’ which was the most serene pool of blue water and although it’s gutting that you can’t swim in it, the tranquility of the water is what makes it so beautiful. The pool is filled with quicksand so definitely don’t try it.
Last up was a visit to the Emerald Pool which is the place to cool down in a natural pool on a hot day (basically every day), but 10,000 other people had the same idea. After seeing images of this pool on Google, I was most looking forward to this tourist spot, but it was actually the most disappointing. Apparently it’s a different picture after 4pm when the excursions have gone, but it was so noisy and crowded.
The logistics
We hopped on a direct flight from Bangkok airport to Krabi airport for roughly £20. There’s then numerous transport options available for you to get to the other side of Ao Nang: there’s an airport bus for 150 baht, but a mini bus company were offering the same price to take us to the door of our hostel.
We also booked a return mini bus with our hostel for 150 baht back to the airport.
Ao Nang was a lovely little trip to finish our time off in Thailand after a busy weekend in Bangkok. However, if you have more time and money, I would invest in island hopping around the South of Thailand as even though the Blue Pool was astonishing and the magnitude of limestone karsts surrounding Ao Nang was great, the sites around Krabi shouldn’t be on anyone’s bucket list (as sharp as that sounds).
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