Remember we blogged about our two days adventures in Krabi and Trang? Here’s the recap: Krabi Trang Holiday Day One: Ku La Ka Sai Restaurant, Tham Le Cave, Pak Meng Beach Resort, Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part One: Pak Meng Beach, Koh Chuak Island and Koh Mah Island and Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part Two: Koh Kradan Island, Emerald Cave (Marakot) at Koh Mook Island and Sunset Pak Meng Beach. Before I continue with Day Three, let me bring you to the town of Trang for the famous food!

Our guide brought us to the town to get the best food as we were told. As Thailand is popular as pork meat exporter, Trang has its own pork delicacy that is worth a try, it is the crispy pork.

We thought we would see a typical old man butchering the pork meats but it was a lady with the knife and the chopping board. With so many crispy pork bellies available for sale, this stall must be popular with the locals.

We ordered a small plate for us to try. The crispy pork belly is similar to Chinese version of “siew yuk” but they deep fried the pork unlike the Chinese methodology of roasting. The crispy pork is delicious and sinful.

Do not attempt to do the calories count here, not in Trang and not in Thailand. The best part of all, you do not need to dig deep in your pocket for this.

After the sinful experience with the crispy pork, we walked to the next shop for another popular food in Trang, the cakes and the pastries.

Dozens of different swiss rolls, cakes and pastries were stacked up like bricks and the flavours available were adventurous. The flavours include yam (taro), orange, pandan, coconut, banana, butter, fruits and coffee flavours. They have swiss rolls, puffs, cakes and even mooncakes!

With so many selections, we were spoilt for choices. The best part was three boxes of cakes/pastries were only 100 baht (RM 10, US$ 3.5)! That was really a steal!

The address of the crispy pork is as below:

Here is the map:

We have tried to get something in English but they didn’t have it. Print it out or something and try your luck!

Wait! That was not all of it. Check out our full adventure in the next few days, which includes our journey back to Krabi and also our attempt on Krabi’s famous duck noodle!

We celebrated our 2009 Christmas in Thailand with our friends. It was a five days four nights holiday and you can read about our adventure holiday below:

Krabi Trang Holiday Day One: Ku La Ka Sai Restaurant, Tham Le Cave, Pak Meng Beach Resort

Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part One: Pak Meng Beach, Koh Chuak Island and Koh Mah Island
Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part Two: Koh Kradan Island, Emerald Cave (Marakot) at Koh Mook Island and Sunset Pak Meng Beach

Krabi Trang Holiday Day Three: Krabi Duck Noodle, Tiger Cave Temple, Krabi Fisheries Research Center, Aonang, Azzurra Italian Restaurant.

Krabi Trang Holiday Day Four: Four Island Tour Excursion and Visiting Krabi Town

Krabi Trang Holiday Day Five: Breakfast at McDonalds Ao Nang and Goodbye Thailand

Our Krabi Trang Holiday Day Three continues with us going to Trang town for their local famous food. There is a recap what we did on the first two days, Krabi Trang Holiday Day One: Ku La Ka Sai Restaurant, Tham Le Cave, Pak Meng Beach Resort, Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part One: Pak Meng Beach, Koh Chuak Island and Koh Mah Island and Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part Two: Koh Kradan Island, Emerald Cave (Marakot) at Koh Mook Island and Sunset Pak Meng Beach. It was for the crispy pork, swiss rolls and pastries. You can read our full review at Trang Famous Food.

Krabi Duck Noodle

After the quick bite, we were on the road again, this time traveling back to Krabi. We stopped at the Duck Inn Resort for their famous duck noodle. This is one of their local delicacies in Krabi that is not to be missed. This place is usually packed with loads of tourists.

Krabi Duck Noodle Contact:

Tel: 075-663185, 081-4776002

Tiger Cave Temple

Next, we went to the Tiger Cave Temple. It is called the Tiger Cave temple because of the rock outgrowth nearby resembling a tiger’s claw.

There is a beautiful temple sits at the bottom of the hill. The pagoda influenced temple is visited by hundreds of visitors daily.

Monkeys were straying around the temple compound area. Please beware of your belongings if you are near the monkeys as they can be quite playful. Venturing the top of the hill is an uphill task with 1,200 steps in between. We were told the view from the top is breathtaking!

Krabi Fisheries Research Center

Then, we went to Krabi Fisheries Research Center, one of the newest attractions in Krabi. This project is initiated by the Thai government to research and to breed the marine life.

The centre breeds endangered species in large salt water lakes next to the coast, for research and conservation – most fish are eventually released back into the sea in order to boost local populations. Popular fish such as clown fish are breed here.

We went back to Ao Nang in Krabi and check in at Beach Terrace Hotel.

This was a typical sunset view at Ao Nang beach. The scenery is one of the reasons why Ao Nang is so loved by tourists in Krabi.

Azzurra Italian Restaurant

For dinner we went to Azzurra Italian Restaurant in Ao Nang, an authentic Italian restaurant in Krabi since 1998. Ao Nang is also a popular shopping district with dozens of bars, pubs and restaurants. There are also food stalls along the Ao Nang main road. Some of the food is HALAL and cooked by Thai Muslims.

In Azzurra we had Cozze alla Marinara, Scalopping di Maiale al Lime, Gnocchi al Pesto, Zuppettina di Mare and Tiramisu. It was not cheap but we enjoyed the authentic food. The owner is an Italian who married a local. The restaurant was packed during the evening.

Azzurra Italian Restaurant Address and Contact:

142/1-2, Ao Nang Beach Rd,

81000, Thailand

Tel: +66 081 8938817, +66 075 637848

Email: francoazzura@hotmail.com

Website: www.ristorante-azzura.com

After dinner, we went back to hotel and rest. We need all the rest because we will be island hopping on the next day!

This is the continuation of Krabi Trang Holiday Day Two Part One: Pak Meng Beach, Koh Chuak Island and Koh Mah Island which we posted a few days earlier. If you enjoyed our little story on part one, part two will be more adventurous.

After two snorkelling sessions at Koh Chuak Island and Koh Mah Island, we sailed to Koh Kradan Island for lunch.

The boat anchored at Koh Kradan Island and the view is beautiful. The water near Koh Kradan Island was crystal clear, we can see the corals at the bottom. The visibility of the water was good, the sea wave was calm and the weather was excellent. We got really lucky on Christmas day!

We had lunch on the boat as it was packaged with the snorkelling tour package. Don’t expect something luxurious or “heavy” since we will be snorkelling later on as well. Thus, we had an Asian style lunch. They served white rice with soup, luncheon meat, chicken, vegetables and watermelon. That was really good enough for us.

Heavy lunch is never good for snorkelling except you want the fish to get extra free food, if you get what I mean.

Thanks to the clear visibility underwater, we have clearer view of the sea corals.

Underwater pictures were taken with Olympus Tough 8000 Series.

After snorkelling near Koh Kradan Island, we went to our final destination (not the movie), Koh Mook Island or Emerald (Marakot) Cave.

In 2005, I was here but never had the chance to go to Koh Mook Island due to bad weather and strong waves so it was good to come back again for it.

There is a reason why Emerald Cave of Koh Mook Island is the main attraction of Trang. The best view of the Emerald Cave is within the island and not around the island. For that, we were required to swim into the island under the caves.

High tides or strong waves would make this trip impossible. We led by our guide and there is a rope for us to hold on.

We formed a queue and we swam into the dark. The area was pitch-dark and not even a single source of light was available. It was similar to the similar to the movie, Sanctum.

After we swam for a few minutes, we saw the light at the end of the cave.

There is a beach within the island with a small little forest.

There were already a lot of people on the beach as we went in.

If you are wondering why it is called the emerald cave, you can clearly see the emerald colour of the water and also the cave of Koh Mook Island.

We didn’t spend much time at the Emerald Cave as we were too tired.

Goodbye Trang’s four island tours!

By the time we reached Pak Meng Jetty, it was already late afternoon. There were roadside stalls near the jetty selling local delicacies.

Homemade ice cream wrapped with bread is probably some of the unique ones.

We went back to our resort and took a short nap.

Then we walked to Pak Meng beach for the sunset view. The beach is located in front of Pak Meng resort.

While some were still sleeping, the girls didn’t want to miss the sunset.

When you have a group of girls together, they tend to do weird posing for sunset photography.

We waited for the magic moment before we went back to the resort for dinner. The magic moment is a few minutes moment before the sun setting in. During this moment, the sky will turned to beautiful blue colour which will last for a few minutes.

Lastly, after dinner we all gathered and played drink games. Since liquor is cheap in Thailand, we got ourselves a bit carried away and we were pissed drunk at the end of the day. It was a fun and enjoyable day in Trang and also our last day in Trang.

Please check out our upcoming adventure stories in Krabi in the next few days, you will not be disappointed!

Firstly, for your information, Trang will be having Trang Vegetarian Festival from Sept 27^th to Oct 5^th 2011 and please email tattrang@tat.or.th for details.

Secondly, I hope you all enjoy the recommendation we did on the Krabi Trang Holiday Day One: Ku La Ka Sai Restaurant, Tham Le Cave, Pak Meng Beach Resort. For our holiday day two, it will be separated to two parts, Part One and Part Two. The reason being because there are too many pictures and in total there are 40 pictures. Loading a page with 40 pictures is no fun so we break it to two parts.

The day started with breakfast in Pak Meng Resort. Since the resort is facing the sea, we walked down to the beautiful Pak Meng beach.

From far we can see some little movements on the beach. It was the baby crabs. There were so many tiny holes on the beach.

This could be one of the scenes from the National Geographic. As soon as we went there to see, the little crabs will burrow into the sands to hide and protect themselves. For that, we stood still for more than a minute and we tricked the crabs to surface up and I managed to grab a few pictures of them as close as possible. There could be thousands of this baby crabs along the Pak Meng beach. What a sight!

For some unknown reason, Rachel loves me to give her a “piggy back” ride.

We went back to the resort, packed our bags for the Trang island tours. We will be visiting Koh Chuak, Koh Mah, Koh Kradan and Koh Mook (Emerald Cave) for snorkelling.

The journey from the resort to the Pak Meng Jetty only took minutes. The landscape of Pak Meng beach is the few beautiful islands at the background.

We took a group shot at Pak Meng Jetty before we hop on to the boat for the island tour.

We went to Koh Chuak Island first. It took us almost an hour of boat ride from the jetty. It would be faster if we took the speed boat, however due to our budget we were happy with our ride.

There were already a few boats there and they were mostly Westerners. The beauty of this part of Thailand is the colour of the sea water is turquoise colour.

The island tour was packaged and provided by Pak Meng Resort. Our guide made sure we had our snorkelling gears such as mask and safety vest before we jumped into the water.

Rachel did the “giant leap” into the water. What a splash!

The girls were ready for the snorkelling at Koh Chuak Island, let’s go!

For the underwater pictures, we used the Olympus Tough 8000 Series. The camera is weather proof, shock proof and can go as deep as 10m underwater, good enough for snorkelling. We have been using the camera since 2009. All the underwater pictures are contrast corrected and sharpened.

The visibility of the water was good, I managed to capture the corals while snorkelling.

The Clown fish or more popular as “Nemo” at Koh Chuak Island and there are quite a number of them.

A school of Yellow Tiger Fish below the boat as the guide attracted them with slices of bread.

We took a lot of pictures on the surface and underwater. However I realized that we only have two gestures which are the “good sign” or the “peace sign”.

The weather was good, the water was calm. After snorkelling at Koh Chuak Island, we ventured to Koh Mah Island.

If you are wondering why are this two islands called Koh Chuak and Koh Mah? Seriously, I have no idea. I went on searching their information on the Internet but I found nothing.

We bumped to the same boats again in Koh Mah, they were doing the same island tour as us.

They were more impatient than us. I bet they were having fun like us.

Koh Mah Island is slightly bigger than Koh Chuak Island. Snorkeling at Koh Mah Island is almost identical to Koh Chuak but they have more “green corals”.

Rachel could snorkel all day long without her life jackets. She just enjoys snorkelling and she can snorkel all day long if she is in Redang Island.

The visibility in the water was good and the water colour is naturally turquoise in colour. We did two snorkelling sessions before noon and there are two more sessions to go.

Check out our part two adventure soon which involves Koh Kradan Island andthe infamous Emerald Cave(Marakot) of Koh Mook Island in Trang. There will be also fun sunset pictures in Pak Meng Beach, all of that in part two!

Back in 2009, we and our friends decided to celebrate our Christmas out of the country. We wanted a place with sandy beaches and beautiful island which is priced reasonable. I recommended Krabi and Trang to them.

The first time I went to Krabi was in 2005 with my family and friends. Back then, Krabi was already popular but not with Malaysians. As Air Asia started to fly to Krabi, the impact is huge. Krabi is opened to Malaysia and Malaysia is opened to Krabi. The win win situation promotes healthy tourism in both countries. Krabi is a popular tourist spot to mainly Scandinavians is also getting popular with Malaysians and Singaporeans. Despite being a popular tourist destination, Krabi is still affordable.

Next, where is Trang? Trang is a small beach town which is located at the SOUTH of Krabi. It takes around 2 hours of driving from Krabi to Trang. Trang has its own attractions such as sandy beaches and near to a few beautiful islands such as Chuak Island, Muah Island, Kradan Island and Emerald Cave at Mook Island.

As I mentioned traveling to Krabi never been easier with Air Asia, my previous trip in 2005 was via bus and it took more than 2 hours from Hadyai and another 6 hours from Kuala Lumpur, loved the ride but tiring.

There was a bit of drama as there were unexpected winds currents near Krabi International Airport so the plane landed on the 4^th attempt. We were running late for almost half an hour but our guide told us it is common.

There were 8 of us altogether in this trip.

Rachel and I, Steph, Khai, Laney, Sook sisters and Yvonne from Hong Kong at the Krabi International Airport.

I customize the trip with the travel agent for this trip. Most hotels in Krabi charge a compulsory dinner for guests during Christmas so we diverted our travel plans to Trang. The travel agent assigned a huge van and a guide for us, tipping is up to us.

Immediately after we left the airport, we went to the famous seafood restaurant located just a stone away from the airport. The restaurant is called Ku La Ka Sai.

It is a seafood restaurant and it’s concept is similar to Malaysia’s Thai “Fish Farm” restaurants. I was told this is one of the best in Krabi. Read more about my review on Ku La Kasai restaurant HERE.

Ku La Kasai Address and Contact:

165 M. 6, Klong Cholpratarn RD.

Pakasai, Nua Klong, Krabi 81130

Tel: 075-691445, 084-7440119

As soon as we finished our late lunch, we rushed to the last destination of the day which is to visit the Tham Le Cave or Khaohob. The place is located one and half hour away from Krabi.

What so special about this Tham Le Cave? Believe it or not, Tham Le Cave is one of the key tourist attractions for Trang. To access to the Tham Le Cave, we need to lie down on our little wooden boat (sampan) to drift inside a cave through the river.

As the walls of the cave are so low, we can only enter Tham Le Cave during low tide.

Tham Le Cavehas a temple built by the locals and also the beautiful stalactite and stalagmite formations.

We struggled to go out because it was late afternoon. At one point, our boat was stuck! Read the full experience of Tham Le Cave HERE! We had fun!

We reached our hotel in the evening. We stayed at Pak Meng Beach Resort in Trang. The resort is only a few kilometers away from the jetty.

Pak Meng Resort Trang Address and Contact:

60/1 Moo4, Maifad, Sikao

TRANG 92150, THAILAND

Tel    +66(0)75-274112,+66(0)75-203031

Fax   +66(0)75-274111

pakmengresort@hotmail.com

info@pakmengresort.com

http://www.pakmengresort.com

The resort is quiet and the rooms are chalet type concept. Only the manager can speak fluent English, the rest can only speak Thai. However, that doesn’t mean the service was awful. Remember, this is the Land of Smiles.

The dinner was good, particularly the Thai food such as Tom Yam Gong and it was a quiet evening even though it was Christmas eve. Many people would prefer the busy Krabi at that time but we enjoyed the happy moments with friends together.

We ended the day early as the next day we will be out to the sea for the island tour. Everyone was happy with the first day and the upcoming days could be only better!

*You can consider the places that we have visited in this trip for your future itinerary to Krabi*

Emerald Cave (Tham Morakat in Thai) is the hidden gem of Southern Thailand and the top attraction of Trang, Thailand. It is also known as Crystal Pool of Koh Muk (Muk Island).

The nearest town to Emerald Cave is Trang and we chartered a long tail boat to go there.

Upon reaching the Koh Muk or Muk Island, we need to swim into the Emerald Cave.

The uniqueness of the Emerald Cave is there is a beach within the island. To enter, we need to swim into the island. This is only can be possible during low tide. When I went Trang 7 years ago, I didn’t manage to swim into the Emerald Cave due to high tide.

With the help of the guide, we held on each other to swim in. We were swimming in a line like a flock of ducks.

Swimming into the caves of Koh Muk was fun. It was completely dark for minutes as everyone held on tight on each other’s safety vest. No one knows how long do we need to swim into the cave but the guide was led us in kept asking us if we are okay.

After several minutes, we can see a bright light at the end of the cave. That’s where everyone was getting excited.

There is a beach and surrounded by trees. It felt like we were in a different world. The water is crystal clear, that’s why they named it as crystal pool of Koh Muk. The beach is beautiful.

There were quite a number of tourists. Surprisingly the locals outnumbered the foreigners.

I took the Olympus Mu 8000 Weatherproof Camera for this trip so the photo resolution wasn’t the best.
However, since it is a waterproof camera, I managed to take many underwater shots during this trip.

We enjoyed the unique landscape there. It was like a mini forest within the limestone island.

We spent some time there before we swam back to the boat, with the help of the guide. It was an opener and we enjoyed every part of it.

Koh Muk is located at the South of Koh Lanta and there are tours available to Koh Muk from Trang. Please do check out the local operators in Trang or ask the hotel receptionists in Trang for more info and rates.

Last Christmas I went to Trang, Thailand for a short holiday with Rachel and my friends. Trang is located in between Krabi and Hat Yai.

Trang is a peaceful town with the beautiful beaches like the Pak Meng beach.

We stayed at the Pak Meng Resort which is located at the opposite of the Pak Meng beach.

The resort offers chalet type of accommodations. Each chalet is just minutes of walking distance from the lobby.

We got a twin singles room as they ran out of double room at that time. Bear in mind, it was Christmas.

The room is spacious and it is air conditioned.

The bad thing about their room is there are no connecting phones for room services.

The services there are not that bad, just that they don’t have much English speaking staff there. Overall, it was a blissful stay at Pak Meng Resort and don’t miss out the beautiful sunset at Pak Meng beach.

Check out my other adventures in Trang:

Tham Le Cave Adventure>> http://www.placesandfoods.com/2010/01/the-amazing-le-khaokob-tham-le-cave-of-trang-thailand.html

Emerald Cave>> http://www.placesandfoods.com/2011/02/the-emerald-cave-tham-morakat-of-trang-crystal-pool-of-koh-muk-thailand.html

Pak Meng Beach>> http://www.placesandfoods.com/2010/01/beautiful-scenic-pak-meng-beach-at-trang-thailand.html

Meng Resort Trang Address and Contact:

60/1 Moo4, Maifad, Sikao

TRANG 92150, THAILAND

Tel    +66(0)75-274112,

+66(0)75-203031

Fax   +66(0)75-274111

pakmengresort@hotmail.com

info@pakmengresort.com

http://www.pakmengresort.com

We had never travel to Pak Meng beach of Trang, Thailand. Trang is a town located in the south of Krabi and north of Hadyai and the southern part of Thailand are mainly populated by Muslims.

Pak Meng beach is one of the popular beaches in Trang. If you noticed the 2 sign boards above, the sign reads Tsunami Evacuation center. Sadly, Pak Meng beach was also one of the effected area of the Tsunami back then.

During high tides, the sandy beach area will be covered by sea water. And the tiny little black mark you see that are scattered around here are actually lil crabs! (Alot huh?..)

The long streach of Pak Meng beach overlooks few of other smaller islands off Trang with clear blue sky above. Don’t this resemble a postcard?

Stools along the beach area of Pak Meng beach where people can come over during evening, chill by the beach with pina coladas maybe?

We stayed in Pak Meng beach area when we were in Trang. Advantage about staying in Pak Meng beach is, it is near to the jetty, therefore island hopping tours as well as the snorkeling tours are available. We spend our Christmas there and it was pretty quiet, perhaps it is not a big celebration for the locals and Trang is still not known by alot of people. Perhaps if you are looking for a scenery like this and a quiet getaway, this is an ideal place for you.

Pak Meng beach can be reached approx. 2 hours drive from Krabi airport.

This was my second time to explore the Le Khaokob or Tham Le cave in Trang.

After an hour plus drive journey from Krabi, we reached Trang. We got there by our tour van. The driver was driving pretty fast to make sure we reached in time. Flight got delayed so we kinda rushed to Trang.

I didn’t recall this lovely entrance 5 or 6 years back, but the place now was well maintained.You might wonder what is so interesting about this place? Read on and you will know.

Our group of 8 people separated to 2 groups. 1 group of 4 will sit in a sampan (small boat) with 2 guides, one in front and 1 behind. This was us, Alicia, Rebecca, Rachel and me.

After a good ‘ol 10 min of paddling, we reached the entrance of the cave. Look at the height of the ceiling of the cave. To make us possible to go, we need to lie down completely as the guides paddled us in.

This was how low the ceiling of the entrance going in. We had to lie down completely or else will get some knocking on our heads. We also had too keep our hands within the sampan.

We reached first and the other group came next. Rachel was helping Stephanie, Khai and Laney off the boat.

What’s in Le Khaokob / Tham Le cave? Stalactite and stalagmite formations, natural stalactite and stalagmite formations. Rachel pointing up the stalactite and stalagmite formations.

Me looking up the stalactite and stalagmite formations. Wonder how it looked like from my view.

This was it. Quite scary huh. There were also many different variation of stalactite and stalagmite formations. I decided to post least pictures of it for you all to visit and explore yourselves. There were a few chambers within the cave, some was pretty small but big enough to fit me. Well, stalactite and stalagmite formations are made natural taking hundreds of years. There were a few amazing ones.

When we thought the thrill was over, we were wrong. Going out was harder than we thought. This was how close the ceiling in between us and the sampan. Want to see the actual stuff? Check out the video below!

It was really dark. The guides totally relied to the flashlights. On a few occasions in the video, the sampan was stuck to the ceiling wall. As we exited the cave around 5pm, the high tide was another factor. Thanks to the guide, we forced ourselves out of the cave. Their screaming voices were “extra sound effects” for our excitement. This was really exciting, you can tell from the video right.

Wanna see how close it got to us. This one almost hit my face! The dark journey out took us around at least 15 min. It was exciting and not as dangerous as its seen. We totally loved it.

We tipped the guides for their efforts and tagged them for a group photo. It was a great way to start our holiday in Trang. This is a recommended place to visit in Trang, Thailand.

Stay tuned, more to come!

Thanks for reading!