Editor’s note:  2010 Edmonds-Woodway High School graduate Karisa Gurtiza received her business administration-marketing degree in June from Western Washington University. Before entering  the job market, she is taking time off for a six-month backpacking trip throughout Southeast Asia, accompanied by her boyfriend Matt. We will post her occasional reports of their adventures here.

Leaving the island life of Koh Tao behind us, we ventured to the city of Ao Nang, which is located in the Krabi Provence. We decided to skip the islands of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan since we had already spent two weeks in that region and heard from fellow backpackers that Koh Tao was the best of the three.

Ao Nang is a place chockful of contradictions and confusion. First, the scenery is extremely ugly pretty. The main streets are jammed packed and solely consist of tourist shops. Every other establishment has a worker out front hassling you to buy a tailored suit, massage, knick-knack, or to come eat at their restaurant. One of the most confusing aspects of Ao Nang is the shocking amount of Indian-owned Thai/Italian/Indian/Western restaurants which you can find every few blocks.  So there it is, the ugly of Ao Nang in a nutshell.

The pretty stems from the long stretches of golden sand beaches, luminously turquoise water, and jutting limestone headlands surrounding city. When I look out our hotel balcony and see the dazzling and lush jungle grown cliffs in the distance, it’s hard to complain about the city’s trashiness. And after a couple days I found sleaze more comical than off putting. My favorite part of Ao Nang was our trip to Railay peninsula. To get there we took a 20-minute long-tail boat that stopped at several beaches in the area. If you Google Image “Thailand beaches” I guarantee that several of those pictures are taken from Railay. Containing one of the top 10 beaches in the world, Pranang, Railay and Ton Sai – the main areas on the peninsula – did not fall short of their notable reputation. Instead of attempting to describe their breathtaking, jaw-dropping, magnificent beauty and having my words do them injustice, here are some photos so you can see yourself.

While on the peninsula we swam in the warm sandy water and hiked to a hidden cave. A particularly fun hike was a muddy rock climb to a lookout and lagoon, where we had to use the protruding rocks and ropes to scale straight up the cliff. To say it was muddy would be an understatement, to say it was steep would be an even bigger one. Finishing the hike covered head to toe in mud and sweat, we took one last dip before catching the last long tail of the night back to the city.

Another favorite of Ao Nang was a hike to Wat Tham Sua or Tiger Cave Temple. It was approximately 1,300 steep steps up a mountain and, to tack on a little more fun, it was raining. Though the hike wasn’t great – surprise, surprise – the temple was so much more beautiful than I’d imagined. Being on top of a mountain, it had a very picturesque view of the few buildings nearby and the abundant stretches of crop fields that carried as far as you could see. Clusters of giant clouds were persistently rolling in but would be broken apart by the surrounding mountains, providing a perfect foggy and somewhat spiritual backdrop. The temple itself contained several small statues and a 278-meter-tall Buddha watching over the city. A combination of the openness of the temple, picture-perfect environment, mystical ambiance, and the grind it took to reach the top left me completely amazed by Wat Tham Sua.

After Ao Nang, we headed to Koh Lanta, the largest of 52 islands protected by the Mu Ko Lanta Marine National Park. Koh Lanta was vastly different than any place we had been so far. The town was smaller and significantly less touristy, therefore feeling like an actual Thai town, a colossal contrast to Ao Nang. Another aspect that set Lanta apart was how truly immersed in the jungle it was. While scootering around the island, we crossed paths with an elephant, a 3-foot monitor lizard and endless moneys all casually hanging out on the road. At night, I heard completely baffling noises coming from the forest that were so foreign and unknown to me it was difficult wrap my mind around the fact that they were real. One particularly disorienting noise sounded like some sort of squawking mixed with a jackhammer tempo at a megaphone volume. I was in idiot and didn’t record any of the nighttime jungle music but here’s a clip I found of another common noise for an example.

Koh Lanta was a great experience but seeing as it was a smaller more authentic town there simply wasn’t much to do. After two days of the beaches, a hike to a waterfall, the markets, and walking around town we had pretty much seen it all. From Lanta and it was back to Ao Nang and from there up north to Chiang Mai.