Krabi Travel Information, Thailand

Overview

Located along the Andaman coast, in southern Thailand, Krabi is one of southern Thailand's most picturesque provinces. Midway between Phuket (3 hours drive) and Samui Island (around 2 hours drive to the Samui ferry terminal) with perfect beaches and a stunning interior.

The province is famous for its great natural beauty, characterised by the limestone "karst" scenery that can be seen throughout the entire area.

The coastline, 160 kilometres long, is dotted with bays, coves and outcrops of limestone mountains rising up from the sea, creating a fascinating seascape of tropical islands. Inland, the limestone mountains support a rich biodiversity of plant and animal life.

Predominantly, it's an agricultural area, with sandy clay soil conditions producing rubber, palm oil, fruit, coconut and coffee. Rubber is the main cash crop grown with over 700,00 rai being under cultivation for this purpose. Palm oil comes in second, followed by coconuts.

However, with natural attractions like tropical islands, palm fringed beaches, forest waterfalls and caves attracting more and more sunseeking, adventure-bound tourists, Krabi has begun to earn a substantial income from its tourism industry.

The Coastline

It's estimated that the Krabi coastline contains over 200 limestone and jungle covered islands. Many are uninhabited outcrops rising from the sea with tiny patches of pristine white sandy beaches.

Much of Krabi's coastline is dotted with little coves and mangroves which form a unique eco-system and serve as a natural breeding ground for diverse aquatic life. Krabi's beaches are gradually opening out to tourism, although care is being taken to ensure management of the environment.

Development is being kept low rise with many hotels designed to blend in with the surroundings. There are few deckchairs and building directly on the beach has been kept to a minimum in most resort areas.

Fishing is widely carried out along the coastline and on most larger islands, and although traditional methods are still in use, modern trawling techniques are threatening numbers and the industry. Shrimp and cockle farming has been a high growth industry since the early 1990's, and there is also a flourishing grouper farming industry.

The Interior

Bordered by Phang Nga and Suratthani provinces, the interior of Krabi province presents a landscape of weirdly shaped limestone mountains, separated by flat valley floors with rubber and oil palm plantations.

There are many unusual cave systems in the rocks resulting in large caverns and tunnels. Some of the larger caverns have been made into Buddhist temples or shrines and others have revealed evidence of human habitation from over 43,000 years ago.