Handpicked experience · Krabi
Krabi, Thailand
A staircase of roughly twelve hundred steps with no alternative route, and a pool whose colour comes from dissolved limestone rather than from the sky above it.
Explore Krabi on an authentic jungle tour.
Enjoy an authentic Thai lunch while taking a break from the tour.
A summit shrine reached only on foot, straight up the rock
A vantage point with nothing blocking it in any direction
A flat lower monastery for anyone skipping the climb
Bathing in water that arrives warm from underground
Colour produced by dissolved mineral rather than reflected sky
A protected fragment of lowland rainforest
A day inland from Krabi combining the hill temple known as Tiger Cave with the mineral pools in the forest reserve to the south, which are two very different kinds of effort in one itinerary.
The temple sits on a limestone outcrop, and the summit shrine is reached by a staircase of about one thousand two hundred and thirty steps cut straight up the rock face.
There is no lift, no road and no gentler route. The climb takes most people between forty minutes and an hour, the steps are uneven and steeply pitched, and the humidity does more damage than the gradient. People turn back regularly, which is not a failure so much as a reasonable assessment made partway up.
The reward at the top is a genuine three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view over the plain and the karst towers scattered across it, and the sense of scale is the point of the whole trip.
The lower part of the complex, where the cave and the monastery buildings are, is flat and can be visited on its own. The macaques there are habituated and will take food, bags and anything shiny straight out of your hands.
The pool in the forest is fed by warm springs rising through limestone, and its colour comes from what the water is carrying rather than from what is above it.
Dissolved calcium carbonate scatters light towards the green and blue end of the spectrum, and the pale mineral floor reflects it back, which is why the water reads as turquoise even under a grey sky and even when you scoop it up clear in your hands.
There is a second, deeper pool nearby that looks even more improbable and is closed to swimming. It is a spring vent rather than a pool, the water rises through a narrow shaft, and the restriction is about the vent rather than about tidiness.
The reserve holding these pools is lowland rainforest, a habitat that has been almost entirely cleared across this region for rubber and oil palm.
That is why the birdlife here matters to people who travel a long way for it: this fragment is one of the last places in the country where certain lowland species still hold on. You are unlikely to see them on a day trip, but it explains why a forest with a swimming pool in it is protected as a wildlife sanctuary rather than run as a park.
Take the climb seriously or skip it deliberately; there is no half version of it.
Swimming is in fresh water, so bring something you can walk back to the car in, and note that changing facilities are basic.
Both sites are inland, which means still air and full humidity without the sea breeze that makes the coast bearable.
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What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Around one thousand two hundred and thirty, cut directly up the rock face to the summit shrine.
None. There is no lift and no road, and the climb takes most people between forty minutes and an hour.
The stairs are irregular and pitched sharply, and the air is thick enough that most people are undone by the heat rather than the height.
The summit gives an uninterrupted view across the plain and the limestone towers standing on it, which is the reason the trip exists.
Yes. The lower monastery and cave are flat and can be seen on their own, though the resident macaques will help themselves to food and bags.
Warm springs rise through limestone, and the dissolved mineral scatters light towards green and blue while the pale floor reflects it back.
No. Lift it in your hands and it is clear, which is what tells you the colour is an effect of the mineral and the light.
It is a spring vent rather than a pool, with water rising through a narrow shaft, and the restriction protects the vent itself.