Baannai Lake View Resort

We have a lovely 7 night stay at Baan Nai. Ayeesha was fabulous and everyone was so friendly and helpful and made us feel so welcome. We stayed in the villa by the pool and also in a villa overlooking the lake. Both are very comfortable with nice firm mattresses, very clean with lots of hot water for the shower. The resort is very well cared for and loved and has a beautiful local family feel. We rented a motorbike through Baannai which we used every day - about £7 a day for a 125. It made getting about really easy. Laundry is charged at 50 baht a kilo and well worth it. We ate in the restaurant on 3 occasions and it was very good - good amount of spice and heat. Good breakfasts too and they will arrange an early breakfast for you if you need to leave before 8am for a trip. The small pool is lovely to cool off in. We went out and about quite a bit and really enjoyed the Dragon Crest walk. The guide books said it’s 8k but we used the app Strava to track it and it was 16k. It’s not a technical walk but it is really steep, full of boulders and tree roots so you have to have a fairly good level of fitness to do it. The views are worth the ascent! Don’t bother with the Pond there though - it was a large puddle and full of mozzies (in January). We didn’t get time to go to the waterfall. Check the park closing times so you can plan your day as they weren't letting anyone in as we were leaving (after about 3pm I think) as you'd end up walking back in the dark and that wouldn't be good! We went to Tub beach afterwards our hike which was pretty and really quiet - no noisy long tails going up and down the beach relentlessly so that was fab. We had a quick lunch at the Sunset Restaurant on the beach. For one main, rice, a Sprite and water it was £9. Expensive but we were tired from the walk so just went to the nearest restaurant to get fed.The main was good and tasty. During our stay we also visited Tiger Caves. Fabulous views at the top in the temple and the caves are worth a look around too. Ao Nang wasn’t our sort of thing. It’s really touristy, loud and very expensive when compared to Krabi town. We did one boat tour - the Hong Islands boat tour busy and touristy - not for us and not worth it. In hindsight, 7 nights in Ao Nang/Krabi was too long and 3 nights would have been plenty to discover the area so we were really pleased we'd found a really beautiful place at the Baannai to relax in when we weren't off hiking. It's a really lovely place and we are so glad we stayed there.