Red Ginger Chic Hotel, Krabi

This is a pretty hotel located on a quiet but self-sufficient street (Moo 3 Aonang Soi 8). This street has everything which makes staying at Red Ginger really convenient.  Besides Red Ginger, there are also other chic-looking hotels along the same street.  Mercure is also on the same street but is too far in, so it’s not recommended.  In terms of creature comforts, there are restaurants serving Thai and Western cuisine, tour desks, a bar, mini-marts, spas, and Thai massage places.  Right opposite Red Ginger is an ATM which accepts PLUS and Cirrus ATM cards.  What else can you ask for?

Red Ginger is situated between 2 beaches.  Walk out from Moo 3 to the main road (Nopparat Thara Road), if you turn left, you come to Ao Nang beach and where the shops/ madness are.   Turn right, you come to the quieter Nopparat Thara Beach.  To walk from Moo 3 to Ao Nang beach takes 5 mins if you walk fast like me; 10 mins if you stroll.  To walk from Moo 3 to Nopparat Thara Beach takes 3 mins.  Either way you turn, you immediately see more resorts, restaurants, “Tourist Information” signs which are not official tourist bureaus but rather commercial places where you can book tours.

The rooms feature an open bathroom layout. Toiletries: include shampoo, bath gel, Q-tips, sewing kit, soap, comb.  Hairdryer is available in room.  No bath tub; only shower. Safety box, kettle, coffee, tea.

A nice touch is that they provide 2 umbrellas, mats as well as robes for your trips to the beach.  How thoughtful.  They also provide beach towels by the pool which you can take to the beach.  Obviously, you have to bring them back.

Remember to bring your travel adapter as the power sockets only accept Thai plugs.

The TV has many channels – Thai, Korean, Taiwanese, German, Dutch, HBO etc.

The breakfast includes fruit, fruit salad and yoghurt, salad, bread basket, cereal, fruit juices.  It also includes (free) hot dishes such as Western breakfast (eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, potatoes, tomato), fried rice, fried noodles which they prepare upon your order.  You are not limited to one hot dish per morning – you can order all in one sitting.

Free Wifi in the lobby.  There are also 2 computers with internet available.  You might be able to receive the free wifi from your room depending on where your room is.

Very friendly and helpful staff.

There is a gym.

Brutally frank:

Very pretty hotel. The location is perfect – self-sufficient, quiet street yet extremely close to all the madness and tourist activity.  The breakfast is extremely generous. 

I knew I made the right choice when I made the booking online.  The certainty was echoed when the bus shuttle from the airport dropped me off and the other passengers started repeating “Red Ginger, Red Ginger”, which means the hotel was impressive enough to pique other people’s interest. 

When checking in, they immediately bring you a cold welcome drink and a cold towel.  Feels great after the sun.  Also, they left 3 pieces of coconut candy in my room on Day 1.  Not sure if that was meant to welcome me or because they left a note in my room saying they were going to carry on pest control maintenance in 2 days and the candy was an apology for the inconvenience.

There was a roach and one other unidentified insect in my room on Day 2 though.

I used my room’s phone to call locally and book my Emerald Pool tour (30B per minute).  In retrospect, perhaps it would have been cheaper to call using my mobile phone on auto-roam.