Krabi: Tiger Cave Temple, Emerald Pool, Hot Stream
Every hike we do I say that it’s the hottest and toughest. But this was actually the hottest we have had to climb in.
The Tiger Cave Temple is a buddhist temple that has an active temple in a cave, is home to monks, and has a Sitting Buddha up on a mountain.
We left our hotel at 8 hoping to be able to beat the heat (lol). After myself and Anthony did the temple climb we were going to meet the girls at the Emerald Pool and the Hot Stream so we agreed on 2500baht (for the two of us) with a taxi driver for the three locations and he would wait for us at all the stops.
The tiger cave temple is about half an hour from Ao Nang. There are a lot of dogs on the grounds—and monkeys. Lots of monkeys and lots of signs warning about the monkeys snatching your belongings.
We got to the start of the walk and a Maechi (women who have dedicated their lives to Buddhism...comparable to a nun) stopped us to tie red string bracelets around our wrists...and then ask for a 20baht donation.
1,237 steps sounds maybe not too terrible but these steps were uneven in every way possible. There were some that felt like they were completely vertical and we had to climb like a ladder. Others were over a foot high. We frequently stopped and sat on a step to catch our breath- anyone who passed us on their way down said something encouraging about being able to get to the top—and made sure that we knew that there was water fountains at the top. Luckily no monkey sightings on the way up and it took us about 45 minutes in the 95 degree heat.
There is one very tall sitting Buddha statue at the top, along with three other small shrines with figures. And there is a stone at a shrine that is said to have Buddha’s (giant) footprint embedded in it. After taking in the views and our share of water from the fountain we headed back down. Of course it’s easier going back down but still tricky because of the unevenness of the stairs.
With about 150 stairs or so left to go we were stopped in our tracks by monkeys. There was probably 10 monkeys sitting on the stairs or the handrails with more jumping down from the trees. We were definitely freaking out because we didn’t know the best way to walk through them or if they would randomly take things from us or if they had to be provoked. After freaking out on our own we watched a woman walk up the stairs through them with no concerns. We put our sunglasses and phones in our bags and waited for people to walk down the stairs so we could walk through with a group. Maybe we overreacted but after reading all of the reviews of other tourists being attacked or their things being taken I didn’t feel like risking anything. We ended up walking though the monkeys with a group of Thai women who all took their phones out to take pictures of the monkeys as we silently freaked out. Got to the end of the stairs feeling more relieved about getting through the monkeys than completing the walk tbh.
The actual tiger cave temple is towards the enterance of the grounds. There were monks in the temple sitting in front of a large Buddha statue-and people praying with them. The cave where the tiger supposedly lived is very small. There are two tiger statues that people leave offerings at and the story of the tiger is written in thai and English in the cave.
We spent a little over two hours at the grounds and were ready to go relax at the emerald pool. We worked it out with our taxi driver that he would go back into Ao Nang to pick the girls up and then we would all go to the Emerald Pool and Hot Stream together. The price was changed to 3500baht for all four of us.
The emerald pool and hot stream are only a ten minute drive from each other but about an hour away from Ao Nang. The emerald pool is a naturally occurring pool and the water is super clear but looks emerald. It was 200baht for entry and you can’t bring any food inside the park- they are really trying to enforce being cleaner in the national parks and reducing litter. It’s a ten minute walk in from the main gates and there are a few benches scattered around the pool. There are planks to walk on to get into the pool but they were super slippery.
After a soak in the pool we moved on to the Hot Stream. It’s 160baht into the grounds and again about a ten minute walk back to the stream. There were two man made pools when you walk in that are filled with water from the hot stream but if you keep walking back there is a waterfall that the hot stream runs down and the rocks in the waterfall have deep enough holes in them that you can sit inside the rock- practically like a natural hot tub. The water was realllllly hot and felt super good after the morning hike.
