Ao Nang Beach

This guide to Ao Nang Beach in Krabi is anchored in the red-cloth garlands every longtail skipper still ties to their bow, an offering to the princess the bay is named for. It works through the competing legends of Phra Nang, a shipwrecked bride, a waiting widow, or a wronged maiden turned to stone by a passing hermit, and the wooden offerings boatmen still leave at her cave. It also traces the shoreline's turn from quiet fishing hamlet to Krabi's busiest strip once hotels arrived in the 1990s. Listen for which version of the legend your own boat crew tells.