Klong Root, Clear Water Canal

This guide to Klong Root, the Clear Water Canal outside Krabi Town, opens at the launch point, paddle in hand, facing an unofficial fifty-baht fee nobody can quite explain who collects. It follows the debate over the canal's own name, whether Clear Water refers to the gin-clear stretches over limestone gravel or to the tangled roots that snag kayaks, and the informal, cash-only kayak shops that run the trip. Go before mid-morning, when the swimming hole by the dam is still calm.