Sun, sand, sea and cliffs
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2009
1
30
52
Trip End
Jan 19, 2010
Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Railay is a peninsula off Krabi in Thailand which can only be reached by boat due to the incredibly steep cliffs preventing any road access to the area. It's split into three main beaches: Rai Leh East, the cheaper, dirty beach side with all the bars playing plenty of reggae, showing bob marley memorabilia, and a certain popular plant offered to you before you cross the threshold; then there's Rai Leh West, the richer resort area with the gorgeous beach; and lastly there's Ton Sai, the climbers' hangout (boom boom..) with plenty of cheap bungalows and more of the same Jamaican themed bars.
The walk from Rai Leh East to West is a simple 10 minute walk through a thin forest, but the walk from Rai Leh over to Ton Sai offers a few options... you can either walk over jagged rocks when the tide is out, swim around when the tide is in, or trek for a good 40 minutes up and down hills through the jungle between the pinnacle cliffs. Before realising the relative difficulty of these options, I chose the trek option at first in order to meet up with Georgia, Lowry and Joe again. Not a great experience (the journey, that is) - my future visits to Ton Sai were only to be made during low tide...
There's not much to do in Railay if you don't want to climb every hour of the day or sit on the beach all day, but there was the Sunset boat tour. Alex and I made it up in time (unlike the Aussies..) and despite having gone on a few similar trips over the last couple of weeks, went along for the ride. As it happened, it was a great trip. The best snorkeling I've done to date, with fields of coral over the sea bed, and thousands of fish of all different shapes, colours and sizes just sitting there ignoring you and enjoying the strong current - spectacular. There was also snorkeling through a few 'caves' under an island, the first time I've ever felt even slightly claustrophobic, purely because of the strong current and waves rather than any confined spaces, but a great experience. Then we got dropped off on a tiny idyllic island to watch the sun go down over a meal of green curry, veg and rice. There was a rainbow over the mainland behind us, sailing ship silhouettes in the foreground, and a thunderstorm out to sea - pretty good way to have dinner (although some of our tour group was more interested in throwing rocks around in the shallows than looking at the view, BOCs).
After a few days I moved over to Ton Sai to meet up with Maria from earlier in my travels through Laos, and to do some climbing with Steve. We sorted out a beginners' half day course with a Thai guy called Zak and headed out to the cliffs. After a short knot tying lesson and a 'how to keep your instructor alive while he attaches your safety rope to the top of the climb' lesson, we were ready to go. Zak, and all his 40kg, scurried up the rockface and attached the safety line. Then it was my turn... A good 10 minutes of technique-free, leg-wobbly climbing, and I managed the first climb. The second was not so easy, requiring a good bit of arm-work at the very top while my arms had died after the first climb. The third climb involved starting on a stalactite - lifting yourself about 6 feet before the actual climb started. Only with a massive leg up and a good pull on the safety line from Zak did we manage to get up there... the climb itself was the highest of the lot, a good 25 metres or so. By the end of the day my hands were so knackered that I literally couldn't even squeeze the trigger on a can of deodorant!
Soon after getting to Ton Sai we bumped into Alex in the 'street' (different one... London Alex) completely unexpectedly - the Laos crew was starting to get back together again, with several more arriving on the islands over the next few days. The next day involved getting up and out on a kayak for some sea adventures - arms were pretty much useless after the climbing though! Attempted to persuade Georgia, Lowry and Joe but they were far too busy on the slackline and table tennis to do anything energetic (read 'lazy'). After half an hour or so on the kayaks we came to a beach round the other side of the peninsula, complete with a floating cafe! Can't get much better than pulling up on a kayak and ordering a coconut and spring rolls from another boat...
Jungle bar is a classic Thai bamboo bar down on the beach with a fire show, BBQ, cheap beers if you get on with the barman, and bongs being passed round all night. A great place to spend the whole night playing various drinking card games. An insane game called 'chancho' (spanish for 'pig') took the prize for the night - literally fighting over cards in order to get a matching set. So glad they weren't my cards...
Getting a bit bored of lying on the beach (hard life..), Alex, Maria and I took out a longtail boat (long wooden boat with a 4 cylinder engine as the outboard) for some snorkeling on the island just off-shore. After an hour or so of pretty good snorkeling just off a gorgeous beach, the boatmen came over to us and rushed us back into the boat - it turns out there was a storm approaching and they wanted to start heading back straight away. Not quite realising the urgency of the situation, I strolled over to pick up our towels from the beach and started to get shouted at by the boat guys to hurry up - seems they were actually pretty concerned.. not good. About half way back to Railay the weather hit. Hard. Within a few minutes of squinting at the faint outline of land, it suddenly disappeared. There was no way for the boat guys to know which way to point the boat, so instead they dropped anchor, got us to put the lifejackets on, and kept a lookout for anything to help us to shore while bailing water. The wind kept picking up along with the waves, although they weren't rocking the boat enough to cause any issues just yet.. A few agonising minutes later a larger boat came past with a safety light on top, so we followed it for a while and then it also disappeared into the mist and rain - either it didn't see us there or it didn't think we needed any help. Anchor went down again, and Alex got stuck in with bailing water. A good ten to fifteen minutes later, after pondering what to do in all sorts of worst-case scenarios, and finally the outline of the mainland came into view again - a massive smile came across the boat guys' faces and it was celebrations all round. When these guys get worried about the situation, after having been out on the boats every day for god knows how many years, you know you were in a bit of a dodgy situation! Eventually we got back to shore for a celebratory chang or five.
After a few days on Ton Sai we got confirmation that Devas and Izzy were on Ko Phi Phi - back to Phi Phi it was to meet up again! Good bye Railay!
