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Published: November 23rd 2009
After our wild partying on Ko Pha-Ngan, we decided that we would head for the beautiful & scenic, Railay - just 45 minutes in a long tail boat, from the main land Krabi. But before we could get to Railay, we had some more travelling to do, this time in the form of boat & bus. Also another reason we needed to leave Ko Pha-Ngan was because a storm had hit the island, which now seems to be a regular weather pattern following the full moon. The storm brought endless spells of rain along with rough sea's - just what we needed before we left. However, thankfully & unknowingly we had booked our boat ticket for one of the bigger boats, which meant we were one-of-two boats able to leave the island as all the other smaller boats had been cancelled due to the bad weather.
The boat & journey to Surat Thani wasn't too bad at all, the only complications we encountered was the Thai touts at the other end trying to get us to use them to book our bus to Krabi. Once we managed to make our way through what seemed like a never-ending wave of Thai
touts, we managed to book our bus ticket to Krabi & were happy we would be able to get some shut-eye on the 'bus'. Whilst we all waited for Barry to inconveniently use the toilet, resulting in us missing the first available bus, we & everyone else heading in our direction had to wait for another bus to cram us all on, which took all of 5 minutes - great, we were underway. Well at least so we thought. We actually ended up driving for about 20 minutes on the bus & then told to get off, without any explanation of what was going on. Amongst the kaos of a busy main road, vast confusion of what was going on & panic to make sure we got our back packs off the bus before it left, we quickly found ourselves on the side of a busy road in the middle of who knows where, with a pile of back packs & not a clue between us of what was going on. Finally we managed to get some sense of the situation & was advised that we needed to get onto another bus which would take us the full journey -
Krabi Town.
We (now being 7 of us) & all of our backpacks were forced into a 6 seater mini bus & told we were being dropped off to the bus depo where we would then be picked up to be taken to Krabi on our 'bus'. This bus depo naturally turned out to be another overly priced break & refreshments restaurant - I'm not sure why this came as a surprise. Fourty five minutes, a couple of over priced meals & Chang's later, we were told that our 'bus' was ready to go. As we left the restaurant we failed to see any sort of bus in sight. Ah of course, when they said bus, they actually meant mini bus. Now this wouldn't have been too bad if only the mini bus was big enough to accommodate 11 people, plus their back packs, plus the driver, plus the over weight woman he had riding shot gun to keep him company upfront. The fact that he had also made the conscious decision to replace any leg room with a 'boom box', that wasn't even wired up to the stereo also made it that bit more comfortable journey. The journey from
who knows where to Krabi took just under 5 hours.
After 5 hours in a cramped mini bus, the very last thing we wanted was to be messed around anymore. Unfortunately for us, we were. Rather than being dropped into Krabi Town, we were dropped at yet another Thai Tour operator who was more than happy to help us find over priced rooms to stay in, especially as "all" of the hostels, hotels, rooms etc. "were full". Not taking this as a likely story & wasting about 20 minutes trying to get them to take us to our destination, we finally managed to arrange for a taxi into Krabi Town, 5 minutes walk from the pier. After depositing the back packs on the side of the road, 4 of us headed down the road of apparently fully booked rooms to try & get reasonably priced rooms for the night as it was now around 10:00 pm & too late & too much hassle to get a long tail boat to Railay. Not that much longer after we had set off in our quest to find the rooms, we were on our way back to pick up our back packs... we
had found some decent rooms at a good price (250 bhat). Once we had checked in & dumped our bag, we were ready to eat. And what better place to eat than at the Krabi night market, next to the pier.
It was a fairly simple walk from where we were staying & took no more than 5 minutes to get to the pier. The night market wasn't really the kind of busy & buzzing market any of us was expecting, but a quiet & small area mainly made up of food stalls - none of which really seemed to have much of anything to cook. We managed to get our food ordered with the scraps of what ingredients they had left & enjoyed a pleasant meal. We then found a charming little bar to have drinks in & play some pool, after which we retired to bed as we needed to be up early (ish) to organise our boat over to Railay.
In the morning & after some good breakfast, we organised our Long Tail to Railay. It was collectively decided that we would be driven to Ao Nang beach, which took 20 minutes, then get our long
tail boat to Railay, which took no more than 15 minutes. We were dropped onto the East side where we would check into the Ya Ya resort, but not after much negotiation & haggling on the cost.
Railay as we remembered it from our travels in 2003, was a beautiful beach with lush greenery, spectacular rock faces & beautiful beaches. We didn't recall it being so busy however. The beach was littered with taxi boats waiting to take you on all day excursions to Chicken Island or back to Krabi Town. Thankfully we were on the East side of beach, the quieter & cheaper side. There isn't a beach on the East side, but mangroves which have their own attraction. Five minutes walk one way, or 10 minutes the other, leads you either to the West side beach or Phanang beach - both of equal beauty.
We spent the next couple of days chilling out, although it wasn't the best weather as we had a few showers, but sometimes when it's hot & you've been on a beach relaxing all day, infrequent showers are quiet welcome (sorry if I'm making anyone jealous).
Just before sunset, Dean, Kieran & I
decided we were going to attempt a visit to the Blue Lagoon. I say attempt because it is a very steep climb (about 30 meters) & then a series of 4 pretty much vertical cliff faces down to the bottom where the Blue Lagoon is. On reflection, going just before the sunset, with very poor visibility probably wasn't the best idea, so rather than climbing down 4 cliff faces in the dark, we decided to carry on climbing & follow the path left, where we were led to an amazing view of the whole of the island, at the view point. A couple of photo's later & we were on our way back down.
Later that night, having had a taste of the climbing involved with our earlier pointless expedition to the Lagoon, we (Kate, Kieran, Barry, Dean & myself) decided that we wanted to do rock climbing - something that Railay is world renowned for, having some of the best climbing faces in the world. We booked up with a guy who offered a good price & we had a bit of banter with - we were booked in for the climb the following day. As we were doing
rock climbing, naturally Sam & Elaine had to do something too, so what better than a Thai cooking course. And, not any Thai cooking course - Siam Cooking school, the best in Thailand.
The next morning we were all up early, excited & ready for what the day held. Sam & Elaine were off earlier than anyone as they had to travel back over to the main land, Krabi. The rest of us were up at 08:00, breakfast & then harness fitting (great for extenuating the crotch area). Now that we were fitted up, had our chalk & very tight climbing shoes, we were good to go, so we made our way to the rather inappropriately named 'Diamond Cave', where we would start our first 3 climbs; just around the corner from the caves. Now before we booked, we were a little concerned about how much climbing we would actually be doing, as obviously coming from Britain home of 'Health & Safety', we assumed & wrongly, that we'd be sat in a class room for at least an hour learning & understanding the dangers that faced us whilst climbing... well I'm happy to say we didn't, it was more
like 3 minutes, & all we had to know was how to tie a figure-of-eight knot. Now that we had got that small piece of health & safety out of the way, & nicknames appointed (everyone apart from Dean rightly being referred to as "Miesh"), we started climbing.
We spent the next 3 hours tackling 3 walls & with the help of our instructor shouting "Miesh, left hand where your right foot is Miesh... Niesh (nice), Miesh!" we all did well. This was a great challenge & one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Dean seemed particularly adept & didn't fall off once.
Now that we were buzzing from the mornings climb Kieran, Dean & I decided we would try & tackle the Blue Lagoon again, in our 2 hour lunch break. Barry went to bed.
As we were pressed for time, we ran to the start of the mammoth trek we had ahead of us. We pretty much scrambled to the top, applying our rock climbing techniques learnt from the morning. Now all we had to do was climb down 4 rock faces, which were very muddy & slippy from the rainfall. This was very challenging, but thrilling at the same
time. Being the headstrong adventurers we are, we persisted & made it to the bottom, to the Blue Lagoon. What a sight. It was almost if we had literary climbed back-in-time to the Jurassic era. Pictures out of the way, we made haste back to our rendezvous point with our instructor where we then walked round to Phanang beach where we (Dean, Kieran & I - Barry was in bed) tackled a series of more challenging climbs. Out of all of us, Dean prevailed & was easily the better climber of the bunch. Now we had finished the rock climbing, we had just as challenging & probably more dangerous hike through an unlit cave - jumping across what seemed like bottomless pits & climbing a series of make shift bamboo ladders - all of which was very appealing. Once we made it to the top, we were welcomed with a breath-taking view of the island from the opening of the cave. Pictures out of the way, we then went onto to absail to the bottom & then trekked through some dense greenery, back onto the West beach... what a day!
Just as much as we had had a great day,
so had Sam & Elaine. They had been lucky enough to be the only 2 students of the day & so had the full & undivided attention of their cooking tutor. They learnt how to cook: Pad Thai, Clear Soup, Tom Yam, Red Curry, Sweet-sticky rice with Mango, Sea-food salad, Chicken with Ginger & Chicken with Cashew Nuts. Sam was top of the class & cooked & ate all of her dishes. They both were honored with a 'Diploma in Thai Cooking' & were also awarded a Thai cooking apron.
After our exciting day of blood, sweat & Thai cooking we spent the next couple of days chilling out. We ate some great food, including fresh BBQ'd Red Snapper & various Thai dishes - all of which I'm sure Sam could have cooked better. We also watched a rather entertaining Thai Boxing fight in one of the many Reggae bars scattered down the East side of the beach, which strangely leaves you with a feeling of East-meets-Jamaica as the pungent aroma of cannabis meets the sea breeze air & then you're greeted by Thai Buddhist Rastafarian's enticing you in with cheap drinks & as I mentioned, fixed, yet entertaining
Thai Boxing.
With the excitement of our activities & the chilling out of the way, the group, now 7 of us, decided to part ways as some of us (Dean, Sam & I) decided we wanted to go to Ko Lanta, whilst the other 4 (Barry, Elaine, Kieran & Kate) decided to head straight to the next island along, Ko Phi Phi Don.
We enjoyed some great experiences in Railay & again met some great people along the way, some of which no doubt will have helped shaped our plans of travel & also some of the places we may visit in the Far East.
Next stop... Ko Lanta.
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Abdul
non-member comment
Yo
Easy Dan and Sam Hope you are well Just went through your pics, looks like your having a really good time. All is the same here. ( Spring is SHIT) Have fun. Be Safe Catch you Ghandos soon lol : ) Abdul