railay... the most beautifull place on earth... or close enough!

hi guys...

so... to pick up where paul left of... we had a few nice quiet nights in koh samui (in a cool indian themed guest house called shambala) and then headed of to the south west coast of thailand.

we left koh samui on a minibus, then caught a boat, then a coach, then another minibus to a place called krabi were we were to catch another boat to our destination. the place we were headed was called railay and could only be reached by boat. its on the mainland but they have no roads there.

after being droped of at a travel agents and being hussled into booking our next six days accomodation: something we would never have done if we weren't so tiered... tieredness makes you gullible and we belived that there was no way we would find accomodation on Phi Phi ( the next island we visited)... blag!!!.

we left the very pushy travel agent lady behind to follow a thai guy to were the boat was supposed to take us from. i say 'supposed' as he clearly had no intention of taking us any where without another 8 people to fill up the boat! bearing in mind they'd only had 2 people pass throught there that day... it was a bit of a tall order. he could however, for another 700 baht, (making it a thousand in total that we'd paid) take us privatly. at this point i was starting to loose my rag and prceded to tell him off for selling tickets to people and then ripping them off when they get there. if you new there weren't enough people because its low season... put the price up! any way... there was little we could do about it as there was no sign of any tourist police... or anyone else for that matter! we did manage to find another two girls who were sat on the bench a bit further down from us who were also headed for railay. the boat drivers seemed to be trying to keep us apart in the hope that they could scam us all in to paying top whack for a private boat! in the end we managed (through slightly raised voices) to arrange a boat for all of us at 1000 baht. still more than we wanted to pay but at least we would get there the same day.

we set of on the boat to railay and got chatting to the two girls, inevitably the conversation revolving around comparing all our 'rip off' stories. finnaly the boat motored around the head land into railay bay revealling probably the most amazing scenery ive ever seen. gigantic lime stone cliffs covered in rainforest fall into a white sandy beach and turqoise blue waters with tooth like islands scattered all around in the distance. it was beautifull. this is where the lack of cammera really started to frustrate us... not that you would have been able to capture it anyway... you guys will just have to see it for your selfs one day!!! :)

we spent 3 nights in railay in total. the first we got hammered... as you do!... saw some moay thai boxing, a fire show and some crazy guy whos job was to piss of this massive king cobra and then try and look clever when he managed to stop it from eating him. all in all it was a fairly entertaining night... except for the snake thing at which i was wholey un-immpressed.

the next day we nursed our hangovers' in the morning and then in the afternoon we walked over to the beach on the other side of the island... which... belive it or not... was even more beatifull than the bay in which we had arrived (I think paul may have taken some photos on a dissposable camera). on this beach there was a hotel that charged 50'000 bhat a night!!! thats about 1000 pounds!... thats how beautifull the beach was.

that evening we had some dinner then went back to the room (which had a tv... luxury!) to chill out for a bit before heading out again to a party at the jungle bar(which was in the jungle...thus the name jungle bar). needless to say, i never made it to the jungle bar. i was wipped out! we probably managed to watch 2 minuites of some crappy film and then passed out.

the next day we whent to see what the island had to offer... which turned out to be alot! ignoring the fact that it had been raining incesently for the last few days we, ever trepid adventurers, headed of to the diamond cave. it was fantastic... if a little dark, gloomy and a slightly terifying! as you walk in on this rickaty foot bridge into a scarcely lit cave (most of the light bulbs where blown!) you can hear the sound of bats screaching and birds flaping. we proceded onwards... me close behind paul, into the center of the cave where a huge gold lime stone waterfall covered in what looked like sparkly diamonds poured out of the darkness. we walked further in to see these huge lime stone rock formations that lookied like hugely tall church organ pipes of stone. it was amazing.

after that we headed through the jungle to another beach. on the way we met a thai guy called tex who was a climbing instructor (and at the age of 47 looked about 25!) who, just as the heavens opened lead us to bar and introduced us to his friends. we chilled with these guys and played connect4 untill the rain stoped! tex then took us to the beach and then climing over the top of a cliff to get back to the main beach (that was the only way back!). it was great fun.

after our finnal rather wet eavening in railay we packed up our stuff ready to head to koh phi phi... were we still are to this day (all of 5 nights later!) but ill let that be a treat for you all next time!

tune in for the next episode of "Flick and Paul do thailand"... take care folksXXX

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