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So we left the beautiful island of Phi Phi after a nice week of relaxing and making lots of new friends...Gill, Hayley and Gill's family and friends all left to go to Bangkok and I met up with Wiz again. We decided to head to Koh Lanta which we had heard was also beautiful and only an hour away on boat from Phi Phi. On the boat there were many 'hotel touts' ready to try and sell us their accomodation 'very cheap, cheap!' We had literally entered 'low season' from 1st May (it was 2nd May!) and it meant we chose a really nice place with a pool right on the beach and our bungalow had a mini bar and satellite TV for about 2.50 pounds a night each! Bonus! The beach we were on was deserted and almost rugged (in comparison to Phi Phi's pristine white sand beaches) there were rocks and the sand was golden and stretched as far as you could see. It was quite nice being somewhere quiet and out of the way after all the partying and 'buckets' we had consumed in Phi Phi!
We chilled out for the first couple of days...then it started
to rain...and the rain didn't stop either - weren't we glad we had satellite TV in our room! When it's raining there really isn't a lot to do at a beach resort! So we decided we would leave after the second day and booked our ticket to Ao Nang for 7.30am the following morning. Ao Nang was on the mainland and we thought we'd head there and hope for some improvement in the weather! We woke up around 6.30 am and there was no way we were travelling anywhere...Wiz had been up all night upset as her ear piercing had become badly infected and my right eye had swelled up the size of an apple (no joke!) and was clearly infected. So the guy from the hotel took one look at us and offered to drive us to the hospital (and change our Ao Nang ticket for the following day) We arrived at the most primitive Hospital I had ever set my (one) eye on and waited for around 4 hours til we were finally seen, washed down and sent on our way with medication. My first Hospital visit since being away (and unbeknown to me, not to be the
last for my eye) and we spent the rest of that day (it was still raining) feeling sorry for ourselves!
Finally we set off for Ao Nang...this involved a minibus and 2x car ferries to get accross to the mainland and then along the coastal road past Krabi Town. Whilst on the minibus, we were reading about Ao Nang and it seemed that we had read something incorrectly, and in actual fact, Ao Nang's beach wasn't that great and the town itself was a little bit tourist-tacky...ooops. Frantically trying to rescue the situation, we read good things about Railay, a peninsular that jutted out from the mainland but because of the cliffs, was only accessible by boat...perfect! Also perfect, was that we were able to get a longtail boat from Ao Nang!! Our longtail boat took us along the coast with lovely views of the area and we knew we had made the right decision when we landed on Railay's west beach...a curve of white sand beach sheltered by rocky cliffs and not a deckchair or sunlounger in sight! We decided we would treat ourselves to one night in a really nice hotel right on West Railay beach...Sand Sea
Resort. For 10 pounds each a night (it was a little more expensive here) we had a beautiful bungalow with satellite TV and minibar. The resort had a lovely pool overlooking the beach and we also got a breakfast buffet included (which we stuffed ourselves on so we didn't eat again until dinner).
After our one night of luxury, we headed accross to 'the other side,' Railay's east coast which was nice but not so beautiful. We checked into a rather shabby Ya Ya resort which was cheap and came with no sink in the bathroom but a frog instead!! We coped with this until we went to bed and the frog decided to come out of the bathroom and join us in the bedroom!! A lot of girlie screaming ensued and we said we would not be able to sleep until we knew it was out of the room. Not being brave enough to evict the frog ourselves, Wiz stayed on 'frog watch' whilst I tried to find someone to come to our rescue. Eventually I found some poor unsuspecting guy who came and took the frog outside whilst both Wiz and I stood on our beds watching
from afar! Funny to look back at now but not so funny at the time and neither Wiz or I slept very well that night. Being very weak, the following morning we packed up our stuff and headed back to the nice resort (the guy at reception chuckled to himself that we were back so soon). We convinced ourselves that it was okay to stay in the expensive hotel as we were only paying for dinner each day as we'd filled ourselves with the breakfast buffet...oh and it started to rain again, every afternoon without fail (we'd get about 4-5 hours sun in the morning/lunchtime) so at least we had a TV to keep ourselves occupied. My eye was still bad too, so we needed to be somewhere clean! I think we'd justified splashing out for our accomodation!
We literally spent our days in Railay relaxing, we didn't do any sights or tours, we just sunbathed, swam in the pool and the sea and behaved as if we were on holiday. The funny thing about staying in a place that is a holiday destination is the 'sunlounger politics', every morning without fail (sorry to stereotype) it was the French
and Germans who had laid their towels out on the sunloungers but then barely laid on them themselves...very annoying to everyone else when there are not enough sunloungers for all the guests!
Railay was absolutely beautiful, on a par with stunning Phi Phi, but it was quieter which was nice. I liked the fact that there were no sunloungers or deckchairs on the beach, just a lovely stretch of sand to enjoy and not that many people to step over. Railay bay also had the most AMAZING sunsets (Lonely planet describes them as 'orgasmic'!!) and being based on the west beach, we were in full view of them when it wasn't raining. I really felt relaxed here!! Sadly, after a few days my eye got much worse and actually started to bleed (a.k.a. the bad guy in Casino Royale!) so we booked a flight to Bangkok from Krabi and went straight to the hospital when we got there..I was assured that it was okay and given two more types of drops and some more antibiotics...my second Hospital visit of the trip! After a few days enjoying the shopping in Bangkok, my eye seemed much better and I was sad
to say goodbye to Wiz as she flew home, but excited about my next stop in Singapore!!!!
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claire
non-member comment
Hi mate, hope the eye is ok now. dont fancy a thai hospital very much! Glad to see you are doing a bit of relaxing aswell as all the rushing about. Your photos are great. I went to Railay 5 years ago and took exactly the same photos, I remember you pointing one out at mine and saying oooh that looks nice! its so wierd that now you are there, stood in the same spot!! No news, you arent missing much. Take care, have fun at Brads, the whitsundays are beautiful. Claire xxx