Week 15 Koh Lanta & Railay Beach, Krabi

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Wed 23 December
Cant believe I am a quarter of the way through this 13 month trip already. The time is just flying past.

So the week started with some controversy when the hotel posted details of the Christmas Eve gala dinner on 24th, as they had themed the evening as The White Party and asked that everyone wear white. The reactions were varied, with some people being outraged as they had brought special Xmas outfits with them of various non-white hues, others refusing to be told what to wear and being determined to rebel, some planning frantic shopping trips to buy something suitable and a few wondering if they could do something creative with the duvet cover from their room.

Before Xmas crept up on us I decided to treat myself to a daytrip to Koh Rok which is actually two small uninhabited islands (Nok - Inner and Nai - Outer) separated by a narrow channel, situated in the National Marine Park. It has one of the most pristine reefs in Thailand and is famous for its wonderful snorkelling and diving and several stunning “Bounty advert” perfect white sand beaches with amazing colours on the sea. The trip started by being collected from the beach right outside my hotel by a speedboat and then whisked on a very bouncy and very fast ride to the islands that lasted about 45 minutes. There were about 18 of us on the trip but we had plenty of room, plus four crew. The boat had 3 powerful engines but the speed and the waves caused us to frequently fly up in the air and then land hard and my bottom was bruised and sore the next day, even though it has plenty of natural padding.

We stopped at two different snorkel spots around the island in the morning for about 40 minutes each time. The reefs were teeming with all kinds of brightly coloured fish and lots of coral, anenomes and plant types. The snorkelling was great as the water was as clear as gin and the equipment was in good shape. There was plenty of cold drinking water on board and the crew served up platters of fresh tropical fruits on several occasions.

We made our way to the main beach which was gorgeous. Soft powdery white sand with a tinge of pink and the most amazing shades of blue water. As you would expect, there were quite a few other tour boats there but the beach was large enough to spread out and there was a very deep strip of shady forest that hid the lunch tables, so you were not overrun with people. The crew quickly set up the lunch in the shade on long tables with flat-top logs as benches. The food was nice with a choice of spicy or plain chicken, vegetables, rice and lots of fruit. Right next to our table were two of the huge Giant Monitor lizards that were over a metre long.

We had two hours on the beach for the lunch stop so there was plenty of time to explore, swim, play in that wonderful sand and to read the amusing messages that people had scratched onto the beach in many different languages, mainly asking NOT to be rescued and pleading to be left here forever. The water was fabulous and there was a small reef just offshore if you wanted to continue fish spotting.

When we left the beach we had one last snorkel stop over a reef near some big rocks, where we saw some very large fish and several big shoals numbering over a hundred of the large blue and green damsel fish. There were also a couple of massive bright blue starfish and lots of sea cucumbers. All of the snorkel stops were over very different terrain with varying sealife at each place and the reef was in good condition and thriving. We were back at the hotel by 4pm and I had a great day.

In the evening the hotel had a wine tasting event which was really a badly disguised push to get you to order very expensive bottles for the gala dinner the following night. I tried quite a few wines and then went to the restaurant for dinner where my lovely waiter sneaked me a couple of extra full glasses from a bottle he filched from the tasting table.

Thurs 24
So Christmas Eve arrived and I had to change rooms. I had been warned when I first arrived that this was necessary as the hotel was completely full during Xmas and some family groups needed cottages adjacent to each other, so I had to go to a different cottage. So I packed up my stuff in the morning and dropped off my key and arranged to collect my new key and be shown my new room in the afternoon. I left it a bit late and needed to get a wriggle on in order to get ready for the White Party, but I had not counted on being so much further up the hill.

Well it proved to be so far up the hill I think I may have actually trekked to a different island. The room was also very shabby and there was no mosquitoes netting at all in the bathroom, which was open to the jungle and full of insects. There were 4 frogs in the bedroom too. I didn’t have the time or the energy to traipse back to Reception as I had a party to get ready for. The next morning I went to complain and to negotiate some compensation and got a reasonable deal. They gave me two complementary hour-long massage vouchers for the Spa (which was quite expensive) and they organised for the maintenance guy to put up mosquitoes netting in my bathroom and chase out the frogs and various other wildlife that had joined the party. They also left me a jumbo can of mossie killer and a pile of Deet wipes. Don’t quite know why they couldn’t have done all of that before I moved in but hey, I got a couple of hours pampering for my trouble which helped chase away the tune of the Frog Chorus going round my brain after sharing the night with the noisy blighters.

The White Party gala dinner started at 7pm, was compulsory and very expensive. They had organised a series of performers for the evening including a chap playing a traditional Thai instrument that looked a bit like a zither, various children and teenagers doing Thai dancing and bending their fingers back into weird shapes, a group of local singers who were excellent on the instruments but managed to mangle the lyrics atrociously and a bunch of children singing Christmas songs. Santa put in an appearance with gifts for the children and a very strong Thai accent. After some fireworks the final act was a couple of firedancers who only performed for about 10 minutes and were rubbish compared to many others I have seen.

I had probably the best table in the house, right in front of the stage, with comfy padded seats. A lovely couple that I have been spending time chatting to over the week, Gudrun and Andy, joined me and we had a fun evening. They told me a funny story abut their trip to the south of the island by motorbike earlier that day. Gudrun had been worried that Andy was driving too fast as the roads were in a shocking state and she said “please be careful as you really don’t know what’s around the next corner” and so Andy braked and slowed the motorbike down. As they rounded the corner there was an elephant in the middle of the road. They laughed themselves silly with the incredible timing of her comment.

Interestingly most people conformed and wore white. I was OK as in my meagre wardrobe I had enough white to throw together an outfit. I say white, but in actual fact they were more grey and I felt like the “before” character in a Persil washing powder advert. However I figured that it would be too dark for anyone to notice and I was bound to spill stuff down myself during the evening as white is a dribble magnet. To avoid a complete laundry catastrophe I ordered a nice bottle of white Chilean wine but the waitress had great difficulty in opening it. When we helped her out she told us that all staff were having to help and she normally worked in the Spa and had never opened a bottle of wine in her life. Wish she had told us before she mangled the cork.

Some of the little kids were in fancy dress and one little girl was in an angel outfit and looked so sweet toddling around with her wings. Later in the evening somebody had added to her costume and stuck a set of glowing red devil horns on her head - I bet it was her parents. There were plenty of red Santa hats and the staff had a different version with flashing red lights in them. The food was OK but not worth the steep price. There was a choice of dishes on a long buffet, a seafood BBQ, turkey and a very good rich chocolate mouse. Some of the food labels were quite sweet, e.g. Leg of Ewe proved to be rather tender leg of lamb.

However, the highlight of the evening was letting off the sky lanterns, which float for ages getting higher in the sky and carrying your wishes over the sea. There were dozens of hotels and bars along the bay that all seemed to be sending sky lanterns at the same time and a one point the sky was filled with these lights and the beach was covered in groups of people around the glowing paper lanterns being prepared for lift off. A stunning , magical sight.

There was a technique for getting them to fly and occasionally one would not lift high enough and would get caught in the surf and get snuffed out. Sometimes you would be almost knocked flying by people running screaming after their errant lanterns, trying to catch them as they went skimming along the beach towards the waves. The best way is to tease out the fibres of the wick, light it and hold the edges of the lantern down on the sand while the air inside heats up. When the top is too hot to keep your hand on, its ready to fly. You gently guide it upwards and give it a gentle push skyward and make your wish. If you are lucky you can them stand back and watch it for several minutes as it flies higher and further away over the ocean, pleased that your wish may come true. If you are unlucky, you crash and burn and end up with a soggy mess of tissue paper and bamboo floating in the waves and no chance of getting your wish.

Fri 25
Happy Xmas to everyone. On Christmas morning I wore my Santa hat to breakfast and fully intended to wear it all day on the beach. However it was too hot and I had a horrible feeling that the dye would start to seep as I got sweaty and I didn’t fancy having a ring of indelible crimson hair.

I spent a very relaxing day chatting to people on the beach and in the sea and went for one of my complementary massages. I emailed friends and family with Seasons Greetings but it didn’t feel at all like Xmas, which was not a bad thing. Continuing the non-Christmas feeling, I had Thai dishes for dinner, including one that had a real chili burn and left my lips dumb. There was the best sunset of the week with the sky staying all shades of pink and purple colours long after the sun had gone down.

Sat 26
A totally relaxing day consisting of beach, massage, lots of chatting and good laughs, cold white wine while watching the sunset, dinner, hike up the hill to bed. Gave quite a lot of thought to the victims of the tsunami. as today is the anniversary.

I am more than ready to move on as I am completely fed up with living in a jungle hut and sharing my room with so much wildlife. The noise of the trees and bushes rustling and the frogs, monkeys and god knows what else screeching, calling and scratching continues all night. The stinging, biting visitors to my room have forced me into sleeping with the airconditioner turned to its coldest setting and burying myself at the bottom of the bed with the sheet over my head so that none of me is exposed to teeth or fangs or stingers. You can shove your “natural authentic rustic” and give me a sealed concrete building with glass in the windows anytime.

Sun 27
Off to Railay so it was an early start, collected at 7am by a manky old sawngtheaw that was belching vile exhaust fumes. Sawngtheaw are basically small flatbed pick up trucks with a home made high roof over the back and wooden bench seats in the loadbay. We had several pick ups and were squashed in my the time we eventually arrived at the port, with sore bums and feeling pretty sick from the fumes.

The ferry to Railay left at 8.30 and took two hours. We passed several beautiful small islands and many of the tall limestone karsts. When we arrived in the bay we had to transfer to longtail boats to be shuttled to the shore and then jump out into knee deep water and trudge up the beach trying to keep our luggage dry. I asked the longtail driver to lift my case out of the boat and he was really sweet and carried up to the dry sand for me.

The hotel on West Railay beach for 3 nights is the other part of my Christmas present to myself and I was very pleased with both the hotel location (best spot in the centre of the beach) and my room which is on level ground and right next to the second swimming pool with its own little terrace and poolside loungers. The bathroom is huge and mossie-free. Bliss. The restaurant is right on the sand and has the most amazing views of the limestone karsts at either end of the bay and they have free wifi there. No hills to climb - I am in Heaven.

Railay is on a peninsular with several different beaches (Pranang and Tonsai) that can only be reached either by jungle trekking or by longtail boat. From our West Railay beach which has lovely soft white sand and decent water, you can walk 10 minutes through to the opposite side of the narrow part of the peninsular to Railay East. Our side is mainly resort-style hotels, whereas the East side has lots of mudflats and rock-strewn mangroves at low tide and is where all the backpacker places are, but is actually quite pretty at high tide.

Unfortunately Railay is another one of those tourist traps with hundreds of day visitors and consequently lots of longtail boats that park in a line in the centre part of the beach. This means that there is lots of engine noise and you have to treck to the open areas at either end of the bay of you want to swim. Because the West beach is better, all the guys staying on East spend most of their time on the West sands. The area is a magnet for rock climbers and its amusing to see them returning to our beach in the evening with all their kit on heavy belts and carrying long coils of rope tied around their torso, making them look as if they are wearing serious bondage gear. There are also quite a few sad aging hippy blokes here whose brains are shot after too long on cheap booze and drugs, who hang around the bars repeating themselves and looking sad.

I had dinner at a nice little restaurant at the end of Walking Street which is a lane of shops and stalls and minimarts leading directly off the beach. I had a delicious pineapple baked rice with chicken (you can also get a shrimp version) which is served in half a pineapple and contains lots of yummy vegetables, tender chicken and lots of cashew nuts. Once again this beach faces West and the sunset was beautiful.

Mon 28
In the morning I explored the length of the beach and had a swim in the lukewarm sea, then returned to the hotel restaurant and took advantage of the free wifi connection to upload all my recent photos, which always takes ages. After a nice Pad Thai for lunch I had a wonder down Walking Street and browsed the shops where I bumped into Melinda, a Hungarian girl that I had chatted to on the ferry and we arranged to meet for dinner.

It was very hot in the afternoon so I took advantage of the shade by the pool outside my room and lounged about updating this blog and reading, with the occasional burst of energy to swim a few lengths of the pool which was refreshing.

After an early meal with Melinda and a rubbish sunset as it was too cloudy, I had to rush off to skype a couple of friends and family at a prearranged time. I had to find a quiet corner at the back of the restaurant to get any internet connection and there was no breeze at all, so it was very sticky. It was lovely to chat to the folks back home but was weird hearing about their traditional Christmas festivities and their adventures struggling to travel in the snow, while I sat there sweating buckets and being eaten by mozzies - they must have followed me from the jungle, or perhaps its just that I taste good.

Tue 29
I visited a couple of tour shops trying to organise my transfer to the airport for the next day, which involves getting a longtail boat to Ao Nang and then a taxi or bus to Krabi airport. The prices varied hugely and because I have to leave at 7.30am before the scheduled trips start, the only option was to get a private longtail which is expensive. The cheapest option means leaving from the East side, where all the boats are less than half the cost on the West, but I will have to drag my luggage on a ten minute hike to get there. Oh well.

From the end of the beach you could get a good view of the rock climbers tackling one of the vertical climbs up a limestone karst, so I packed a couple of cold drinks and spent the rest of the morning sitting in the shade on the sand watching the silly buggers. Boy, you have to be fit to rock climb and it looked very sweaty work. Worn out from all that watching, I found a little restaurant with lovely cool electric fans and had banana shake and a pineapple crepe for lunch - yum.

I am loading this blog edition earlier than normal as we are having a (hopefully) brief shower - lets hope its cooler after the rain. I am off to Bangkok in the morning to meet up with the Intrepid group to start our 23 day tour through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

As I wont upload the next blog until next year, Happy New Year to you all.

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Comments

[littlewing]

Fantastic blog - will be there next week - after 26 years im glad you've shown Krabi is still beautiful - thanks!