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Published: April 1st 2008
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How did I end up here? Well I'm still trying to work that out, but it had something to do with arriving at the Airport in Krabi being a little under prepared with nothing booked and next thing I know I'm in taxi heading to Ao Nang with two Swedish girls just of the plane from Sweden. But it turned out to be a good move as Ao Nang has proved to be a good jumping off point to Railey West for a couple of days of kicking back. It seems like half of Sweden is on holidays over here at the moment, everywhere you go there's a Swedish accent, not to mention a bucket load of blonde scandinavians now looking somewhat tanned. It's ok though there's a few Germans to balance things out a little along with a smattering of French. The other thing about Ao Nang is that there's nearly as many tailor shops here as in Hoi An, not to mention all the dodgey looking Italian restaurants. But in the guidebook it's mentioned as the package tour and shopping mecca of the area. I finally did read a guide book about the area when I got to Railey,
go figure.
Railey is an easy walk down the Ao Nang main drag and onto a longtail and away you go across the Andaman Sea. Not wanting to commit to a couple of nights on Railey before sussing it out and checking on a few prices I did the day trip (THB160 gets you there and back). It's all too easy really get on longtail, get off on what should be an island (since the only way you can get there is by boat), but it's part of the mainland. THB2000 has got me a nice little bungalow in a resort complete with pool and beach right out the front. I decided to lash out a little rather then the THB600 on the other side of Railey (Railey East) since it was a little bit of a walk to the beach and didn't have a pool. Besides the plan was to spend the last couple of days just kicking back enjoying life before jetting back to being responsible again.
Having spent all my life on the east coast being on a western facing beach has led to a little confusion. It all came about when I found a
nice shady tree to lay under and work on the tan. Thinking that the sun would continue to move behind the tree as I look out over the ocean as the sun sets in the west it was all looking good. Then came the little glitch to the plan, the shade was rapidly disappearing, oh that's right the ocean is in the west and oh that may be a little too much sun for the body. Luckily I relised this little hiccup before I turned too red.
The other thing that I learnt whilst over on Railey West hanging out with all my buddies from continental Europe is that the Germans have this great knack in claiming everything as theirs, like the pool deckchairs and half the beach. I'm sure that they all get up at 6 am to go around and put their towel on every chair and their mat on half the beach. Some even put the token paperback down to give the impression that they'll be back real soon. Then it's off to the ocean for a swim and sunbake before coming back to your "reserved" deckchair taking care to leave a couple of tokens reserving
the best bit of beach to come back to later. Now if they had used this approach to each conflict they had been in over the years they might have had more luck. Can you imagine it, the poor British waking up in the morning to finding a heap of beach mats with German novels on them along Brighton Beach. Might have saved Adolf and Winston a heap of hassle.
Ao Nang has several houses of pain located right on the beach and I invested THB140 to try it out. You see along the beachfront there are all these little massage shacks set up and I opted for the second flashiest one, for an ancient form of thai torture (I mean massage). If you thought McDonalds was good at the upsell these people can teach Maccas a thing or two. After getting comfortable and saying yes I would like the Thai massage, just prior to starting the torturess asks if I would like an oil massage for an extra THB100, the answer is no just do the Thai massage. Halfway through, would sir like to have a scalp massage, no sir would just like the Thai massage remember. Nearly
done, oh would sir like the foot massage, NO sir would not like fries, a large coke or anything else just the Thai massage as agreed to earlier. As she went along and I kept knocking back the additional treatments she seemed to take a sick pleasure in probing into the muscle deeper than x-ray. But I survived enough to give it another try a couple of days later. This time I tried to foil them by getting the neck and back combined with foot massage two hour package, sure enough, would sir like his feet scrubbed for another THB100, no sir would not like his feet scrubbed.
Oh well reality is here and I can't maintain this routine of breakfast, swim in ocean, lunch, nap, coffee, swim in pool, massage followed by dinner forever. So it's onto the big bird real soon, but never mind stay tuned because in about another 100 days it looks like I have to put the passport to use again, oh it's all good.
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