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Published: September 28th 2008
You really don't realise the difference a few miles can make until you cross this border. The change in people is astonishing. The easiest way to describe it is the difference in people on public transport. In Malaysia the people are (generally) guarded, wary of you and have no interaction with you at all. In Thailand people are completely at ease and they always acknowledge you. Needless to say, it was with pleasure that we entered Thailand... even if the heat and humidity seemed to increase tenfold as we stepped over the border.
In Hat Yai we went back to the trusted Louise Guest House, run by a lovely old Chinese guy and with more pictures of the Thai royal family than you could shake a stick at. Hat Yai is as chaotic as ever - a typical border town - although there were very few 'farang' (non-Thais) around, I guess as a result of the train stoppage. The greatest bar in Thailand, Post Laser Disc, is still going strong and has had a posh make-over. We didn't see the live band that plays at weekends but we did partake of our first cocktails.
We just stopped for two
nights - enough to receover from the night train - then got a mini-bus to Krabi on the west coast. Fab journey as there was only the two of us on the bus :-) Krabi is another town used for transit to Railay, Koh Phi Phi or similar. It is right on a river leading in to the Andaman Sea, so the humidity is high and the mosquitoes are evil. The river itself is very pretty - with mangroves and tree covered limestone clifffs. We stayed at the Tower hotel, a place we remembered from last time, not for the accommodation but for the great open air bar next door.
The next morning we went to the pier to get a long-tail boat to Railay, a small peninsula just around the coast that is only accessible by sea. The boats basically run when they round up enough people - luckily this only took about 1/2 an hour and lots of bitching from an American couple. Long-tail boats are long thin wooden boats with a propeller on the end of a 'long tail', and they seat around 10 people. It is a lovely way to travel as you get a
full 360 degree view but as the seas are still rather choppy the people sat at the front and sides tend to get soaked (Lisa!).
The scenery as you approach Railay, or anywhere along this coast is quite breathtaking - small beach coves fringed with palm trees and backed by sheer limestone cliffs. Although as we got closer to Railay and saw all the buildings we started to wonder what we would find. Unfortunately our fears weren't unfounded. Very dissapointing seeing as the latest Lonely Planet guide (published August this year) describes the place almost as it was when we first came six years ago, and it definitely isn't.
To keep it brief - because I could rant - every inch of the east bay is either built on or being built on, the one end is a shanty town of restaurants, bars and markets, and in between all this the debrie of all this 'development' seems to have been dumped. Then there is the prices - the prices are way higher than warranted, most of the rooms haven't even been updated, and they won't budge no matter how long you stay and the place is empty! And
the staff are all acting with some kind of misguided superiority.
The main pull of Railay is the secluded Phra Nang beach, and this is still beautiful but, in our eyes at least, this really doesn't make up for the state of the rest of Railay. Anyways, we decided to stay a while anyways - to see if it would grow on us - in the Diamond Cave Private resort up a very big hill. The bungalow was large, with air-con and hot water etc - but it wasn't especially clean and the pool was a but grotty so after 2 nights we decided to pay the extra 1.60 per night and move to the newer Anyavee resort. The room was slightly nicer, definitely cleaner and had a lovely pool - so all was not lost.
So then we caught the ferry to Koh Phi Phi expecting even worse :-) This place is described in the Lonely Planet guide as heading for an ecological breakdown and man, it really is built up. But the whole atmosphere and attitude of the place is leagues apart from Railay. Yes the prices are high, yes the centre is mad busy and
Budhist temple in Krabi
Lee couldn't sleep one morning and went out with the camera and found this partially complete temple. Plus lots of monks on their way to breakfast.noisy, and yes Lo Dalum beach can become like Torremolenos when busy but... its Phi Phi! Everyone is altogether more friendly and nice and willing to haggle.
We decided to let a tout house for the first few nights - there is so much accommodation through the maze of streets that its impossible to choose carrying a huge pack-back - and we stayed in the Hudsin guest house for two nights. Pleasant enough room, clean with air-con and hot showers. And it was next to the Thai food market with its interesting looking and smelling produce.
The weather has been up and down for the whole time we've been away, although mostly good, as we are officially still in the monsoon or 'green' season. The first couple of days on Phi Phi were glorious and we spent most of our time on Lo Dalum beach and in the lovely seas.
After two nights we moved in to a slightly more central and funky room at Pirate House - which on first impressions was a great idea, but when we tried to sleep on our second night there we realised our mistake. Being central means being very close
to the main bars and their annoyingly loud clientel, also our room backed on to a posh hotel that had floodlights on 24 hours a day - thank good planning for earplugs and eye patches!
Our first night's sleep in the room wasn't affected though as we we're both soo inebriated. It started raining as soon as we got to the beach so we diverted to the 7-11 and bought a bottle of Sangsom (Thai whiskey) to take back to our room. After the rain stopped for some reason we didn't... we went on to have wine with dinner, cocktails at Sunrise bar watching the sunset, beer with some Aussies - one of which was getting an iffy tattoo - more wine and cocktails with our second dinner (pizza) then (after some drunken facebooking) I believe I retired to bed. However, Lee went to a bar with the Aussies and drank lots of long island ice teas and played connect four with Josh!
I took Lee on a mystery tour to the southern tip of the island a couple of days later, looking for accommodation for when my sister and brother-in-law arrive. This invloved us walking over loats
of big hills, thorugh trees, over boulders and beaches and much of Lee saying 'please don't break your neck'. We found some great resorts on our way to Long Beach, from the amazingly plush small houses on stilts at Viking resort to the bamboo huts with a matress on the floor at another.
Long beach when we finally found it was lovely, clean and had some nice acommodation. Unfortunately the only acess is by the route we took though or by long-tail boat (which we tok back) and, although I'm sure it would be a lovely relaxing retreat, we kind of thought we'd be missing the 'real' Phi Phi. And the comute could become annoying.
It turned out though that you can get great deals on some of the posher hotels on an internet site called sawadee - so I got my sister to book us in to the Phi Phi Hotel for the 6 nights for the same money as they were asking for thatch bungalows!
We left Phi Phi when the noise from our room at night got to much and went back to Krabi for a couple of nights. Turned out not to be
a bad thing as the weather turned and we had two days of storms - which are generally better not to be on a island for! While there Lee took me up to the buddhist temple on the hill which was great and they had some kind of parade on. I think it was to celebrate money that they had raised for the temple - but I know now that Thai people love posing for pictures!
We stayed at the City Hotel in Krabi this time. It's really nice and posh from the front and so are the newer roms, but being cheap-skates we went for the cheap rooms and were in the older bit at the back :-)
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Izzy
non-member comment
Loving it...
Fantastic blog. One of you should have been a writer for a living I think. The beach, sand and sun at Koh Phi Phi look exactly where I'd like to be right now. UK is cold, cold, cold.