A Railay Krabi Few Days

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Rob writes

Fortunately on the morning after our third night in Pattaya and on the morning we were due to leave Tina was feeling good enough to make the journey to Krabi. She managed to get some breakfast down her that morning and off we went.

We had to get a bus to the airport, which we had arranged the night before through a website we had found. Our flight to Krabi was little more than an hour but when we arrived we had to get a bus to Ao Nang, and then a boat to Railay beach. Our flight was late, which didn’t see us getting to Krabi until about 19:00. This was bad because we had to get a bus to the pier of Ao Nang and the later you arrived the more expensive it would be as there would be less people to split the boat fare. We jumped on the bus outside the airport headed to Ao Nang, but that made numerous stops so we didn’t actually get to the pier until about 21:00.

A boat to Railay beach costs 1,500Baht, (£30). Fortunately we weren’t completely on our own. When we arrived at the pier we met a guy from Hong Kong who had been waiting for 30 minutes for the bus to show up in the hope that someone would arrive to split the fare. We ended up paying £20, which for a 5 minute boat ride still seems quite dear, we had little choice though. It was nice getting a boat under the stars though where there was very little light pollution!

So where were we? Railay beach is located on the west coast of the Thai/Malay peninsular. It was inaccessible by road, which is why you have to get a boat. Its draw is that it’s like a small paradise island, but it’s not actually an island. We had planned to spend 4 nights here for another wee ‘holiday’.

Tina was still suffering on our first day at Railay so after a light breakfast we headed back to the hotel for a few hours. Later that day we got our swimming gear together and headed out to the beach. Unfortunately, Tina stood on a sharp rock while paddling in the surf and cut her foot quite badly. She then stood on another sharp rock with the other foot while trying to get out of the surf, cutting that one too. That saw us back in the hotel room while nurse Rob attended to her wounds, first-aid kit in hand.

Later that evening shit started to go down again (quite literally). As 20:00 approached I was feeling a little ill. By 22:00 I was lying on the bathroom floor in the foetal position between regular sessions of vomiting and diarrhoea, and so it went on all night.

That saw the next two days written off. At one point I was lying in bed drifting in and out of consciousness watching Tina on the balcony through the closed sliding, glass door when I could see her up to something. Turns out she was watching a passing posse of monkeys swinging among the trees. With my interest sparked I get out of bed and start heading towards the glass door. As I’m walking towards the door, from out of nowhere a huge monkey lands on the balcony and within a metre of where Tina is standing. Tina, getting the fright of her life, turns around a runs towards the glass door, not realising it was closed and SMACK. I was expecting her to drop on the floor KO’d but she eventually managed to scramble into the room. The huge monkey then sat there on the banister of the balcony and pee’d all over it. That was as exciting as it got really.

We had decided to extend our stay by another day in order to at least salvage something from our stay here as all we had done was lay in the hotel room.

One evening however, we started to talk seriously about finishing our trip. We had considered where we had been and where we had come and thought about where we would go next. We had planned to spend our remaining 12 days in the south of Thailand moving between the islands here, but weren't sure how much we were enjoying ourselves. Being stuck in a hotel room, ill, is no fun. We started to consider our options.

We checked with Emirates to see if we could move our flight a little closer but found the only reasonably priced change was to bring it forward in two days time and costing £266.00. Any date after that was costing around £800.00. That left us with the option of either waiting it out until we were due to leave in over a week’s time, or leave in two days... and not a lot of time to make the decision.

In the end we decided to move our flight forward as this would give Tina a couple of weeks recovery time at home before having to go back to work. With that we booked a flight from Krabi to Singapore the following day, planning to spend the night in Singapore before leaving for Glasgow the day after.

Once we had booked our journey home I felt a little excited. As much as I had been enjoying myself I was missing home a lot. Perhaps it was the wrong decision to make while we were both so ill? I don’t know, I guess I’ll find out in a week when I’ve settled back in Glasgow and realised that everything is how I left it.

So the next day we were up early and on the boat back to Ao Nang. We caught a taxi from Ao Nang back to Krabi Airport and flew to Singapore. We arrived in Singapore at our hotel for about 15:00 in the afternoon after another 9 hours of travelling. The adventure continues, however.

When we arrived at our hotel in Singapore the gentleman on reception couldn't find our booking. Turns out Tina had booked the wrong date and booked the following night. I’ll have to admit that this was my error because I didn’t take responsibility for booking the hotel myself earlier that day.

It goes on. The hotel didn’t have any rooms, nor did the hotel around the corner, or the one across the road.

A few minutes later we were sat in Starbucks across the road on their Wi-Fi trying to sort the situation out. Using Skype, Tina managed to ring Hotels.com who eventually, after three attempts of getting cut off, managed to book a hotel around the corner from the original one we had chosen, the one that said it had no rooms. Turns out they did have rooms, but they weren’t allowed to offer them to people who walked in from the street, only those that booked through the app. Finally we had a room, albeit three hours later.

By the time we checked into our hotel it was 18:15. We had bought tickets to the night safari at Singapore’s Zoo while passing through the airport. The chap selling us the tickets told us the Zoo was in the city centre and not far away, turns out it was a 30 minute taxi ride which would cost us $40 Singapore dollars (£20).

Nothing seemed to be going right since we left Cambodia...

Anyway, we got into the hotel room, dumped our stuff, quickly called a cab and off we went to the night safari to enjoy our final evening. Not quite there yet though! I left the zoo tickets on the bed in the hotel, so off we went back to the hotel to pick them up. When does it end?

We finally made it to the zoo and made a good time of it before returning back to the hotel at about midnight.

We were absolutely starving and the only place open we could see was the Starbucks we had been in earlier. We grabbed a pie and a sandwich before going to bed. Neither of us were eating properly yet, nor were we feeling 100% from our sickness bug but we were well enough to enjoy our last night in Singapore.

The following day saw another early start. We caught the MRT back to the airport and boarded the plane for the 7 hour journey to Dubai at 10:15. Like all plane journeys it was very cramped and very uncomfortable. I tried to sleep as I hadn’t slept more than 5 hours for the previous 4 nights, not been eating a lot at all and felt quite shite in all honesty. I was dreading the next leg of the journey but that was all to change...

When we arrived in Dubai airport I had to suffer Tina chancing her arm again. Like routine, off she went to ask for an upgrade using our collected air miles.

“Am ere fur a free upgrade hen, wit yae goat? I wanty use ma air miles” Asked Tina, employing her best most well to-do accent.

“I’m sorry, there are no upgrades.”

All I’m thinking is “This is so embarrassing, I’m going to slowly walk away like I’m not with her but remain in earshot just in case I’m needed.”

“How would you like a free upgrade though?”

Wut?!

“FUCKIN DANCER!” Tina exclaims!

She didn’t really say that. She was very shocked by the offer. So was I. I was more pissed off though. I was pissed off that after all these years of asking for free upgrades, all of the time I doubted her. It annoys me when she’s right, because she has a problem with being right and this was just another thing she was right about. Bitch!

Anyhoo... with our BUSINESS CLASS tickets in hand we headed toward to BUSINESS CLASS lounge only to be turned away because we were not worthy. No free upgrade types in there.

We then queued up at security with the economy scummers not realising there was a priority line for BUSINESS CLASS ticket holders like ourselves.

We then boarded the plane first using our BUSINESS CLASS priority boarding privileges. It was good getting on first. Not only did I have first pick of the overhead locker but I could sit and smile at all the scummers walking past from the smugness of my massage, completely reclining, extreme comfort, super chair.

BUSINESS CLASS is the best. The food is totally different, the service is totally different, they set your table with a table cloth come dinner time and give you a mattress come sleepy time. Seven hours have never passed to quickly. I slept like a baby for half of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t eat my three course meal due to my dodgy stomach though. I guess some things you live to regret.

So here I am back in Glasgow. I had the pleasure of being collected from the airport by close friends/family, Louise and Billy who I am eternally grateful to. Thank you. They even went to the effort to hide Easter eggs around our flat and fill our fridge with everything required for a full Scottish Breakfast. I really cannot thank them enough and their actions serviced as a great reminder of the biggest yet unspoken thing we’ve been missing since going away.

Good friends & family.

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Comments

[Home and Away]

Sorry you didn't enjoy Railey...
it's one of my favorite spots. Glad yo made it home to recuperate.

[Tina and Rob]

The little we seen was lovely but difficult to appreciate when youre that ill :(