Railey Beach is Railey beautiful!!!

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Okay.. I made a rule for myself when setting up this blog… no trash talk about my counterparts, no gossip, no spilling the beans on personal hook-ups, no venting about little disagreements, etc… and most of all.. no talk of bodily functions. Well.. I’m breaking one of the rules. I’ve been sick as a dog since 8pm last night and I finally have figured out what end is up! We all seem to be passing around this strange bug and now its my turn. Keely caught it in Cambodia… Karl had a bad bout of it back in Phuket..and now it was my turn on the boat… great. Last night was hell… fever, aching, and soooo many trips to the “head”… I am soooo glad its over. I wake to the motors running (as the wind is not with us today to sail) and I am a happy camper that its all over!!!

We set sail toward “Chicken Island” which apparently, if you look a the rock formations the right way, looks like a chicken’s head. The day of sailing is nice.. pretty uneventful. Everyone spends their time writing in postcards, journals, etc. I basically sit up on deck and watch the sky pass by. When’s the last time you did that - just sat and watched the clouds pass over your head. Believe me… do it soon…. It’s a great way to release your mind from all the day to day BS. Very relaxing.

Well… the winds do pick up.. and Chicken Island is no longer on the menu. We must sail into Railay Beach as theres more shelter for the boat and less tossing and turning while we sleep since the winds have picked up. Speaking of tossing and turning.. Jay looks like hell and there’s a reason…his tummy has been tossing and turning. Yes - its his day for the bug. Damn… we really are passing this from one person to another one day to the next. Jay is down for the count… there is no way he’s coming into the beach with us for dinner. We bid our goodnights to him and rest of us head over in the dinghy for dinner at Railay Beach.

Going to dinner in a dinghy is pretty interesting. You do everything you think is possible to keep from getting wet.. but no matter…either your butt or legs or both will end up wet. Dodging the longtail boats (local thai taxi boats) is another interesting thing in the dark as these things TEAR out of the beaches at a million miles per hour. Ok - I exaggerate... but they do move fast and have no lights on!! We shine flashlights to make sure they don’t run into us - and they don’t - but we still have to cross their wake in the dinghy which still leads to more water on the boat and on our pants - of course!

We’ve reached the beach, drag the dinghy ashore and walk up to one of the many shorefront restaurants barefoot. I love this place- everyone is barefoot…if you don’t like what they have to drink at one restaurant, you just walk over, order it at a different restaurant and they’ll bring it over to your table at the other place. Yes.. I think I’ve mentioned heaven. The food is marginal but the atmosphere is incredible. A pregnant cat nuzzles up to my leg while a little sand crab crawls up toward Scott’s feet…and of course we’re all still barefoot! I finally feel like we’ve reached the part of Thailand I’m ready to absorb. Yes - it’s a bit touristy - but at least the tourists seem interesting - the kind of people who like to get off the beaten path a bit as this beach is only reachable by boat - no roads lead here. This is the kind of place I could spend a few days and get lost…

One dark dinghy trip back to the boat.. a few, yes, cocktails later and we’re all off to bed. What is it - 10pm… wow.. boat time is hilarious!!!!

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