To Africa And Back

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I've been carrying around the book "Out Of Africa" since Sash gave it to me in India. I finished it a long time ago and it's one of the dullest books I've ever read (which Sash did warn me about at the time). The only reason to keep carrying it is to palm it off on someone else in exchange for some new reading material. But I never have the book at the right times. When it came to starting a challenging rocky climb up to a viewpoint at Railay I'd had enough and took the book from my bag, leaving it to pick up when we climbed down. Naturally I left it behind when we reached the bottom again.


I didn't know anything about Railay until we arrived but liked what I saw. Big rocks rising straight from the sea is always a good look and we spent a few days here. We are still traveling with Claire and Nick, as we have been since Langkawi. Mostly we spent time on the beach, doing a bit of kayaking on one day too.


It was a needed boost, coming after Ko Phi Phi which had left us all a bit deflated. The building work there has really taken off and the character of the place which originally drew people in has pretty much gone. We only stayed there two days and I haven't got any more to say about it.


Back to Railay. I've never been attacked while out for the evening before, there wasn't a good reason for it to change. We were out to celebrate Tom’s birthday. Following a very English Indian curry at the Tali Leaf we spent several happy hours at the Kasbah Bungalows. On purchasing more drinks however, the barman made some errors and claimed we were 40 Baht short. After some debate we paid another 40B only to find he then wanted about 50B more. Everything was still friendly discussion until the manager was called who after a short chat in Thai told me I owed him 350B. I very quickly received a backhand across the face when I told him that was wrong. We left immediately, didn't discuss it any further, you can't reason with violence.


After some more Chang and the loss of Claire and Nick to stomach problems the best idea seemed to be to fetch the book. The only way to get there involved a pitch black scramble over the rocks between Tonsai Beach and Railay Beach. Twice. With one torch between us. It's not the safest thing either of us has done but it turned out ok, I'm here writing this and the book was back in play to be traded.

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Photos

Phi Phi
On the walk back from Long Beach

Phi Phi
A typical view

Railay
From viewpoint above the east beach

Insect
On the roof of our hut

Kasbah Bungalows
Barmen not good at maths. Violent Manager. An otherwise nice place.

Comments

[Jackie]

Kasbah bungalows
That is really bad and shows the way the Thailand is going we are setting off for a 10 week stint at the end of march will avoid this place.