Advertisement
Published: August 4th 2008
What have you ever done for a day at the beach? How about a nine and a half hour train journey, a four hour bus journey, a 30 minutes ride on the back of a pick-up, a 20 minute boat journey, a 30 minute walk in midday heat (in my tortoise suit.....as in with everything I own on my back!), on to another boat for the final 10 minute boat journey! Welcome to Railay beach, west coast Thailand....or neighbouring Ton Sai beach to be more precise as Railay doesn't really cater for the penny pinching backpacker!
So here I am holed up with all the rasta's east (and north, south and west it seems) of Jamaica!
What a journey....to what a setting. For all you James Bond fans, I am now only around the corner from Scaramanga's hangout in "The man with the golden gun". These are the beaches that have huge rock outcrops... almost islands jutting straight out from the sea. And many of them towering to impressive heights. And for all you geographers out there....this is Karst country! Think the Burren in a million years time after lots and lots of rain! The scenery and isolation here are
amazing. While it is actually still part of the mainland, it is COMPLETELY cut off from the rest of Thailand by huge impenetrable cliffs all around....thats where the boat trips came in!
Do you know the scenes in movies like Castaway or on Lost, where they are trying to get their raft off the beach over incoming waves....well that was me....well we had a boat and not a raft but the man scooping water out of the boat before I got in made me kinda wish we had a raft! Anyway that was us with the boat leaping over one wave after another in search for calmer waters....and I tell you, for a non-swimmer with a major disliking for deep waters, that is a memory that will be with me for some time to come!
When we finally reached Railay I book into a delux 4 euro a night bungalow at the "Dream Valley Resort" (Sounds better than it was...trust me!). The bungalow came complete with ghecko, a pletory of mosquitos and a right of way for a frog, toad and a mouse or two! But if you stay in a hut in the middle of the jungle what
My Bungalow is on the left!
And you get to see some of the cliffs blocking Railay off from the rest of the mainland in the backgroundcan you expect!
As I came out of my hut tonight I could not help but notice that the yard was alight with its own little fireworks display. Fireflys were busyings themselves about the place, each on their own little mission, each as unaware as the next at the jungle theatre that they were putting on for an easily please Irish man in the corner....who himself coincidentally was doing a fair amount of glowing too!
But the sunburn does bring with it its own benifits.... I no longer feel the ridiculious amount of mosquito bits that they fely compelled to enforce on me!
And I can forgive them for most, but the horrid little thing that they left on, lets face it an otherwise unblemished face! (quite!!!) is just one step too far! Nont only am I now a constant water fountain these days but now I am beginning to be a one that has a striking resemblance to the elephant man!
Anyway to recap, I stayed in Railay/ Tonsai for 2 nights and I really like this place although for anyone that is just interested in sun bathing this might not be the place for you. The setting is great, no doubt about that but I have seen nicer beaches and the whole area needs a bit of energy top get around. You have to clamber over hills and rocks to get from A to B to C. But in the other hand until now I have never been on a beach where you as likely to be confronted by monkeys looking for food from you as you are by women trying to sell food to you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 12; qc: 40; dbt: 0.0483s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
