Railay

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26th

Woke up early and got to Railay early to search out accomodation before it got too hot, lucky enough it had decided to rain today and we booked a room at Ya Ya resort. We explored the area which isnt hard as it only took 1 hour to walk around the whole of it. Railay is a small penninsular cut off from the mainland by huge cliffs, so everything is brought in and out by long boat. We discovered Thai pancakes or roti's as they call them, they are filled either sweet or savoury and fried, damn tasty.

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27th

Today was almost perfect! After a breakfast of tuna and cheese roti's we hired sea kayaks for the day (500 bht for 4 hrs) we set of in overcast weather around the headland to search out beaches, we stopped at Phra nang beach which has a large cave of the same name at one end. Local fisherman put phallus shaped wooden carvings in the cave to help them catch more fish and bring good luck. After this we paddled around the headland abit further to get a good luck at Railay, by now it was starting to warm up. So we paddled back (well i paddled hard and kim pretended) we went abit further to Ton sai beach, the place is a haven for climbers and we stopped for lunch, after sitting for a while and chilling out we made the short trip back to the beach and returned our kayak. We nipped back for a quick shower and sunblocked up, 45 mins later i was burnt to a crisp and it was going to rain. We ate at the Mangrove restaurant that night and it was so good it soon became the place we went every night. In bed for 8:30 sunburnt, tired and very happy!

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28th

Today was abit of a crap day, rained all day. We decided to go for a massage together, Kim opted for a Thai massage and i a back and shoulder massage, it didnt start well tiger balm all over my burnt back and after 20 minutes of trying to bear it i had to get it rubbed off, stinging to say the least. It wasnt what i was expecting, i thought id get a nice relaxing massage instead i got contorted and my joints cracked whilst an elbow was dug into the muscles in my back and shoulders. It made me feel good after but i just wanted to lie down for an hour not get a small old thai lady walking up and down my back! Kim enjoyed her massage and said it was just what she needed, she was also glad to have tried a traditional thai massage. So 700 bht lighter we went for tea at the same place as the day before, still raining so we went back to the room and chilled out watching films and playing cards.

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29th

Its raining so much now it feels like were leaving the room, eating then walking back and sitting there drying off. When we returned from lunch a small lake had formed outside of our room, a couple of rooms down from us had already flooded so we were moved upstairs before it got us. For abit of fun we went wading in the lake, knee deep water which spread across the whole hotel complex. We saw a few locals fishing outside the rooms and no shit at all one caught a 2 foot long red snapper!!! The receptionist explained that it all flows down from the surronding mountains and has nowhere to go because of all the building so just floods that same area all the time. Hopefully leaving this rainy place for Koh phi phi tomorrow.

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30th

woke up early and went to purchase our boat tickets, on the way we saw that the rain had destroyed a huge portion of the hotels pathway, the place is a right mess. We'd put laundry in and it was late coming back so we missed the ferry and will have to leave tomorrow, poo! We were talking to some locals and found out that due to high seas the ferry to phi phi was cancelled so we were stuck anyway, no wonder our washing was late. Were hoping to leave tomorrow morning. walked around the area and saw that not only our hotel had been destroyed but alot of the beaches had been washed away and some of the street stalls had been toppled. Bed early as we have to be up to by ferry tickets.

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31st

No luck getting tickets, the ferry to Koh phi phi still isn't running, but we did manage to get tickets to koh lanta overland via krabi. So at half 2 me kim and a german fella we'd met boarded a long boat to Krabi then took 2 minibuses to Koh Lanta, our driver decided he had to get home quickly so he dropped us at the ferry terminal and a few of the other passengers kicked off but it did no good so we just got a tuk tuk to a beach bungalow place that we'd been recomended. they were nice enough, clean and comfortable and 100 metres away from the beach.
We celebrated our 2 year anniversary that night.

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