Railay

Whilst in Ao Nang we had done a quick journey to Railay on a longtail boat to see what it was like. I'd read a bit about it in Lonely Planet and it looked the perfect place for a trio of geeeeezers.

Railay had a nice chilled out vibe, with three main beach areas and huge cliffs surrounding it. I'd done some reading about the number of climbers that head here because the climbs are said to be amongst the very best in the world.

After having a nose through Lonely Planet we found the cheapest accommodation in Railay and decided to set up base here for three days. Whilst we are never paying massive amounts to stay in places, this was the first time we had gone for the cheapest option available. The hut/bungalows we stayed in were very basic and we got bitten by mosquitos but the location within a massive valley was pretty special.







After literally hurling our bags inside the hut and having our valuables put in a carrier bag, wrapped in masking tape and then thrown in a padlocked room, we headed off to get our beach on. On the way we bumped into this absolute nutcases. Some of you may know that I consider myself the natural successor to David Attenborough so I got busy...















I also saw a snake on our first day as we walked through a bit of wasteground, it was green and not massive but I'm glad it got out of the way before I had to. The beaches at Railay were all pretty nice, the one that we landed on was quite commercial though so we decided on hitting the other one.



The most amusing thing about this beach was that contained within a cave was a shrine to some Indian sea princess who allegedly was in the area hundreds of years ago. The shrine was the idea of fisherman hoping for this princess to grant them more fish. The way they went about trying to get this to happen was by making lots, and I mean hundreds of penises out of wood, painting them all sorts of colours and popping them in there with some pictures of nobs. Bizarre.

Our couple of evenings in Railay were spent chilling out and just having a couple of beers round the fire and such like. One of the weird things about Thailand is the number of Thai blokes here that love reggae, with a hell of a lot of them rocking dreads and just generally trying to look like they are from the Caribbean. This meant that there's a lot of reggae on the stereos, particularly in Railay. This was alright as it added to the relaxed nature of the place. A favourite bar of mine had to be "Skunk" with its entire playlist dedicated to songs about marijuana.

















My highlight of our trip to Railay was definitely the snorkelling trip we took from 2-8 on the second day. The plan was to hit 7 islands with something unique happening at each one. This was slightly messed up when the 2 Swedish girls realised 20 minutes into the trip that they had forgotten the snorkels. The longtail was sent back and the whole thing postponed slightly. Me, Rob and Tom were the only English onboard the boat of 15 and so we did the naughty schoolboy thing of laughing at some of the German people onboard. Before you have a go at our immaturity, a couple were very funny looking and rude to the Swedish girls also so we were justified.

We had 2 snorkel stops to kick off and these were wicked apart from everyone cutting a part of their body on some rocks. Saw LOADS of fish, some of which looked friendlier than others and I didn't drown. At one of the stops we were all handed bananas and told to take them into the water. Within seconds we were absolutely surrounded by thousands of these little fish that love bananas. They proper tickled as they tried to eat the bananas from your fingers and this was not something I've experienced or will experience every day!

Also included in the trip was dinner on the beach, with a sunset and a couple of beers (this was mainly for the couples and left us three feeling a little bit out of place), swimming under a cave and a very weird final stop where we jumped into the water in the pitch black only to see loads of light energy coming out of our hands/legs etc. Apparently this was caused by phosphorous. It was weird all the same.
This day/evening was another that will last long into the memory. Next stop Phi Phi.