The boat from Ko Samui, was more like a ferry and our least favourite boat ride so far!
We arrived in Krabi, really tired and unenthused, because it seemed everyone was just
trying to get money off us! We were dropped at a random travel agents (Phi Phi Family) in the middle of nowhere and the only way to get anywhere, let alone where we wanted to go, was to pay them a lot of money! So the cheapest option was to pay them an extortionate price for a taxi ride, which lasted all of 5 minutes, to the port in Krabi town where there was soooo much more choice.... well two other boat companies anyway, that could take us to Railey beach for much less than what P.P Family wanted to charge us! Avoid using them!!!

...but, there was a slight catch, we had to wait for enough passing customers to fill up the long tail boat before the captain would leave for Railey beach. The only problem was there were no customers! We started to get even more annoyed because the journey was about 45 mins and we wanted to get there before it got dark and it was getting late. And then it started raing bucket loads, this was bad, 1. because the longtail boats have very flimsy roofs and 2. because we were going to Railey beach, where the main entertainment is the weather!!

The boat ride over was ok in the end, because the rain was so bad, the captain decided that we would go as soon as there was a break in the rain without having to wait for anymore passengers. so us along with another couple, we all decided to save our bags
rather than ourselves and braved the rain for the 45 min ride, luckily when we arrived there was a little break in the rain but that didnt stop us from getting wet, as the boat stopped about 100 metres out from shore so we had to wade knee deep with our bags on, which was a challenge especially considering how clumsy I am (steph).

We heard that the accommodation would be expensive, even on the backpacker side (East Railey) so went for a bamboo hut with a matress on the floor and a mosquito net for what we thought would be the cheapest we would find 600 bhat! I wasnt that pleased, but that was mainly because of the weather and our hut was abit damp and not exactly what I'd call cosy!

To lift morale we decided to go out, have a look round and have some dinner, and decided on a BBQ skewer which was a bargain because you got a free salad to start and free fruit for dessert. wooohoooo. And the restaurant did grrrreat cocktails :) After dinner we found a hotel that had the Liverpool match on so Al had a beer and I had a chocolate milkshake and we watched that. The hotel was nice, so we decided to see what the price of their rooms were and funally enough they were the same price as ours
and a lot better!!

The next day the rain cleared up, it was just a little cloudy, but warm enough for us to check out the beach on the pricier side (West Railey) and it was really nice to chill out. The sand was quite hard where all the rain had compacted it and the beach was fairly shallow but was a nice not to have from the rain. We walked back to East Railey for lunch at a little shack because it was so much cheaper, Al had a really nice rice dish and I had a papaya sald, with extra ants (YES ANTS!!!!) yuk.

The next day we had a boat/bus combo booked for Phuket, Kantary Bay hotel in "Karon beach" to be exact, to meet my family and the rest of the gang. After a 4 hour initial minibus journey however it turned out there was no Kantary Bay hotel in Karon?!?!
the lady at the travel agent said there was one at Cape Panwa on the otherside of Phuket island, so with little other options we got in a taxi and headed there.... luckily for us, mum and Dave were waiting for us out the front - even though we did just drive
straight pass them and not see them :-S so alls well that ends well.

Heres to a relaxing week with the Bartletts, Lewis' and Cargans. Wooop!!