Hello from Railey (Thailand)
I no we have said this about almost every place we have been so far but......Railey is AMAZING.
We arrived in Thailand after a short flight from Hong Kong and then got a transfer to Khaosan Road in Bangkok where we stayed for one night. It was the back of 9pm when we were shown to our 6 bed dorm that we had booked, there were 2 older guys sound asleep so we decided to head out for a few drinks at the strip of bars across the road.
Jonny managed to find a bar showing football highlights so he was delighted haha. The highlight of our night was when we heard some screaming, we stood up to see what was going on to find 2 ladyboys having a fist fight......funniest thing ever. Everybody in the bar was cheering them on, it was crazy. We found out that one of the ladyboys was actually a waiter in the bar we were in and the other one was a customer, so not too sure what happened but they were fairly going for it.
We called it a night and went to get a good nights sleep or so we thought......the noise coming from the bars across the street was so loud and it didn't stop till about 6am, so we didn't really get much sleep.
The following day we got a taxi to the bus station and booked our overnight bus to Krabi, we had a couple of hours to hang around but there was plenty to do so the time passed fairly quickly. The bus journey was 12 hours and it wasn't a sleeper bed bus, just comfy chairs that reclined so it was quite hard to get sleep. We arrived in Krabi the following morning, got a bus to Ao Nang, then a long tailed boat to Railey Bay. We then went on the hunt for a cheap hotel.
After some haggling we managed to get a room at the Diamond Cave Resort for 500 Baht a night (£10) not too bad, its a private room with a fan, very basic but better than the last hostel in Hong Kong so we couldn't complain. We even had a pool :)
We had now been in Thailand for just over a day and Shay had managed to accumulate around 10 mosquito bites already! She was not impressed.
That night we set out for some food and had a really nice meal, we had two BBQ skewers one with prawns and one with steak that we shared, it was also a buffet so you just helped yourself to rice, potatoes etc. They had the finest Peanut Sauce in the world.....Jonny wont stop going on about it and how he would have it as soup haha, it has became one of his daily topics of conversation lol. After our meal we headed to a local bar, they had a wooden ledge built over the water where you sat on cushions, so relaxing. We got talking to an American couple and a guy from England then decided to head to another bar that were putting on a fire show. The American couple went to bed so the 3 of us set off. We ended up meeting another 2 couples, one from Essex and another from Bradford, we all got on really well and the drink was flowing nicely. The fire show was also amazing, the guys were aged 16 - 20 and we unbelievable. At one point one of the guys threw a fire ball at another guy about 20 metres away for him to catch,over the audiences head.....crazy. Really good to see.
At about 4am and many drinks later it was time to call it a night. The following morning we were both feeling a bit tender so it was a lost day spent in bed trying to recover haha. We ventured out for some food at night and had some local Thai dishes that were both amazing, we banged into the couple from Essex so we sat with them for a while and then headed off to bed.
The following day was Friday 18th the first day in Railey where we were not tired or hungover lol, so we were ready to explore. We set off to the beach which was beautiful, the scenery was just amazing. There was a rather unusual cave on the beach with heaps of wooden carvings in the shape of men's genitals haha. We weren't too sure what it was for but it looked to be some sort of shrine, very strange.
Nearby was a viewpoint and lagoon we had heard people talking about. We found the entrance for it, which was a rope hanging down from some rocks that you had to climb up, it looked like a challenge (for Shay) but she was up for it. After getting to the top we looked up to find more rocks to climb up.....we did this for about 15 minutes to eventually get to the top, knackered and sweating in the blistering heat. The viewpoint was the most amazing thing ever. It was overlooking the whole Bay and you could see both West and East side, the water crystal clear. The photos don't do it justice at all, the one of the two of us looks like the background is fake haha.
We then went off to find the lagoon, not quite realising that it was going to be such hard work. To get to it you had to pretty much abseil down 4 tiered cliffs, no harness and Shay had flip flops on so was already barefoot. We could just see the edge of the lagoon from the top and it looked amazing so we were definitely going down to see it. After a lot of climbing/abseiling we were there......definitely worth the climb, again it was just amazing. There were only 3 other people there, so peaceful. We spent some time just swimming around in the lagoon, so good.
The climb back up to the top was not so fun, it was hard work and we were both shattered, we were glad to get back to the beach and for a swim but all the hard work was definitely worth it, so glad we seen both view point and lagoon.
That night we went out for some more Thai food, Shay had some Pad Thai which she loved. Jonny ordered another Thai dish but wasn't too fond of it. We then went to the bar that we are becoming locals of haha. We met the couple from Bradford again and ended up having a really good night, such a good laugh. 4 buckets of Vodka and Red Bull later we were ready to call it a night.
Surprisingly the following day (Saturday) we were not hungover at all. The couple from Bradford invited us to their hotel a couple of doors down they had a really nice pool so we went to meet them and spent the day chilling out at their pool. They showed us their room, god it was amazing. Compared to all the places we have stayed the past 2 months it was complete heaven, they had a tv, massive bed, separate room for their shower and toilet (unlike ours where you can actually have a shower while on the toilet if you wanted to lol). Super jealous, we may have to treat ourselves to one night in a nice hotel somewhere haha.
That night we went back to the place we had the BBQ skewers so that Jonny could have his Peanut Sauce once more haha. Again was a really good meal, we were not feeling to great so we headed back to our hotel. We had to pack anyway as we head off to Koh Lanta tomorrow morning. Not sure how long we will stay there, just see how we like it. Both looking forward to seeing another beautiful island in Thailand.
Jonny has now caught up with Shay in the mosquito bite department and we are both sporting a very good look of around 20 mosquito bits all over our legs!!
Well that's it from Railey, hoping the rest of Andaman Coast is as beautiful as Railey.
J+B
P.S - For anybody that is keeping track of Jonny's football top collection we forgot to mention that he bought another top in Hong Kong, he now has a green Beijing top to add to his collection.