July 17th, 2009
July 16th–Railay Beach Adventure
We have been in Krabi for a few days now and would like to go to Railey Beach. The only way to get to Railey is by Longtail Boat. From what we can glean from looking at the ocean over the last few days—it would be unwise to do do this as the waves are big and there are no longtails out there. In fact the stand that sells the tickets has been closed. BUT today we open the curtains and it looks not too bad…so we decide to walk down and check it out (that and the power is out in the whole town today–so there is not much else to do). We find the ticket booth open and consider this a good sign–so we buy our tickets and hop in a tuk tuk (yes all 5 of us–and I think this maxed out the capabilitues of the little motorcyle). We get down to the pier and our longtail pulls up and we get in–so far so good!
We take off and it is not long before we see that the sea is very rough–I am remaining optimistic and feeling very adventurous despite the rocking and rolling, splashing and general scary nature of what was happening. About half way along, I made the executive decision to have everyone put on their life jackets (WOW eh? not sure in hind sight why I did not think of this the moment we got in the boat–but I am getting very relaxed here about safety–pretty much all safety standards here are very different than what happens in North America! More about that later). I continued to remain optimistic given that the longtail “driver” was working the boat very well and had a big smile on his face. I think he was enjoying the challenge–and was just as interested in getting to Railey as we were–that and he did not at any point put on a life jacket himself. Anyway–we got there fine–but in the back of my mind I am thinking “we still have to get back!” That and “What would Russill have thought of this??”
While on Railey–we saw several cool things–we saw the place where all the rock climbers like to come to climb, we went into a big deep cave (with bats and all), we saw a couple very nice beaches, there was this one beach where a big tractor had to take people out and bring people in from the long tails as the water was so shallow for such a long way out, the highlight was when we climbed 100 meters (pretty much straight up) the side of a cliff to go see a viewpoint. It was pretty awesome and we all 5 did it–even Rachael in her flip flops–if we had known, we would have known she would have had different footwear. Needless to say, I found some new muscles that will be very sore the next day : )
So after all this, including one quick monsoon rain storm–we decided to get back on that longtail and head back to AoNang Beach. SO our fellow and his boat are still there where we left him and heis all smiles so we decide it will be just fine getting back despite the large swells we still see…This time, we put our lifejackets on immediately!! The ride back is very VERY wet–the jury is still out as to which direction was more crazy–Troys thinks getting there–I am thinking both ways were nuts! We took so much saltwater to the face our eyes were burning–BK spent the whole way with her head IN her lifejacket and Rachael and Jackie were just trying to hide in the middle of the boat–but there was no escaping the sea water really.
Our driver seemed very VERY grateful when we got back as well as we were too!! Even with the conditions out there that day—we were lucky to have gone when we did as it was windier and much rougher waters today–I suspect we would not have been able to go if we had waited.
We discovered a small friendly restaurant at the bottom of the hill also where we had an amazing meal for the 5 of us for less than $23 USD–including appetizers, drinks, meal and dessert. One thing that I have noticed that small businesses here have this way of doing many things–You can usually, get your laundry done, have a meal, book a tour and maybe get a ride somewhere or check your e-mail if you like and all at the same place–Haha!!
