Railay Beach, Thailand

We took a ferry from Ko Phi Phi to our next destination at Railay Beach. The east side of Railay should not be called a beach. It is more of a mud flat…with mangrove trees. We had to leap from the ferry into a longboat…which then took us as close to shore as we could get at low tide. The boat was full of luggage and tourists in various forms of “resort wear.” I think the mutual thought was “how do we get to shore?” Then we saw the tractor which was attached to the “tourist transporter.” Brilliant! It takes you through the mud and water and safely to shore.

That was when I noticed our boat driver staring at me, and saying “get out.” No one on the boat moved. I questioned out loud, “do you think we have to get out?” The tourists all said, “no way!” and waited patiently for their “tourist transporter”. We finally came to our senses after sitting in the boat for WAY too long. Dean hopped out and lucky for us it was only knee deep…but we had to slog through water and mud…tripping over rocks (broken toe Trish..not happy) on the way. After we had checked into our room, Dean went out to take this picture and there were still tourists sitting in the boat.

The beach on the west side is amazing! (Of course we are staying on the east side) We grabbed some wine and sat on a mat on the sand, watching the sunset.

Limestone cliffs…you can see why Railay is so famous for climbing.

Sunset…..it was one of those that just kept getting better.

The next morning Dean got to climb. Broken toe Trish took pictures and sat on a rock. We are learning something on this trip…"world class diving/climbing can only be fully appreciated if you are a world class diver/climber”. There are over 700 bolted routes on Railay…and it appears that they took all the tourist climbers to the same wall. Sort of like the Great Barrier Reef….we snorkeled with 400 other people.

Dean ended up having 5 great climbs. He also learned how to belay. As one foreign climber put it "You held my life!"

That afternoon we headed to another beach on the island. It is only inhabited by one resort…a five star 26 acre resort with security guards. Lucky for us, the beach is public property.

Wish we’d had kayaks! We swam until we got stung by jellyfish (again!)

Monkeys! I chatted with a little girl who was climbing and she told me “The monkeys come out in the afternoon.” She was right! Course, she also told me that she was saving her money to buy a monkey. Further discussion revealed that it would be a “pretend monkey.” Phew. Now off to Malaysia!