The Beach (19 - 28 November 2007)
I don’t learn - it has happened so many times that I end up on overnight transportation and then freeze my butt off while no one seems to share in my agony. The over night bus to Krabi province was luxurious and comfortable, and I would have had a brilliant time if I was better prepared for the air-conditioning. We (Ash, Kate, Eon and I) arrived in Krabi and, after surviving a couple of there-are-no-boats-available-scams, we got a boat to Railay beach.
The Lonely planet warned against the first impressions of the beach: a sight of mud and mangrove trees. This beach is known as Railay East and is purely used as the ‘arrival port’ for visitors. A five minute walk took us to Railay West - a picturesque turquoise ocean with pearly white sand. We started to search for accommodation, but it was quite apparent that we would have to stay on another beach as this one was too expensive for the likes of us. How about R11 000 a night?!
Kate and I waited on this beach with all the luggage and sent the boys out to scout for accommodation on another beach. It started drizzling slightly, so we covered the backpacks with our ponchos and stood under a tree. All of a sudden, the slight drizzle turned into a vicious storm. I was stranded in the pouring rain with two big backpacks and two small, but heavy daypacks (containing our most prized belongings - laptop, camera, lens, video camera and two i-pods). I saw a construction site and grabbed the daypacks and made a sprint for the building, on a return trip I fetched the two backpacks (yes, I can actually carry both at the same time). By this time I was soaked to the bone!
After about 20 minutes of rain, the sky cleared and it was as though none of this ever happened. We were still waiting for Eon and Ash to return - thinking they probably hid from the rain somewhere. When they returned, they were also soaking wet and sweaty! They had to do what our guidebook calls ‘a short scramble’ over rocks to get to and from the other beach and this in the pouring rain! The scramble is actually a pretty intense hike over a rocky, slippery and muddy hill. Needless to say - they were not impressed
We found accommodation on Hat Ton Sai - the beach right next to the beautiful, expensive one. It was also a beautiful beach, but too rocky for swimming. So we had to do the ‘little scramble’ everyday to get to the swimming beach - I did not mind getting a little exercise.
Werner and Chanel also joined us the next day - so we were a cosy party of six! The four days on Railay flew by. We spent the days there swimming, tanning, rock climbing and just having a real holiday.
From Railay, Eon and I moved on to Ko Lanta. Werner and Chanel stayed on at Railay. On the first night, we stayed on Long Beach in a crappy bamboo hut. We were not too impressed with this accommodation and the beach was very similar to what we get in South Africa. We wanted to move on to Ko Jam the next morning, but when we got to the pier, we were told that there is only one boat and it leaves at 8:00am. We asked the tuk-tuk driver to take us to a budget hotel, thinking we would spend one night there and then move on the next day. We ended up in Garden Home Guesthouse - a lovely little spot right on Klong Dao beach.
Unfortunately they did not have any 400 Baht rooms available, so we settled for a 600 Baht room. This was a stunning room with huge sliding doors walking out onto a private balcony. We liked this place so much that we decided to spend another three days here, but the room we were staying in was booked for the next night. We agreed that we would move into a 400 Baht room the next day.
I should have known that this was too good to be true! The next morning when I went to enquire about moving into our cheaper room, I was told that there are no 400 Baht rooms available and that we would have to stay in a 600 Baht room again. I was not too upset about it, 600 Baht for this great accommodation was not bad at all. I was escourted to the room we had to move to and I nearly had a fit! This 600 Baht room was nothing like the one we stayed in - it was small, dark, with a tiny window and no view. The furniture was worn and the décor non-existing. If they had charged us 400 Baht for this room, I would not have had an issue, but this was outrageous. I politely showed my dismay and asked if we could get this room for less. They explained that this room has aircon that we were not allowed to use (unless we wanted to pay 700 Baht), so in effect, they were saying that we have to pay more for a worse room because we could look at the aircon! This comment floored me and I was fuming - I insisted on seeing another room. And so they did, they showed me a room that was exactly like to one we stayed in the night before with a TV extra and it will cost 800 Baht. I explained that we do not need a TV, I just want to stay in a place that correlates with what we are paying.
It was apparent that they were trying to scam us. I threw my toys out the cot and said we will check out and go else where. This was not what they wanted and very soon they had a room for us - the same type of room that we had before with a TV for the same price. I won. Chantell 1 - scammers 0. Eon spent the entire day in front of the TV watching the highlights of one cricket game after another. This was almost like a summer’s day in South Africa
We knew that we were not very popular with the staff, so we avoided them and especially their restaurant. We were not tempting our luck - we might just get food poisoning. When we woke the next morning, our toilet smelled of rotted onions. Eon explained to the lady that we could not stay in this room; they had to either fix the problem or move us to another room. Can you imagine the mayhem this caused?! We just decided to rather move to another place. In hind sight, they probably new about the stinking drain and put us I this room on purpose!
Right next door, we found even nicer accommodation for cheaper and they had the nicest staff! So we spent our last night here before returning to Krabi to get another overnight bus back to Bangkok.
The beach holiday was great - low on activities and excitement, high on relaxation and mental preparation for India. Some highlights include:
- My bikini wax with cold wax - I physically cried while the old Thai beautician just grimaced.
- Hat Pranang - a stunning little beach with caves, one cave filled with all shapes, colours and sizes penises! The tale goes that the fisherman built this shrine for some goddess to bless their catch.
- Eon’s monster hike to Princess Lagoon. This was a gruelling hike up a mountain into a valley to get to a lagoon. I waited (well, actually I napped - drooling like an old man!) on the beach. On his return, Eon was covered in mud and sweat. He claims to have had a great time
- Not really a highlight, but just worth the story, is the topless tanning women. The guidebook specifically stipulates that this is a Muslim community and that tourists should be respectful of this. Yet there are the Europeans flaunting their equipment without the least bit of shame!
- The evening we polished a bottle of local whiskey and Coke! I even learnt the full military alphabet - Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta…
- The unusual pattern that the crabs leave on the sand - it looks like very tiny aliens visited the beach and left these small circular patterns in the sand. Another weird and stunning pattern is carved into the sand by the ocean water - it looks like paintings of trees.
- Eon, Werner and Chanel went rock climbing.
Eon: We found the only spot on the island where the sun starts frying you at 7:00 in the morning! It was good to do some exercise, even if I only managed to climb three routes! Respect to Werner for leading that first route!
Click on image below to view our Beach gallery: