ROMANTIC ON RAILAY & CLIMBING ADVENTURES

For Valentine's Day this year, Alex and I headed over to Railay Beach for a romantic getaway. The following night, we had plans to camp at Tonsai Bay for our friend Jason's birthday, so we wanted to stay nearby, but also treat ourselves to a nice resort and play tourist for the evening. And boy, were we impressed! Railay is a very small peninsula off the coast of Krabi, accessible only by boat. West Railay is arguably the best beach I've been on in Thailand, it's completely surrounded by limestone cliffs (karsts, for those geology buffs out there) and it has spectacular sunset views. The beach is clean, the sand fine, and it's not overly crowded. . . It's perfection. Railay East is more of the hotel, restaurant and shop side, but is also fascinating because the tides are so drastic; at noon the waves are literally crashing on the sidewalk and you're getting soaked, six hours later it's a five minute walk out to barely dip your toes in.

But I digress, we stayed at a really nice resort called Sunrise Tropical on Railay East. (No, we didn't get paid to promote them, I just enjoyed my stay so much that I'd recommend it to anyone. Cheers to great customer service!) I was honestly sold by the welcome: we were given mysterious albeit delicious green fruit juice and a cool, lemony scented towel to wipe the travel sweat off. Our room was also incredible, with a giant balcony, plush robes and even a bathtub! You might laugh about my enthusiasm over the tub, but luxury is hard to come by on our teachers salary, and a tub is pretty rare to see in our usual Thailand hotels.


They even put our name on a welcome board! *easily impressed* Just outside the hotel at high tide Thailand loves everything tacky. We had a cheeky beer and sunset viewing on Railay West.


The next morning I was dying to check out this climb up to a view point that I had seen with my parents the last time we were here, but none of us were wearing proper footwear. This visit to Railay I dragged my sneakers the whole way, and I'm so glad I did.





We had to climb like this for 15 minutes to reach solid footing and the path to the view point! We were quite confident we could handle it though because we saw a Dad and his 10 year old coming down from it and he said it was easy. No, I wouldn't say it was "easy", but it was such a fun climb, and there were plenty of places to grab hold of and put your feet. Neither myself nor Alex are climbers in the slightest, so it was a bit challenging at times and we had to get our bodies into some weird positions to climb to the top. And at the end we were sweaty and covered in red clay but it was some of the most fun I've ever had. And was the view ever worth it . . .





It was incredible . . . these pictures are postcard worthy but they still don't do it justice.


After that we got lost in the jungle for a little bit trying to find the elusive "lagoon" promised on the map.





I can't even begin to describe how high up the trees and cliffs surrounding us were. At one point, it felt like we were in Jurassic Park; note the prehistoric-looking tree we came across. We did find the lagoon, it's the small blue part hiding in the photo of the two giant cliffs above. We didn't venture down though because it looked intensely steep and at this point we were still wondering if we'd make it down from the first climb up. Maybe next time!

Stay tuned for part two: camping on Tonsai the following night!

ROAD TRIPPING

Last weekend we spontaneously decided to road trip to Koh Lanta. Now, if you know anything about Thailand, you might know that koh means island - and since our preferred method of transport here is the scooter . . . That's right folks, we decided on the grand adventure of scooting to an island!

The whole journey only took about 3 hours and cost 100 baht in gas. Add to that 50 baht for copious snacks and another 50 for the drive-on ferry and you have a grand total of 200 baht for the day - or $7! A mighty fine deal, especially considering friends of ours came the following day, took twice as long and spent twice as much via minivan. Plus, we were able to avoid the incessant pick up stops, caterwauling Thai music, and jam packed seating arrangements typical of every Thai minivan ride. We got to make a day of it instead, hitting the open road to check out the sights and sounds of rural Thailand and cruising in the sunlight.





While we managed to make it the whole way without getting lost, (partly because there were only three major roads, and partly due to our genius and well planned friend Richie who calculated how long each leg of the journey was and matched it to his speedometer. Cheers, Richie!) we weren't without mishap. As I was driving, my bike started to feel a bit wobbly. I thought I was imagining things until I remembered that about 20k back I hit a major bump. I pulled over and sure enough, I had a flat tire. Luckily, across the street was a mechanic / motorbike salesman / tire guy or whatever you want to call his multipurpose shop. I actually pulled over because I saw the universal Thai sign for that kind of shop: a pile of discarded tires on the side of the road. That's one of my favorite things about Thailand, bike fixer guys are a dime a dozen - there's literally one every 5k at least.





Note the ubiquitous discarded tires I was referring to above. The guy pulled a four inch nail from my tire, so I'm glad I stopped when I did! The whole affair only lasted ten minutes and cost me 120 baht - $5. Much nicer than in the states where that would have taken two hours and cost me 120 dollars!





I'm not going to lie, bums and lower backs were significantly aching once we arrived. Luckily, that's nothing a few paracetamol (Tylenol) and a $10 massage on the beach can't change.





We were able to have a nice four day holiday because the schools shut down all week save Monday due to the protest situation in Bangkok. Side note - the south of Thailand is a big supporter of the movement, and apparently politics and education are not separated here. But I digress . . .

Koh Lanta was a lovely spot. A bit pricey - but we stayed near the beach (not in those huts, I wish!) It as so nice to have our own scooters to tool around as we please. We pretty much kept to one main beach / bar - the Pirate Bar on Long Beach (Phra-Ae), owned and operated by some sweet Reggae men. The boys played pool there during the day while the girls soaked up the sun, as we do. We went to a cool beach party at Korner Bar the last night, but I didn't grab any photos. There was still a lot we didn't get to see, but I have plans to set up base on Koh Lanta again for my birthday weekend in March because it's pretty close to the Emerald Cave I've been dying to get to! (The one featured on The Bachelor, shame on me.)

All in all it was a great weekend. Koh Lanta, I can't wait to see you again!

SUN FLARES AND PALM TREES . . . THAILAND IS GORGEOUS

Morning Train Ride from Nikki Elizabeth on Vimeo.

Early morning on the train from Hua Hin to my new home, Thung Song. May 2013