It somehow happens on this trip that if something goes wrong with our beautifully prepared plan, we end up in much better position than we could imagine. This happened also today. From ko lanta we decided to go to krabi. Stay there for few days. Rent a skuter and every day go to different climbin place. On the evening go to night market, try a bug etc. It was our perfect plan.

In the morning we let ourselves sleep longer than usualy. Finally. We had a lazy morning swimming in the sea and eating papaya and pomelo for breakfast which we bought on the previous evening. Finally we packed our things and got ourselves quite good deal with a tuk tuk driver to get into town. There we got the minibus to krabi.

Everything on the way looked very nice. Many trees, hills, houses of the locals, taking prom twice on the way… Everything was still perfect… Until we got to krabi. The true is we didnt see much of the town… But honestly… It is horrible… It’s noisy and busy like bangkok, but lacks all the beautiful places of the capital. Is it cheaper than islands? Certainly! But we got ourselves the same deal on the place in which we ended up on as we could find the cheapest in krabi.

But now we were stuck. The driver took us only to the information center on the harbour (not to the guesthouse to which we asked him to take us to). It was around 4.30pm and we didnt know what to do… The plan is a plan and we didnt have any alternative one. Staying in krabi would be loosing our time. What to do? What to do?

We asked different things different people… In information center, other turists, locals… On the end we decided to go to railey beach. Just take a long boat there, sleep in one of the bungalows and get up in the morning to climb… Nice… We went to look for a boat… It was already around 5 pm.

The thing with long boats is that they will not go if there is not enough people. Most of the people come in the morning and go back to krabi on the evening so nobody else was interested. We waited a while, ate something… Still nobody… It was getting too late.

Finally we decided to look for our hostel. On the way we met a french couple going the same direction. We chatted a moment and found out that there is another way to go to railey – take a bus to ao nang and the long boat from there. We would probably be stuck again but at least closer to our destination and further from krabi.

When we arrived it was already almost dark. Ao nang turned out to be typical holiday destination. There was A beach, many turists, many shops, travel centers, restaurants, lights and so on… It was better than krabi, still not what we wanted so we turned our steps into harbour to find out if there is still any possibilty to get a boat. The deal was the same – wait for more people. This time we were more souspicious… Shall we wait? Or will nobody come again. But the first couple came right after us. They, however were heading to Ton sai. We talked for a little bit. They were from Austria. Also climbers. They told us that Railey is not a good choice. It is too turistic and comercial. Ton sai is smaller, more peaceful, more of a climber’s place and there is a walking path to railey anyway. Quick look in the guidebook did not help us much but we decided to risk. At least we will already have 4 people so the boat will more likely go.

And so it did. The austrian couple gave us many useful hints, told us which routes are most interesting, where is the climbing shop, where best to do deep water solo, the natuee and risks (of getting stuck in one place) of high and low tide and how to get to railey… Although it was dark, as soon as we seen the beach we knew we chose to go to the right place. The beach was surrounded from each side by the rocks. When we were passing through we realize it was obvious climbing village. It all turned out to be good. We got to the right place.

I suppose i dont have to mention that we found cheap accomodation, went around the place, got the climbing book of the place (which bartek carefully studied in the evening) and spent some very romantic time close to the beach. Everything was great!

railay beach

27.02.2010