All Kinds of Time: 30 Before 30: Our long trip! Railay, Thailand

May 27 2013 – Singapore to Railay, Thailand

After a blessedly short flight to Krabi, Thailand we were greeted by one of the strangest sights ever…a set of three white women and one black man all dressed in cheerleading attire complete with pom poms (and the women were wearing heels). They were waiting as we passed through customs and apparently waiting for someone though we never found out who.

After customs, we booked the minibus to Ao Nang “pier”, which was really a restaurant where boats pull within a reasonable distance so you can carry your luggage in knee deep water and climb in. The 20-minute long-tail boat ride was bumpy, but enjoyable as we checked out the gorgeous rock features that make this area famous.

We arrived at Railay, the beach where our Resort was located. Had we arrived at any other time of day, this would not have been the least bit difficult, but since it was high tide, we again had to carry our bags through several inches of water for about 50 yards to get to the entrance to our hotel.

Welcomed by name!

In front of our resort

Our room:

We checked into our hotel, dropped our bags off in our awesome room, and headed out to explore before grabbing dinner at our hotel and heading to bed early.

May 28 2013 – Railay, Thailand

Because of our 3 hour long nap and jet-lag, we woke up before 6am, which allowed us to catch the sunrise over on the east side of the peninsula we are on (our resort is on the west).

Sunrise over Railay East, low tide

Freakishly large beetle!

We walked to a beach called Phra Nang, a beautiful and almost-private slice of beach and we were the only ones on the entire beach.

On the east end of the beach is the Princess Cave. The cave is full of wooden sculptures of penises (yes, you read that right). There are hundreds of them, many adorned with brightly colored cloth. The legend among local fishermen is that to visit this cave brings good luck. I’m not sure what the phalluses have to do with that.

We checked out the view point in Railay, which is up a very steep climb up some jagged rocks, which was luckily made easier by ropes that locals had long since put up to help tourists like ourselves. The climb was not easy, but it was well worth the 30 minutes of effort when we arrived at the view point and had panoramas of Railay beach and the surrounding mountains laid out before us.

Just beautiful.

We ate dinner at our hotel restaurant where Taylor had local Thai curry with shrimp and I had stir-fried vegetables with glass noodles in oyster sauce.

Delicious! Shortly after dinner, we ventured back to the room and it wasn’t long before we were fast asleep.

May 29, 2013 – Railay, Thailand and surrounding areas

On Wednesday, we signed up for an all-day tour of some of the high points of the Krabi, Thailand area. We canoed in caves, saw James Bond Island, ate lunch at a floating village, visited a monkey temple, and swam in a Thai waterfall.

First stop, canoeing through caves! Because of the tides, you can only go to it in the morning. By the time we passed back by after our full tour, the water was too high to get back in.

Next stop, James Bond Island, so named, because the rock island shooting out of the water was featured in a James Bond Movie. So far as we could discern from our research, the island was the site of just one scene in Man with the Golden Gun. The rock itself is really cool, but it’s actually very close to another island, which is where you get dropped off and take photos from. The island is really crowded and overrun with women selling tchotchkes. At least we got some good photos out of the deal!

After James Bond Island, we headed to Panyee, a floating village.

Stomachs full and Baht spent, we returned to our vans and took a short drive to the Monkey Temple. Well, it’s actually a Buddhist temple where a bunch of monkeys tend to live (and with stands selling food to give to the monkeys, can you blame them?). The temple itself was pretty in a cavey sort of way, and the monkeys made for some great photos.

I LOVE this photo if only there wasn't a leg in it! Check out the baby pulling on the mom's nipple!

Finally, we made out 5^th and final stop at a beautiful nature park with waterfalls and pools. We had some time to explore and swim in the little lagoons, which was a nice respite form the heat. Taylor and I chose a small pool a little upriver from the rest of our group. I got in first and was treading water around while Taylor got in when I turned my head to see a HUGE Thai frog sitting on the rocks beside me. I’m talking this frog was as big as my head. I was, of course, terrified of this animal and immediately got out of the water to snap some photos. The water was also full of those Thai fish that are used at spas to eat dead skin off of your feet.

Behemoth frog!

Back at our resort, we enjoyed the most beautiful sunset of our trip, owed to the fact that there were no clouds.

Crazy shapes left in the sand by crabs or bugs of some sort

May 30 – Railay, Thailand

In the morning we rented a Kayak to explore the water outside our hotels beach. We beached the boat on one and declared it our own private island where we proceeded to do a little snorkeling. Taylor brought his mask and snorkel, so that makes it easy. There were lots of fish and coral, but the visibility was low and there wasn’t a huge variety of wildlife.

We then had lunch and headed out for our next adventure, elephant trekking! That’s right, you can’t go to Thailand and not ride an elephant. But before our boat to the safary was ready, we stopped for a famous Mai Thai.

At the elephant trek, our ride was a 2,000 kilo 20-year-old female named Tutik.

The trek was more like a slow walk through the grounds of the elephant safari (really more of a camp). But, it was really crazy/cool to be riding the elephant through the woods.

Toward the end of the ride, we waded on the elephants into a stream where the drivers gave them a chance to cool off and we got to see the male throw water with his trunk on command. It was pretty cool.

After the ride, we got to see a baby elephant show where the elephant did a handstand, sat on its butt with its front legs in the air, dunked a basketball, kicked a soccer ball, spun a hoola hoop on its trunk, played the harmonica, put a hat on Taylor’s head, and (appropriately) asked for tips. Though somewhat depressing, it was pretty cool to see what they can train an elephant to do!