Railay and Krabi

Greetings from Paradise! From Bangkok we took a short plane flight to the beaches of Krabi on the West (Andaman/Indian Ocean) coast of the long tail of Thailand that runs down to Malaysia. From the airport, we hired a taxi to the beach at Ao Nong where we hired a long-tail boat to take us to Railay, a peninsula that is only reachable by boat. There are no cars on the Peninsula but the many "resorts" have motorcycles with side-car platforms to bring luggage to and from the beach (see the photo of Carol and Maya in the photo below). The coast down here is incredibly beautiful. Massive limestone cliffs in shades of white and tan and gray jut up through tangles of green vegetation. Some cliffs are separated by crescents of beautiful light sand, others jut directly from the ocean forming anthropormorphic-shaped islands all around. We are staying in a bungalow on Tonsai Beach. It turns out Tonsai is a Mecca for international sport climbing and has a groovy, laid-back feel. Commerce in Tonsai is consists largely of bungalow guest-houses, climbing shops, and open-air restaurants and bars scattered along the beach and through the jungle along rutted dirt paths. The restaurants and bars are all open air and all feature some type of colorful rope light/Christmas light illumination. Many have platforms on which you can lounge against triangular Thai pillows. Most have a slack line strung across the sand where patrons can display their feats of balance on a nylon-webbing tightrope. The whole place is evocative of a huge festival featuring climbing and diving and beaches instead of live music.

The beaches, framed by the limestone, cliffs are simply stunning. Because of the large limestone outcroppings, travel between the beaches requires some planning, generally the long-tail boat pilots are willing to ferry you for a small fee. Zak and I also walked between beaches at low-tide, swam at high-tide, climbed over paths, and even rented a kayak for an afternoon. The latter was particularly fun as we were able to explore various small sea-caves at the base of the limestone cliffs in the area.