Up to this point in the trip, we had done a proper job researching each place prior to visiting to try to understand what we were in for. We didn’t really do that for Railay Beach, near Krabi in the Andaman Sea. We just picked a place on the beach & booked a night to check it out before committing to anything else. Two of my best friends, the Veit sisters, have previously been to Railay beach & I talked with them about it not long before my trip. However, only a “you probably don’t need to spend much time there” rang out in my head along with “the beach is gorgeous & this is a must see” so I guess I attributed “not needing much time” to time limitations of their trip… Why not spend more time there if it’s so beautiful?
We flew from Siagon to Krabi & hopped in a taxi to take us to Railay Beach. The taxi dropped us at a pier & told us to book a boat to Railay Beach bc apparently no roads. This is where more research would’ve come in handy. Oh well, everything’s an adventure. It was 3:20 & luckily the next boat was leaving at 3:30. It was a wooden longboat & the ride was 15 mins to Railay. It dropped us at Railay East which doesn’t have good beaches but only a 10 minute walk to Railay West are good beaches & our beachfront hotel. We did a quick change into suits & went out to enjoy the beach at 4pm to check out the area to see if we like it enough to stay additional nights. Within 15 minutes we had decided the afternoon & evening would be plenty of time & we’d look for hotels on Ko Phi Phi for the next few nights. This quick decision was due to the following factors:

– The lovely longboats that make for beautiful photos in the foreground of mountainous scenery were so goddam loud & constantly picking up & dropping day trippers off. Total noise pollution which did not make for a peaceful relaxing atmosphere.

– It’s 98 degrees during day (prob 90 at 4 which was bearable) but no way to cool off as the water, protected by the inlet, was like bath water. It didn’t even make me want to go in after walking in knee deep. I thought it would make me hotter. The opposite of refreshing.

– The beach was swarming with a lot of families & a lot of couples, who we determined were very boring as we weren’t sure what there was to do here given swimming in the ocean & relaxing on the beach were out. I just couldn’t reconcile why couples, looking for a nice quiet romantic spot, would come to a place w such noise pollution all day long. Doesn’t make sense.

– Then we finally realized what there was to do… Serious climbers come there to climb the massive rocks overlooking the water. We saw maybe 20 people w ropes & climbing shoes so we determined the majority of the people were boring couples.

– The topper was when we sat down to split a spicy squid salad at 6:30 & to book our Ko Phi Phi hotel. We were given food menus but no drink menus. We asked the server for one & we deciphered he told us he couldn’t serve us bc he was Muslim but we were welcome to go to the bar, order drinks & bring them back to enjoy w dinner. Umm, what? I traveled all over the Middle East & in Turkey & believe me, we were served a lot of drinks by Muslims without judgement. Why wouldn’t you want to make a buck? So Amy desperately went in search for the bar, which we thought was our hotel’s along the beach. Nope. She tried the next beach hotel and the next. They all directed her to “the bar” which she finally found bc there’s only one on the beach. The only ones to serve beer & booze on the island. WTF? 20 minutes later she returned w 2 mojitos, we ate the salad, booked our Phi Phi hotel, settled our tab & promptly went back to “the bar” for dinner (a delicious red curry w duck & pineapple), beers, cards & some great people watching.
A simply stunning beach bound by these massive awe inspiring mountains but a 2-hr day trip would’ve been sufficient bc it was a weird place overnight and while we made the best of it & had fun, we were thankful we were leaving in the morning.