Day 9 - Sitting on the dock of the bay

Trip Start Dec 17, 2007

Trip End Feb 14, 2008

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Thailand Krabi, Thailand
Saturday, January 19, 2008

I woke up to an overcast sky. The weather had been great- sunny and hot but it rained yesterday. After some flip-flopping, I decided to take a boat to Railay. Walked five minutes down the river walk down to the boat pier. I was going to just check on boats and then have breakfast. Instead, the boatman made me wait for the boat. The boats leave when there is enough passengers or the boatman can get the passengers to pay more. The basic fare was 100 babt ($3). The boatman wanted at least six people and he finally gave up and took just four people. The boats are called long tailed which are about 40 foot long made of wood and mostly open with a roof over part of the boat. The propeller is mounted on a long shaft attached to the engine and is mounted on a swivel so the boatman just moves the engine and thus the propeller to stir the boat. The boat sounded like a lawn mower and when I first got here, I thought they were mowing lawns.

Long tail boat at Krabi with Mongrove in the back

While waiting for the boat, I med a fellow Oregonian from Bend. He was on a two month tour starting from Hong Kong and working his way south. So we had an interesting discussion and he recommended going to Vietnam. It took about 40 minutes to reach Railay and I enjoyed the view of the shoreline and karst rising tall in the distance.

When we got to Railay, it was low tide and there was no pier or dock so we had to jump into the knee high water and wade to shore. Railay is a peninsula cut off by the tall karst so the only way in was by boat. There are beaches on both side of the peninsula but the east side beach is more beautiful. Between the beaches is flat land where there is several nice resorts. Railay is famous for its rock climbing on the tall cliffs. I had brunch of a tuna baguette in one of the resorts beach front restaurants.

I went exploring. I walked around the base of one the karst and saw many caves. I cam out at another beach which was stunning with tall cliffs and several islands. The weather had improved a little and the sun had come out so I decided to go snorkeling. I decided to swim around one of the islands. The water was low and not so clear as before. When I started to round the island and return to the beach, the wind picked up and the water got choppy so it got hard to swim

Troy on the boat at Krabi

. It was a bit of struggle to return to the beach. My towel was covered in sand so I decided to give up laying on the beach.

I was thinking of doing more exploring but the wind was blowing so decided to head back to Krabi. Had to wait a long time to get enough people to make the return trip. The wind was still blowing and there were white caps. Finally, we got in the boat and headed back into the wind. It was quite the ride and I was sitting in the front and I got soaked by the spray of the boat hitting the waves.

After I got back, I took a shower to wash off all the salt. Then I headed to a travel agent to buy my train ticket for tomorrow for the leg to Bangkok where I will catch a plane to Chiang Mai in the north. So no more more beach for me. While I was out I bough a pair of shorts. I need to work on my negotiations skills as I was only able to get 20 babt knocked off.