I guess Thailand has a different expectation when it comes to utilities as they informed us at the hotel yesterday that the power would be out all day today. Assuming that they were doing some sort of maintenance to the hotel power system we though about going out for the day – well it turns out that the power outage is for the entire town of Ao Nang!! So all the business, shops, cafes, etc. will all be without power starting at about 8am. Unlike the folks up in Carriage Estates I suspect few if any of them have generators 😉
We get up early so that we can get down and have breakfast before the power goes out, and after getting the new 411 about the power, we decide to go down to the beach and see how the seas look for a possible trip to Railay. With very little to do in town spending the day elsewhere looks like a good idea. The water has calmed a bit, and while still a little lumpy the boat operators say it is no problem going to out, so it is off to Railay.
Railay Beach is a small peninsula of land just south of where we are in Ao Nang, but the large limestone cliffs that run everywhere in Krabi province completely separate the small peninsula from the rest of Krabi. There are no roads there (as there are no cars), and their power comes from a local generator – there are no power lines back to the main power grid, and I presume that their voice and data connections are done via satellite. There are 2 beaches, one on either side of the strip of land, and boats from Ao Nang go to one, and boats from Krabi town go to the other. The narrow spit of land between the 2 beaches is less than a 5 minute walk from side to side, and at the end of the peninsula another tall limestone mass rises up and is maybe a half mile across and a half mile long.
Railay is known as one of the top destinations for rock climbers and most people who go to stay there are either trying to escape the more active beach towns, or to climb the magnificent cliffs. I will upload some photos when I can, but the photos themselves do not do justice to the awe inspiring feeling one gets when standing next to some of these formations.
Anyway I digress a bit…. We start out our journey by going to the Ao Nang pier to board our longtail boat for the 15 minute ride to Railay. For those that don’t know what a longtail boat is, it is a long wooden boat made of teak wood about 30 feet long and with a fairly flat bottom. Strapped to the back of the boat on top of a ball joint (so that it can pivot in all directions) sits the motor out of what I would guess to be a small car. Attached directly to the transmission is a long shaft with a propeller at the end. The motor and shaft are perfectly balanced on the pivot so that the operator, who stands at the back of the boat, can move the whole motor and shaft up, down, and side to side to steer the boat where he wants it to go. The shallow flat bottom goes contrary to everything I believe about how boats handle best in the sea, but clearly these people have mastered the art, as they have been using these boats for a very long time for fishing and transportation.
We get ourselves all aboard, and start to make our way out of the harbor, as we get out into the open water we are in about 2-3 foot swells and everyone looks around to see if anyone thinks we should go back… I look to the boat operator and he is standing on his platform in the back with a smile on his face and I figure he is equally interested in getting his boat there and back in one piece as I am the family, so we figure it is all good and forge ahead – we did all put our life jackets on just in case tho 😉
After about 15 or 20 minutes we arrive at Railay West – the beach on the west side of the small peninsula. We stroll across to the East beach for a stroll down to where the rock climbers all gather and wander around a bit looking at the half dozen or so people scaling the limestone that basically goes straight up. I take a couple of photos, bat as with many of these spots the photo just does not compare to the real thing. Rachael of course wants to go up, but we decide that in just flip-flops she does not have the required footwear to go.
From there we head down a little sidewalk through the trees to go to another small beach back on the west side. The path takes us right alongside the cliffs on one side and there are many places where caves have eroded themselves into the cliffside that we can walk through, or where we are able to walk underneath the cliffs where erosion has totally removed the rock at the bottom and carved in sort of a tunnel.
About half way to the beach there is a little hut on one side of the path and a bunch of people milling about. There is a small sign here that points off to a ‘lookout’ and a lagoon. I look around and there is no real path to be seen other than a place on the rock face where the brush has been cleared away. It turns out that the ‘path’ is more of a light rock climb straight up the rock face for about 300 feet or so. However, being the adventurous sort and with Mrs. Columbus saying go for it – up we go! It takes us about 20 minutes or so to make the climb and then a short walk through the jungle that grows on the top of the ridge to get to the lookout, and are rewarded with a fantastic view of the entire Railay Beach area. We can see both beaches, all the area in between, and right over to the next ridge. The edge of the lookout is marked by a piece of rope about shin-high, and certainly it would not prevent anyone from going over. Making your way up close to the rope and looking over however shows that the 1st step off is literally straight down – if you were to go over the first thing you would hit is the path we started out on a few hundred feet below.
As it has been raining a bit here over the last few evenings we are advised that the path to the lagoon is quite slippery and fairly dangerous, so we opt out of that part and make our way back down our original climb and back to the path and hut at the bottom. It was quite a workout, and all the climbing and hiking is double the workout in the 90 degree heat (even without any direct sun) and we certainly must have left several buckets of perspiration on the trail, but in the end the view was definitely worth the effort and we are glad we did it.
After returning to the path we continue our journey on to the small beach on the end of the peninsula. The beach here is fantastic, the sand is so soft and very clean, and given that there is only one way to get there it is easy to see why it is relatively unspoiled. There are a few vendors here that have roasted corn and various cold drinks for sale, but other than that just people relaxing. There is a small shrine located at one end of the beach in a cave that people come to see, and the whole beach sort of fits under an overhang where the limestone has eroded away. Just one more awe inspiring location that we have encountered during our travels here.
We head back up the path and back to the east beach and follow the shore up to the north end where we take a short path up into the hills a bit where our map indicates there is another cave worth looking at. We get to spot where the cave is and it looks like just a small opening into an alcove or something but as we walk into the cave it opens up before us and goes deeper into the cliff. As we are walking along the footpath we can hear bats high above us that have nested for the day (the cave ceiling is probably about 150 feet above our heads) and there is some debate about how tasty we look to them. The cave itself continues on for about 400-500 feet and then opens up into this huge opening that could easily fit my house inside it. The cave has been hollowed out over the eons of time by erosion, and the walls are all covered in mineral deposits, some that are forming into stalagmites and stalactites. The inside of the cave is eerily quite and in another of those moments we are just awestruck by the spot we are standing in. (2 spots like this in one day makes for a great trip)
Slowly we make our way out of the cave and start to head back towards the west beach where our boat is waiting to take us back to Ao Nang. We have been keeping an eye on the weather as we are worried that if the winds kick up the trip back will be a little more rough, but after a brief 10 minute rain storm where we hide under an awning the sun peaks out a little and things looks as good as they are going to get. We jump into the boat and our seasoned captain returns us safely to Ao Nang pier and a short taxi ride back to the main beach. We have about a 15 min walk back up to our hotel and by the time we get there we are well beaten down after a long day.
We are so tired from the day’s adventures that we get back to the hotel and decide that we are not up for a big walk anywhere for dinner so we decide to go to the first place we see for something to eat before calling it a night. We spot this little restaurant right on the street at the end of the driveway to our hotel and decide this is the place as we are walking no farther. Turns out that this is one of the best dinners we have had since we got to Krabi and everyone has a great meal and then it is really off to crash for the night. Truly a great day!
