Random Railay

If you're really looking save some money but still stay in the Railay/Ao Nang area, you might want to try Ton Sai, a small inlet around the cliff from Railay West. If you're coming over on a longtail boat, they usually make a stop there to drop off all the budget traveling rock climbers. These bungalows are basics at best, used only for sleeping after a long day of conquering cliffs.

I'm going to eat your face, TouristWe should probably talk about Makak monkeys, you know, for your own safety. They are grey/brown and fuzzy and positively spawns of satan. Do not pet, feed or entertain the musings of these climbers in the wild. It might be ok to feed them in an area where they are used to humans, like a reserve, but not in the wild. Their cuteness is apparant at first, but as soon as one hisses at you for being too close to their kids, their K-9 like teeth will surely deter you.

Internet - I'm sorry to say that I did not find a free wifi spot on Railay. Which is a huge bummer considering how expensive the internet is. Normally 50 baht an hour might be standard for a Thai town, but because of the remote location Railay is located, not only is the internet sketchy but expensive. Stay away from the hotel internet, I 've found it to be the most expensive (around 150 baht/hr). Take a walk down Railay east where the bars and travel agencies are. It's cheaper, the connection is better and the computers are Skype ready.

Day Trips:

Bamboo Island - usually included in a package of island hopping including the ideal Maya Bay (The Beach movie). It's just a spotless white beach, you know, nothing special (layered with heavy sarcasm here). I loved this beach. Again, it would be more ideal were there not handfuls of other people there, but what can you do. The only thing manmade that I saw there was an outhouse bathroom, so prepare yourself.

Chicken Island - I'm going to go with my Eiffel Tower theory, in that it is more enjoyable looking at it than actually being in or on it. It's a fluffy looking green island which you'll pass during island hopping, that has a cliff that looks like a chicken neck and head. Honestly I think it looks more like some type of dinosaur, but whatevs. I never actually went ashore on this one, but like I said, some things are only cool from afar.

Phra Nang - aka the James Bond beach. This spot became popular after the 60's when The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed here. It's recently fallen out of favor because of the rise of The Beach lagoon (Maya Bay). And I'm sure sometime in the next decade another Thai beach will be filmed in some blockbuster movie and knock Maya out of the loop as well. Either way, a beautiful beach is a beautiful beach. I think I'd actually rather visit the less populated one.

Railay is For Rock Climbers

I've noticed during my travels around Thailand that despite the small width of most of the country, people tend to favor one side over another. The east side has the triplet islands of Koh Tao, Koh Pha Ngan and Koh Samui, which have a lot of backpackers and newlyweds it seems. The west side is more accessible for tourists because of the airports in Krabi and Phuket, and therefore more crowded. Phuket, pronounced 'Puh-ket', used to be a low key hangout, but now the town has become extremely popular. But the backpackers that do travel to Krabi, seem to have only one thing on their minds; rock climbing.

Railay is a great little inlet south of Krabi If you head down to Ao Nang beach on the coast of Krabi, there's a whole bunch of longtail boats and speed boats waiting to shuttle people to the nearby hotels and day trip spots. It's only an 8O baht 15 minute longtail ride to get to Railay, however the driver of the boat won't leave until all the seats are full. If you're in a hurry or have a little more money in your pocket, drivers will usually allow a passenger to buy the rest of the seats in order to get things moving. But since these boats are the main use of transportation to and from, it usually doesn't take much time for the boats to fill up. If you have a lot of baggage, you might want to ask about the tides. If you plan it right the boat can take you almost right up to the hotel, but if the tide is low it's going to be difficult to drag the luggage up the soggy beach. Backpackers won't have much problems though because..of..well...the whole backpack part.

Railay comes off the mainland like a tail, much like Haad Rin does on Koh Pha Ngan. Railay West has probably the best view of the ocean and surrounding islands, its also where the majority of the boats come in, so it's more expensive to stay on this side. However the distance between West and East is only a 5-10 minute leisure walk. Even though the distance between the two is very small, the price differences are vast. A hotel on West might be in the 3000-6000 baht range, where the the hotels on East are more in the 600-2000 baht. The reason all the boats come in on the West side is because the East side beach is full of mangrove trees which makes it hard for the longtails to pull in.

 Railay is for rock climbers! The cliffs of Krabi are legendary and you'll be hard pressed to find one without a daredevil hanging off it. The rock climbing shops account for about half in the area, so you don't have to bring you're own gear if you don't have the room for it. And remember, as with any other activities, the more people you get in your group the more of a discount you can negotiate for. Or you can be like this guy here, and just free hand the rocks. *Please do not try this unless properly trained.

Slow Ride, Take It Easy

Bucket List Item Completed!: Ride an Elephant

Krabi Town, Thailand

After volunteering with the Surin Project elephant camp in northern Thailand, I have a newfound facination with all things elephants. When I originally signed up for volunteering, I think I just assumed that I would be riding an elephant sometime during the week I was there. But when I found out that it was frowned upon, I hate to say I was a little more than dissappointed. I know now why they had that rule though. The Surin elephants have spent the better part of their lives living as servants to human beings and quite honestly, they have every reason to be pissed at us. Some of them had been involved in abusive circuses and tourist scams and others were used in construction, forced to carry all the weight they could and some they couldn't. The elephants I had the priviledge to be around were only just on the way back to being normal elephants, and for tourists to ride them would defeat the purpose of the rehabilation process.

I was warned from other volunteers about their experiences with tourist elephant attractions. They told me about the violence used on the elephants and the tool of the trade, which is a wooden hand stick with a sharp, curved, metal pick at the end. Only a few mahouts, or elephant trainers, carried these picks around the Surin camp, but I never saw them being used. I was told by volunteer that our mahouts carried them in case of an emergency, like if an elephant were to spaz out and try and harm a human. Seemed ok to me, considering the ginormous size of the elephants compared to us.

Even without an elephant ride, Surin is still one of the best things I've ever been a part of and highly recommend to anyone. I mean, at the end of the day, not eveyone can say they've been swimming with elephants in a lake in Thailand. So I've got that goin' for me.

With all this taken into account, I still wanted to ride an elephant, but now I knew what to look for. I scouted out some places as I traveled around Thailand, making sure that it wasn't a sketchy tourist attraction and that the elephants seemed to be in good condition. I finally settled on one in Krabin that seemed ok.

Nosey Parker's Elephant Rides

A funny thing happened when I got to the park. I introduced my myself to the mahouts and one of them noticed the strings tied around my wrists. He kept motioning to my hands and saying, Ban Ta Klang? and then pointing to himself. I couldn't believe it, but not only did the young mahout notice that my blessing strings came from the village of Ban Ta Klang in Surin, but he was also from there. When we first arrived at the volunteer park, all of us were blessed by a local elephant shaman for doing good work for the elephants. The shaman and the other elders of the village tied blessed, yellow strings around our wrists one by one. So the mahout drawing attention to my makeshift bracelets, didn't necessarily embarass me, but it did make me feel a little weird considering I was there by myself in a group full of couples and they were now staring at me.

I noticed that only half of the mahouts were even carrying the picks at all, which made me happy because that means they can command the animals with voice commands. When they starting lining up the tourists to climb up on the elephants the mahouts seemed to be so careful with everyone else, but me they just sort of looked at and motioned to the elephant as if to say "After you. You got this, right?" For only a little while, I sat in the chair bench on the back of the elephant sauntering through the jungle, when the mahout turned around from his perch behind the animal's ears and said, "Yoo want seet heer?" Do I want to sit behind the ears of an elephant while riding through the jungle in Thailand. Like I'm gonna pass that up. At first I'm wondering if that's even allowed. I looked around at the other tourists who were all holding on for dear life in their seats, none of whom were actually riding the elephant bare back. But what did I care if anyone else was doing it. So the mahout and I manuvered to switch places and before I knew it I was in the drivers seat and the mahout was riding shotgun. You ever have one of those moments, where somehow you manage to hit pause for a second and wonder how you got to that point? I, Christina Wanderlust, was riding an elephant. Just like I always said I would. I felt like my shaman strings had achieved me magic superhero status or something. 

Total cost: 700 baht - elephant ride in jungle, feeding the elephants, transportation to and from hotel

(If you are planning on incorporating an elephant  attraction into to your future trips, please be wary of any possible abuse involved. Please do not donate money to harmful tourist scams.)

 If you'd like to volunteer at the Surin Project elephant camp, click here for more information.