Krabi: Not So Crabby

After successfully landing a nice place to sleep on Ko Phi Phi in high season after showing up without a hotel reservation we took our new found swagger on the ferry to the mainland for the cliff-dominated beaches of Railay in the Krabi province of Thailand.



Brave smile.  I'm hiding behind camera.



Not so easy this time. 

After dragging our bags from one side of the island to the other, down a path to what appeared to be the island landfill, we quickly discovered that the places that would have us were a touch grittier than we expected.

We did find a really nice hotel with only one night open, checked out the next morning and moved next door to the Ya Ya "resort" which was more like a tree house village. 

We spotted a family we've been calling The Tevas that we encountered at the airport on the way to Chiang Mai.  We all played it pretty cool.

Not to keep repeating the same post, but Railay is really beautiful.  It is almost impossible to choose what to gawk at and we're sure pictures won't do it justice.  We're surprised that nobody has every really sold these islands more aggressively to us, it is really that impressive.

               

The island is split between two main coasts:  West Railay which is more upscale resorts and East Railay which is the edgier side, more for backpackers than holiday makers.  We stayed on East, although our hearts are West.

Food safety alert!

The food was cheap-ish, but we admit that we've been hitting the touristy places and thus pay the tourist tax.  The best and most affordable eats were actually from a longtail boat beached on the sand served up by a friendly Thai lady manning two woks and a grill.

We broke down and ordered a pizza - it was worth it.

This cave is supposedly haunted by an Indian princess.
We were haunted by Swedish tourists.

Seriously, don't feed these monkeys.

After hopping around a bit, we decided that our next stop would be a little more remote and for a longer stay to actually see if we could get bored.  We're on Ko Lipe now, a short ferry ride from Malaysia where we'll need to be before our 30-day visa waiver runs dry at the end of the month.  More on that next post...