Railey Beach and Ko Lanta

It's been about a week since I last posted an update, so I'll try my best to remember what has happened. Internet has been scarce since we left Krabi, but now we are back for an evening, so here goes.

We left the town of Krabi, Thailand and headed west to a peninsula, or series of beaches, called Railey Beach. The only way to reach this honeymoon destination is via longboat, or high speed boat, so we opted for the cultural experience of riding a longboat. I'm still trying to unravel in my head the design of the longboat and how it travels so well (or not so well) in the water...I mean this vessel is a beast of a boat with a very monstrous wood frame and an engine with a propeller that is practically 1/2 the length of the boat. A large ferry boat passed us and sent swells our way, and I thought for a moment that the longboat was going to crumble beneath us, as the heavy wood pounded the waves with a vengeance. Breathe. We are in tact.

As we touched down on East Railey beach we were greeted with gorgeous mountains on all sides, palm trees, Bob Marley music everywhere, and a plethora of travelers young and old. This area of Southern Thailand is the rock climbing mecca, where hundreds of rock climbers scale the rock faces beginning at the crack of dawn and go till sundown. Climbers from all over the world with top notch climbing lines. We decided not to climb this trip (I guess we're lazy :), but had our fix just watching some of these crazies climbing practically impossible rock faces.

We stayed on the inexpensive (relative of course) East Side of Railey for sleeping and eating purposes, but headed to West Railey for the beaches and sunsets, which were spectacular! If there weren't so many tourists here I'd say these are some of the most beautiful beaches my eyes have ever seen. Yet with so many speedo wearing Europeans it was a challenge for me to settle into this beach scene. In fact, what I've realized traveling these last 3-4 weeks is that I'm not into the tourist attractions at all because there is no identifiable native culture...it's strictly a use of the land for purposes of pleasure and travel. Now I'm not complaining one bit about what we have experienced (because that would be a shame...and I have loved every moment of it...well except the scamming episode in Bangkok), but I'm just saying that riding the public buses for example are the moments I will never forget. Interacting with the locals is incredibly rewarding in so many ways...more stories to come on this soon.

Okay, back to the beach. On our way back to our bungalow one evening we took a wrong turn into an upscale resort and realized we were lost, and were about to turn around when I noticed animal objects moving on the roof. At first I was like "are those rats?" But after closer examination, I realized that these critters on the roof were monkeys!! And a whole group or family of them!! Before I knew it they were climbing down trees and coming closer to us! A British woman had bananas in her hand and began to feed these monkeys little pieces of banana. "Are you kidding me...this woman is NOT doing this!" All I could think about was the years of watching National Geographic, and reading little snippets of random info in magazines and newspapers, and watching movies like Indiana Jones, telling me about how dirty a monkey bite is. So of course when the UK woman offered me some banana to feed the monkeys, I told her "I got bit by a squirrel a couple years back, and that was too much of a thrill for me, so no thank you." Briana of course took up her offer, and fed the monkeys some banana. She loved it! Check out the attached pictures of these curious critters. There eyes amazed me the most, and their agility to climb and jump from trees.

One more story about this UK woman (FYI: about in her 50's). After the feeding frenzy we talked to her at length about some observations about Americans. She wanted to know why Americans do not travel, and I didn't really have a politically correct answer, except that they work too much. This is an observation I have made too considering that none of my friends in college traveled abroad (nor in high school for that matter), and I am blown away at how many people we meet on our travels NOT from the States. Actually, out of the hundreds of tourists we have talked to so far, only 2 have been Americans (one from Seattle, and one living in Winnipeg, Canada with her Canadian husband). We've been learning that a lot of developed countries encourage travel, and give weeks to months off from work to do so. The UK woman said her son, who is a lawyer, was offered a job in London and New York, and he took the London job because it payed more and the hours were significantly less (especially vacation time). She also wondered why so many Americans were obese, and I said that too much work combined with very POOR dietary choices and diminished exercise leads to an overweight being. I think we have only run into a dozen or so overweight (NOT obese) Thai people our entire trip, which is not much at all.

After 3 days of soaking up every possible photon of sunlight at this incredibly dream like beach resort, we embarked for yet another island like paradise south of Railey to Ko Lanta Island. We took a 2 hour ferry ride there watching a scarlet colored sun melt behind the clouds. For the next 3 days we stayed at a bungalow about 5 minutes from the beach, and again, burned our sensitive Seattle/Vancouver skins, although this time the burns were not as severe. Ko lanta is more for the family vacationers. We had a wonderful time here, and would come back again, especially if I could learn to ride a motorbike (but still too freaked out to ride one).

Two more nights left in Thailand and we leave for Bali on Tuesday.

Warmly