“You asked for Railay, right? Because we are going the wrong way.” Is what I was thinking as the tuktuk drove off down the street.
I bought a boat ticket, why are we even in a tuktuk? Not long later we pull into a marina, of sorts, and boarded the longtail I was expecting. We then motored back past where the tuktuk had picked us up from the ticket office. Not sure what’s wrong with just marking off a section of beach for boats, like every other place. This was a needlessly long detour.
We chose our restaurant based on what we thought the toilet would be like. It left a lot to be desired but at least they had soap at the basin. We had ourseleves a cooling iced coffee and a staple of Thai cuisine, mango sticky rice. Its basically mango slices with a sort of sticky version of rice pudding in the middle. Very tastey.
We had a good explore of Railay, threading our way down the small streets connecting the resorts. We had entertained the idea of doing some rock climbing, but it was just way too hot. More so the humidity meant any sweat you produced just stayed on you, instead of evaporating and cooling, as per design. It was like going on a hike in blazing sun whilst swimming in a hot tub.
We picked up some more water and found the secret path to Tonsai. 5 years ago, this was where all the cheapo climbers hung out. Now its a ghost town. Most of the thriving huts and cafes and bars are shut and falling down. There was only 1 or 2 that survived. The big wall segregating the undeveloped resort, is still there and still covered in interesting grafitti. But now the resort has had some building work done and seems to be open, but rather sparsely populated.
We hung around and watched the only 2 climbers sweat their way up a climb. It was hot work just watching but I couldn’t resist a little boulder at the bottom. By this point, as much water as we had drunk, Aimi was feeling faint. There was just no breeze and after returning thru the secret jungle track to Railay, she was looking exhausted.
We decided to finish the days exploring and head back to the hotel, and a cool pool. Asking the taxi boats, we should have bought blue tickets to use with the many blue shirted longtail captains. It turned out the pink tickets we had purchased were only to be used with the few and irregular green shirted captains… because that makes sense…
Therfore we had to wait, but the up side was we had time to cool down (a bit) with an iced fruit shake. This perked Aimi up a little, just before we set off in the boat. The sea was a bit rougher on the way back and I felt a bit green around the gills by the time we got dropped off. Again, nowhere near the ticket office or beach you’d expect but certainly deliberate. There was a line of tuktuk riders waiting. Unimpressed with the tourist milking, we took a longish walk back to the hotel. The first thing I did was dive into the pool. It was instant relief as the pool is always partly shaded.
Aimi went up to the room with water and snacks and turned up the aircon to full blast. I think she had a bit of heatstroke as she was feeling headachy and ill. After a couple hours she was recovered enough to entertain food and we found a corner shack that served simple local food.
I think we are doing the days wrong. We def need to avoid walking around anywhere at midday and instead get up for breakfast at that time. Then laze by the pool, or in a cafe or something till the heat dies off, then go out in the evening till late. The music was still pumping at midnight, but we were in bed by 9pm. Need to learn to live like a local tomorrow.
