Railay

Railay Beach comes highly recommended and deserved a visit of yours truly.

The speedboat ride there didn’t take too long, around 30 minutes, so that was certainly to my liking. The weather also seemed to be nice enough.

The beach is indeed beautiful. While busy-ish, I’m pretty sure that since monsoon season is about to start, that it was fairly quiet for the locals around there.

Countless establishments at Railay try to give you a magical experience. They sell so much weed and mushrooms!

Speaking of souvenirs, I went to explore the area and happened upon a beach on the other side with 2 little half-caves entirely dedicated to “Phra Nang”. Phra Nang is a local deified spirit — a princess, according to legend — who is said to have drowned near the peninsula after her ship sank. Sailors and fishermen have long venerated her, believing she controls the sea and can grant good fortune. The cave shrine is filled with dozens of carved wooden phalluses, offerings left by locals who believe they bring fertility and prosperity. It is, to put it mildly, quite the sight. 😄 I sure hope customs doesn’t take issue with all my new tokens… 😄

Now I wanted to go to a famous lookout point. Apparently, I had previously walked past the track unknowingly. I just didn’t see a path at all!

I retraced my steps, referring with google maps and came to a halt. I turned to face an imposing wall of rocks, roughly 90m tall.

That was the trail.

There was a muddy, zero-faith instilling, lubricious rope dangling from the rocks. Well. I thought to give it a shot. I had heard from a source that it is indeed feasible and should only take about 15-20 minutes.

I was determined to make it.

But determination turned into hope, which turned into doubt, which turned into fear.
I think I made it more than halfway before I decided to turn around. My stamina would have allowed me to go on, that wasn’t the issue. Also, it was kinda fun. But: I just couldn’t find a reliable rock to fit my foot anymore. It was muddy all over, very slippery, so every bit of seeming security I could find in a crevice was built on a very shaky concept of poriferous trust. Add to that my ever-heavy backpack trying its best to pull me closer to sea level plus the panic-inducing prospect of having to make it down again…

I decided to just go back. I had climbed about 60m — or so my watch claimed — and heard people facing “The Wall”, hoping for a fun hike to the lookout point, stating variants of “Nope”, or “Hell no!” and pattering away into the distance.

While I was descending, I was filled to the brim with adrenaline and fear held at bay by the aforementioned adrenaline. Well. It kept playing peekaboo…

Maddie’s saying “You can go down on your butt or the mountain will bring you to your butt” was a mantra in my head that guided me down far more reliably than the ropes did.
I made it eventually! But boy, oh, boy. My knees were shaky for a while after that, let me tell ya.

I will say, that while the mud was entirely unhelpful, it was quite beneficial when it was dry and functioned as gym chalk - what you use to have a better, less sweaty grip.

Not at all sorry that I had failed, I wobbled off in search of a food source.

Soon thereafter, I felt it was time to skedaddle back to the boat.

We boarded, the anthracite clouds gathering quickly and looming above us, foreboding a decent downpour.

It started as soon as we left the shore. Even though the little boat had a roof, there was absolutely no escaping the rain. I was inconveniently seated directly at the end of the boat, taking the brunt of the rain from the side. The others got wet, for sure. The rain also created a little rivulet on the bench we were sitting on, reliably touching base with everyone.

There was a woman sitting across from me, holding her newborn child, her husband sitting next to her. Now, I got fairly enraged by how this played out. It was evident from the moment we were sitting down that it was gonna rain and that those sitting closest to the end of the boat were gonna be the wettest. Why on earth wouldn’t the man offer his wife and their baby to sit in a more protected seat? Why? The baby would have been soaking wet at the end of it, its mother as well. That guy’s behavior was just beyond ignorant.
Thankfully, one of the girls sitting around them, shoved their umbrella into the guy’s hand, which he then used to shield his family.

Seeing the umbrella, I thought, actually, yeah, I’ve got one too that I had all but forgotten about. 😄 So I used that as an extra shield and can say that at least one shoulder remained dry. 😄

The next portion of the day was dedicated to cleaning myself up, since I looked like I was rofling in a mud pit.

Then I went for another stroll through the night market where I got scolded brusquely by a stall owner for standing too close (that is quite negotiable and open to interpretation) to his stall without ordering anything. (I was waiting in line for a smoothie, adjacent to his stall, and since there was a line and a junction with people passing left and right, there really wasn’t a different option.)

Sipping my orange/lime smoothie, I turned in for the night.Read more