DAYS 2, 3 - KO PHI PHI
....propping up the beach bar.
We weren't completely idle, grabbing the face mask and snorkel. The fish and coral were pretty good for Thailand, but we aint talking Great Barrier Reef standards here.
Commercial day-trip speedboat arriving to snorkel the reef off Relax Resort. Even in low season August there were dozens of these boats from Phuket and Krabi working various reefs around Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Ley. In high season there are dozens tied up at THE BEACH in Maya Bay alone. It's a boat jam and people jam in there. If you are staying at Phi Phi the best bet is to get across there before 1000 when they start to arrive. Or after 1630.
Mark also took a kayak around to the next beach north.......
....Loh Bakeo. Mark didn't climb up here for this shot - I took it on one of my 5 hour hikes the previous March - the hike I got lost on and walked in a 40 minute circle in the jungled highlands, behind and way above the camera.
Relax Resort's beachfront restaurant was another nice place to spend time. Food very good but I was disappointed with prices a fair bit higher than comparable Thai beach bungalow joints. However I think Mark was impressed with the value when compared to a similar standard of food in Australia.
Phi Phi locations - PP Don at top, PP Ley (national park island) below. I find it amazing that Google Earth still has this ancient cloud covered obviously wet season image of one of the most popular islands in Thailand. They have had at least 6 dry seasons each 7 months long to update it. Too busy snapping naked babes sunbathing on rooftops in Amsterdam.
DAYS 4,5 - RAILAY, KRABI AREA
Railay is even more spectacular than Phi Phi. It's part of the mainland but the landscape is so rugged you need a boat to reach this area - no chance of a road or even path. Beach closest camera is Phra Nang, probably the best on mainland Thailand. West Railay, another nice one, is mmediately above it. East Railay where we stayed is the one on the far right - this is mangrovey and muddy offshore but has a bunch of really good value resorts, restaurants and bars and you can walk to the nicer pair of beaches in about 10 minutes.
Path through the mangroves, flanked by restaurants and bars with resorts on the hillside behind. East Railay.
Mark was pretty impressed with the limestone karst cliffs, many of which are well over 300m high - this one is immediately adjacent our hotel. Not apparent here, but it is not unusual to see climbers clinging to the cliff-side 200+m up. Railay and nearby Ton Sai are climbing central for Thailand.
Climbers tend to work over this karst headland at the northern end of Phra Nang beach. There is a "Princess Cave" which is more or less a sink hole with a small lagoon at bottom, accessed from the top of the headland. I once climbed up and then down into the lagoon, but this is not a great idea in joggers - special climbing shoes are the go.
This low season shot shows a rarity - uncrowded Phra Nang. In high season this lovely beach is jammed with people, longtail boats selling food and drink, day-trip speedboats etc. I was once there when a big cruise liner moored offshore and shuttled passengers in to check the beach. Strewth!
Behind the beach is one of the more expensive resorts in Thaiand - the very high end RAYAVADEE. Mark and I checked the price list - the dearest cabana was 30000baht/night - that's $aud1150. Crikey!
The same headland from the East Railay side - this is shot in front of our resort.
Low tide doesn't look as sweet. When we left Railay we had to wade out to our waiting longtail boat for the first leg of our return to Phuket. Oozy mud just the thing for the guy with the infected foot. Aint it fortunate that 2 of the best beaches in Thailand are within 10 minutes stroll of the camera?
One of these is of course West Railay. Mark was pretty impressed with these karst cliffs too. When we came in on our longtail from Ao Nang (we travellef Phi Phi to Krabi town pier on a big ferry, pier to Ao Nang in a taxi and Ao Nang to here on a longtail boat) there was a climber half way up the seaward cliff.
These tend to be floodlit at night and there are some nice beachfront restaurants behind camera.
Our hotel, PHI PHI VIEWPOINT, was a bit less expensive than RAYAVADEE at $32 per night. But it had this nice pool and our room, even though in an unpretentious budget block, was spacious, clean, had aircon, good hot water and comfy beds. Plus we were such cuties that the lady-boy on reception threw in free breakfasts. 3 minutes walk accessed at least half a dozen other budget restaurants and bars.
Our bar of choice, LAST BAR, so named because it is jammed up against the cliff at the far end of East Railay, had free wifi, 80baht ($2.90) big Chang beers and 100baht ($3.60) happy hour daiquiris. Mark said this baby had much more mango and booze than an Aus effort.
With prices like these we had the World Financial Crisis and the problems with the Australian economy solved within an hour.
On our second day in Railay Mark felt like taking a day-trip. Without urging from me, he chose the KO HONG trip. I was secretely pleased - this is one Railay trip I had not yet done. Plus I have visited the northern and eastern Phang Nga Bay karst islands out of Phuket and Phang Nga town (interestingly there is another Ko Hong up there), but never the southern islands near Krabi. Phang Nga Bay is one big bay.
The above shot is at out first stop, Phak Bia Island. Our boat is the speedboat at left. At trip's end I managed to step off into water deeper than I thought, went head over turkey and drowned my (actually Julie's) camera. Dead! Fortunately Mark got the picture card out quickly so my pix on this page were not lost. Thanks Mark.
Nice sand spit at Phak Bia Island.
Cute karst stackette off the beach could be waded around - had a 12m overhang at back (limestone is water soluble between the tide levels). I took the face mask - some okay fish but not good coral.
Second stop - Paradise Beach on I guess Paradise Island, for lunch and a swim. Lunch set up in a cliff overhang left background. Sunny here - 15 minutes later a short sharp shower hit.
Lunch was simple but yummy. Chicken curry + rice and fried chicken pieces which Nai's brother Tim had promised Mark was better than KFC. Not wrong.
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Mark prepares to check the snorkeling off Paradise Beach. I found fish okay, coral scratchy.
Third and last was KO HONG. A hong is an inner lagoon formed when the roof of a cave collapses. The hongs I have visited had access to the lagoon via a tunnel, but here we have just come in through a narrow entrance where the tunnel roof must have also collapsed.
The inner lagoon is huge - Julie's ancient Olympus lacks any wide angle to better show this. I sure wouldn't have wanted to be a fish or crab back when the roof came down. Unlike many hongs, there is no beach so we contented ourselves with cruising around for 5 minutes or so.
For some beach time (2 hours) we shot a short distance around the island to this location - the boats are parked around the corner of the beach in background - offshore islands and extending headlands have formed a sort of outer lagoon in foreground and behind camera. Nice.
That high area background left is actually an island - I swam around it without the mask, but there appeared to be some nice coral on the ocean side. Plus some disturbance on the surface suggested a barracuda or similar was getting stuck into the smaller fish.
Ko Hong - southern Phang Nga Bay
Krabi/Railay area locations
DAYS 6,7 - NAI YANG, PHUKET
The trip from Railay back to Phuket was pretty painless and involved a short longtail trip from opposite our East Railay resort to the nearest vehicle accessible "pier" at Ao Nam Mao, and then a van transfer up to a depot in Krabi town where we sat around for a while and then did another longer van trip around the periphery of Phang Nga Bay to Phuket. We were dropped at the door of our Nai Yang beach resort - sure beats previous trips where I have had to catch songthaew pickup truck taxis or motorcycle taxi from the main highway about 4km east. The whole trip took maybe 4 hours.
Nai Yang Beach Resort is pretty nice, directly across from the beach with 3 pools, nice rooms, a cheap airport shuttle and a killer inclusive buffet breakfast. It's not cheap in high season, but relatively affordable in low. We were upgraded to one of these poolside rooms.
The brisk south-west monsoon winds of low season have made Nai Yang a kite-surfing mecca. Mark had to try this - did a one hour introductory lesson. Found it difficult but immensely enjoyable.
Also enjoyable was watching aircraft take off from the beach behind the airport. This involved a 30 minute slog along the sand northwards and a shortcut through the national park headland.
Phuket has Aussie trained surf lifesavers. This dude in the national park has things pretty easy. In dry season when most people are around the surf is almost always absolutely flat. In wet season when the surf gets up there is usually no-one around. However Thais love picnicking in their national parks and on fine wet season days he might have some business.
Nai Yang restaurants set up tables on the sand. Unlike last wet season when frequent rainstorms kept my dining here indoors, this year Mark and I got real nice weather.
For his last meal in Thailand, Mark went for this fried rice with mixed meat - it was full of chunks of chicken, pork and calamari, plus cashews. 120baht - $4.30. So big he couldn't finish. I obliged.
Phuket locations - out to Phi Phi bottom right, in from Railay at top.
Trip route anticlockwise - Phuket to Phi Phi to Railay to Phuket.
One happy camper
The geezer needs a feed.
Interestingly, this is the last shot ever taken on Julie's old Olympus before it drowned. Ancient and with a narrow field of view but it sure took sharp shots with good colour. RIP, ancient Olympus. And thanks again to Mark for getting the memory card out so quickly.
