If my last visit to Krabi was a little uneventful, my latest visit a week ago to the Thai island proved a little too much so. The girlfriends and I decided to do a quick trip to Krabi and after the experience in Ao Nang, Railay was thought to be a better beach experience.

While on the same island as Ao Nang, Railay is only accessible by sea and the main mode of transport is by long tail boats. You can get to Railay via three spots, Ao Nang beach, Ao Nam Mao or from Krabi Town. When it’s high season, the most popular place to catch a long tail would be Ao Nang, but in low season, your best bet would be Ao Nam Mao or Krabi Town. Before the trip, we arranged for the resort that we were going to be staying at to send us a long tail to pick us up in Ao Nam Mao, because in addition to it being low season, we had chosen a resort in the most isolated part of Railay. To be honest, there aren’t that many accommodation options in Railay and our top two choices were undergoing renovation of some sort, but if you were to visit Railay, do check out Sunrise Tropical Resort or Sand Sea Resort, both of which are conveniently located and looked pretty decent from what we saw.

We got to Ao Nam Mao early and the weather was great, sunny but windy at the same time, so we sat at the only cafe there to wait and played “Cards Against Humanity” The appointed time came and went and still there was no sign of the resort’s long tail. Finally tired of waiting, we called the resort on our mobile because there were no public phones and they told us that the transport was on it’s on the way. While this was going on, the sky had been gradually turning darker and the winds stronger. We had our fingers crossed that it would not start raining till we got to the resort. When the resort’s long tail finally arrived, the crew drove it up the beach and tied a rope round a tree that jutted out. After a while, we realised that we were supposed to climb onto the tree branch to get on the boat. Choppy water, rocking boat, not too thick tree branch – joy. After a lot of swearing (on my part), nervous shrieks and wobbly legs, we all got on the boat safely with our bags and the 15 minute journey to the resort was really nice, despite the copious amount of sea water sprayed onto our faces. Disembarking was again fun as we had to climb over the side of the boat and into the water, thank goodness the staff were there to help with our bags.

Great View Resort is the last stop along the coast of East Railay and is located on elevated ground. We read reviews that there is quite a lot of climbing to do, but we didn’t realise that there would be QUITE A LOT OF CLIMBING. There are no stairs but there are lot of slopes, some quite gentle, some where I could feel my leg muscles working as I struggled up slope. This is definitely not a place to stay if you have problems walking or do not want to expend too much energy getting from your room to the restaurant or the pool. The trade off being that the rooms are huge and most importantly clean, the bed is comfy, the bathroom bright, airy, and again clean, restaurant serves decent food and the pool nice.

As we settled in, it started to pour and dashed our hopes of exploring the island, so we were stuck getting our lunch/dinner/dunch(?) at the hotel restaurant, which wasn’t too bad if you weren’t expecting authentic Thai food. The Phad Thai was a little too sweet, the Tom Yum Gung not spicy enough, etc.

As I’m rambling like an old lady now, I shall stop here and continue my tale in Part 2, where I promise there will be less whingeing, except about the food. I can’t help it, the state of Thai food on Railay is really sad.