Bangkok and Railay Beach

We've already been back for a week so I guess that means it’s about time to blog about our trip to Thailand.  We had been looking forward to this trip for a long time, but because of scheduling difficulties, and my own travel inexperience, it wasn't quite amazing as our Bali trip.  But I feel like I learned a lot, both about what kind of travel I enjoy, what Brandon enjoys, and how to get the most out of those precious days of leave.

Due to scheduling problems we couldn't make it to Chiang Mai for Yi Peng or Loy Krathong (next year??? Fingers crossed!)  So we decided on just staying at Railay Beach in Krabi province and enjoying the scenery.   But after hours of OCD cross-checking ticket prices and date changes, we thought we would stay two nights in Bangkok: one night on our arrival there before getting to Krabi and one night on our way out of the country.  After all, it’s the #1 tourist destination in Asia, we would have layover time there anyways, and there is a convenient train that could take us from the airport to basically the doorstep of our hotel.  And I knew I would kick myself if I never got the opportunity to see Bangkok again. 

The first day this seemed like not such a bad idea.  We had enough time to relax from the long flight and check out the view from the Moon Bar, the rooftop bar at the Banyan Tree Hotel.  It was pretty swanky.

photo credit: http://www.banyantree.com/en

The next morning we caught a quick flight down to Krabi, and took a bus from the airport that was supposed to drop us at a pier where we could take a longtail boat to Railay.  After an hour, quite a crowd of European backpackers started to accumulate, and we realized there were no boats coming so we got the boat ticket people to take us to another pier.  They agreed to put us in a van and send our bags ahead of us in another truck.  Some of the other travelers seemed cool with it, but I was like Nope, not happening. I know this seems like I was being kind of a jerk, but Thailand is notorious for scams, and this travel booth had already proven to be sort of suspicious,  but as soon as I spoke up some of the backpackers agreed with me.  I hate being the person to say something, and I would have liked to have given them the benefit of the doubt, but I just couldn't.

We exchanged a few words with the rest of the travelers and a compromise was reached: Brandon and I would be put into the back of the truck with the bags. 

The truck which drove about 80 mph down a winding country road, narrowly missing stray dogs, and sharing lanes (and by lanes I mean loosely agreed upon zones) with motorcycles.  It was awesome. 

Upon arriving at the pier, we learned from two other Americans, the only other ones we ran across all week, actually, that the wind and waves were too rough for the boats, and this was causing delays.   A boat had sunk that very morning in similar conditions.  So we waited for the wind to die down just a bit, then went on over to Railay.  It was the most exciting boat ride I've ever been on.  Which is probably a bad thing.  No kidding, when we were leaving a week later we saw a long tail boat capsized at the same pier.  On a beautiful, calm day. 

Our hotel in Railay was on the mangrove-forested East side, which is just a ten minute walk from the beautiful beach on the West side or the Phranang Cave Beach to the south.  The West side is home to the better resorts, but since it was so close we didn't mind at all.  Our budget hotel was full of feral cats, wild monkeys, and other critters, but we spent a lot of time outside, so that wasn't a big deal really.  We hardly spent any time in the room during the day.

Except when we managed to get sick from eating some off Thai food at the local diner.

Then we spent a lot of time in the room. 

Luckily Brandon wasn’t too bad, and the island had a pharmacy with antibiotics, but we our first valuable lesson: PACK MEDICINE.  Because the 5 hours you have to wait until the pharmacy opens in the morning are going to go by real slow.  And maybe don’t eat anywhere called Mom’s Kitchen. 

But the rest of the week in Railay was glorious.  It’s a pretty small, rural area to stay for a long period of time, but I rather liked it.  It was gorgeous, and even on the slightly overcast days it was nice because less tourists would ferry over from other towns to see the beach.  We rented kayaks and paddled around to a tiny, isolated beach one day.  Another day we went around on a speed boat to snorkel and see other local islands.  The most memorable was Maya Bay at Phi Phi Ley, where the movie The Beach was filmed.  Even though there were a ton of people there to see it, it was still beautiful.

Maya Bay

We did other typical beach-y vacation things while we were there, but the only one worth writing about was learning how to rock-climb.  Sure, we've been to gyms and things, but learning the knots and how to be the partner on the ground and stop your partner from falling to their deaths was cool.  And rock-climbing feels infinitely cooler than plastic-climbing.  And the view from the top of the rope is much more rewarding.

We were both pretty sad to leave Railay at the end of the week, but also pretty happy to be back in our sleek CLEAN Bangkok hotel for one more night.  We decided to head out, but our evening was exhausting and pretty underwhelming.   A lot of what we wanted to see was closed for the evening because our transit time took a little longer than we thought.  We settled for a quick boat ride down the river that runs through the heart of the city, which was actually a great option for seeing a glimpse of the temples that we didn't have time to visit. 

I was so looking forward to seeing Wat Arun lit up on the riverside, and it was beautiful and I’d love to see it in the daylight, but we were both surprised to note that it looks so much smaller in person than it does in photographs. 

At one point the boat turned down a fork of the river that was pretty creepy and I was convinced our bodies were going to end up at the bottom of the river and WHY did I think a boat ride for two was romantic?  It was clearly a horrible idea and they had lured us out here to rob and dispose of us.  Even Brandon, the trusting soul that he is, started to feel weird about it.  Then, without a word, they turned around short of our destination and dropped us off at the point I requested.  Maybe they figured we looked too poor to be worth the hassle. 

Hoping to lift our spirits, we went to a night market that I had heard good things about.  After a long (and cheap) cab ride, we were dropped off in front of empty, dark stalls.  At this point, I was pretty irritated, both with the market’s website for giving us bad information, and with myself over my pretty much failed itinerary for our last night in Thailand.  And just Bangkok in general.  It smells terrible.  I am so grateful for Brandon’s optimism and patience, because when I was feeling about ready to Hulk out and rage-flip a taxi, he was still determined to salvage the night.  So then we got in another cab and found another huge night market. 

We quickly discovered the meaning of all those T-shirts we had seen that said SAME SAME. 

We made no purchases, and I was pretty underwhelmed with the market.  Eventually we gave up and returned to our hotel for drinks and enjoyed the live music for a while.  And just really genuinely enjoyed being in a hotel that wasn't overrun by feral cats.   

And basically, after this trip, I think we have learned how to get the most out of our travel, to make it so much more than adding pins to a map. I, despite my curiosity, do not enjoy urban areas in developing countries.  Bangkok made me kind of crazy.  I was so excited to get back to Tokyo.  I never thought I would be like “Yes, Tokyo, a familiar place!”  I loved Thailand, but I got the most out of staying in less crowded, rural areas.  Granted, there were some very developed, shiny parts of Bangkok, but we didn't spend a lot of time there.  With Brandon, it’s a good hotel with good service that makes him feel like he’s on vacation.  I think he was a little disturbed that we were cohabiting with a gecko in Railay. 

And our most important lesson learned, two airport days in a row are never worth it, even if it was ranked the #1 tourist destination in Asia.  Too much transit time. 

If you've managed to get all the way to this point, thanks for reading and I hope you comment with your own Thailand experiences!  I will post some more photos later!

- Brooke