We continue our adventure on Railey Peninsula, so come along my steemit friends and lets get lost! Earlier in the day we took a Thai long tail speed boat an hour from Krabi Town to the beaches of Railey, explored a cave, found the secluded hippy town of Tonsai, met some interesting people there and viewed some very nice art work. We walked along the exotic beaches, saw rock climbers hanging off cliffs, monkeys swinging through trees, and we just finished our second jungle trek which dropped us off on the north side of Railey Beach West.
We pop out of the jungle and this is the view we see. We check the time. It's 1:30. Two hours to get back to Railey Beach East to catch the Long Tail back to Krabi Town where we are staying. While socializing with the travelers in Tonsai, more than once did we hear about people getting stuck on the peninsula.
If you miss your pre-purchased return boat ticket or you miss the last 5pm boat back to Krabi Town for a fair price, your option is paying 30 dollars for a private ride, or staying the night in Railey. Thirty dollars may not seem like much in some parts of the world, but when you get used to Thai prices it starts to sound like a lot of money.
Our round trip ticket cost seven dollars US. In this country 30 dollars is like 25 meals, or two weeks of groceries, or 3 nights in a hotel, or six hour-long Thai massages! Money goes really far here! It's part of what is so appealing about this "pay less get more country".
We are not really sure how to get to Railey Beach East, so let's just walk down this beach, Railey West, and find a local to ask.
These nice Thai ladies working at the pizza shop will know. "Railey Beach East?" I ask in the most simple way for their lack of English skills. "Go end beach, you go leeeeft!" With their drawn out Thai accents they say. Simple enough, let's go to the end of the beach and look for a path inland to cross to the other side of the peninsula which is only about one kilometer wide at it's most narrow point.
That looks like fun and reminds me that we are going kayaking through caves and mangroves the day after tomorrow. No time for that now anyway.
We reach the end of the beach and sure enough we see a cement path. We start walking down the trail. A sign says don't enter after dark or face a fine of 1,000 baht or 30 dollars. That's strange. Well, she said end of beach go "leeeeeft". Let's go.
The nice cement walkway abruptly stops and we start heading up hill over some rough terrain. Then it gets seriously vertical, and we are basically using the free style rock climbing three points of contact rule. This is where you make sure you have three out of four hands/feet in secure positions at all times. A fall here could spell disaster. I'm already thinking, this is a peculiar way to get to Railey Beach East; but it's Thailand, they do things differently here. Let's keep going.
Hey another cave! Let's check it out.
Don't think Railey Beach East is down there, we back out of the cave and continue on the path.
Maybe that's the way to Railey Beach East. Too bad we don't have any rock climbing gear, let's keep following this rough trail.
Seems like we have to go up over a mountain to get to Railey Beach East. Maybe climbing these roots is a short cut, nah that's way too dangerous. It's getting close to 2pm, we need to get going.
The trail gets more vertical, that's where we came from.
Now it looks as if the trail itself is starting to fade away into the jungle. I'm starting to feel like we may have accomplished our mission thanks to the girl at the pizza shop. Are we lost? I think that adrenaline coursing through our veins may very well mean yes! What's the worst that could happen let's keep going!
We must be deep in the jungle, that's by far the biggest tree we've seen all day!
Ahhh here were go, this will certainly get us up over the mountain and then surely we'll descend down the other side to Railey Beach East! Fantastic! C'mon!
Heads we go up the ladder, tales we continue on the trail. Nah that looks way dangerous. To come back down if we had to would be even worse. We continue on the sketchy trail but better than hanging off that ladder with no protection.
Wow, we really climbed quite a ways!
Look, another opportunity to get up over the mountain then down to Railey Beach East. We start to climb up, then quickly asses this is out of our comfort zone, with no one around and no equipment; we back down and continue on the trail.
The trail swiftly begins to turn down hill. Good news, it will probably drop us off on Railey Beach East. Perfect! We probably just went around the mountain. Let's go!
We say hello to the rock climbers, no need to ask for directions, there is only one way to go and that is down and out!
Hey we made it! This has got to be Railey Beach East. Let's go look for the pier. Wait a minute, this looks strangely familiar. Look, there's three red kayaks lined up just like Railey Beach West. Hmmmm, this is Railey Beach West!......Seriously?
Looks like we just got lost in the jungle and did one big loop. Oh well, that certainly was a fun adventure. Lets go talk to a resort security guard and ask how to get out of here. It's now about 2:30. Time is running short. Let's go!
The security guard explains that we have to go directly into Railey Bay Resort and Spa to take the walkway across the peninsula to the other side. So much for "Go end beach. Go leeeft!" Maybe we should go back and thank that girl, sometimes getting lost in a strange land is a "travel pro's" favorite thing to do!
Well that was a lot easier of a trail! It even has refreshments if needed! Within minutes we pop out on the other side where we began our day at 9 am.
Well, there's the pier, even after getting lost in the jungle it's about 2:50 pm. We're forty minutes early. We check the map and see we are fairly close to Cave Beach on the southern most part of the peninsula. We take a short rest, drink some water, and decide to hurry over there to take a peek. So come along my steemit friends in our final part six of this wild adventure in Railey Peninsula!
If you missed out on some of this adventure join us in part one, part two, part three, part four.
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