Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

To properly celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary Dave and I headed to Railay beach here in Thailand. I have read a lot about this beach on-line and I have had a few friends who highly recommended it. It did not disappoint!

Railay beach is actually a peninsula but is only accessible by boat because of the large limestone rocks blocking roads from being built. It is a smaller tourist area but has plenty of things to do.  They have a West beach and an East beach. The west beach is the pretty one where you watch the sunsets but the East side is much cheaper to stay at. The walk between the two is about 5 - 10 minutes. 

If you are on this blog looking for directions or general questions there is more of that at the bottom of this post.  

Today I'm giving a recap of what we did on our trip here. 

I mentioned you can only arrive by boat. We arrived to the area during sunset so our boat ride to Railay included a beautiful sunset. This picture below is our 'dock' meaning, they don't have a dock. They just get as close to shore as they can and you hop out in the ocean and walk to shore. 

We stayed at Railay Phutawan Resort, which we recommend. It's away from the major resorts, has nice rooms and has a good breakfast with killer views. You get to watch monkeys and people rock climb while you eat breakfast. It was quiet fun.

We had some really good Indian food at Kohinoor Indian Restaurant. They also offer really good pizzas too. We went twice. =)

 We saw and interacted with lots of monkeys! They were pretty tame since they are around people so much and it was fun to just sit and watch them.

Dave did some jumping! Doesn't it look like he is going to land smack dab on that rock? I assure you he didn't though.

I got a massage on the beach. That's me under the umbrella there.

We watched a sunset. 

I had two people recommend fried rice in a pineapple. It was good but I think I liked it more because it was just fun and pretty. We at at this restaurant here.

We hiked in caves. Railay has some great caves and rock climbing. 

Kittens! Cats! I love them and I want them all!

We found a mama cat with three cute adorable little kittens! I did buy them milk and we took them ham from our breakfast buffet for a couple of days. Aren't they cute?!

We took a hike to one of the lookouts as well as a lagoon. It was the sweatiest hike I've ever done. It involved a lot of vertical climbing and thankfully they had ropes to hold on to. 

Isn't the lookout pretty? 

We went kayaking, which went much smoother than the last time. It was also still really cheap at $6.00 / hour. 

And then we went on a sunset cruise. It was actually from 2pm - 8:30pm. We went to several islands and snorkeled, could rock climb and jump into the ocean, watched the sunset, served dinner and then had a night swim. I liked it because you could do as much or as little as you wanted.

Our guides on the boat spoke English which was really nice.

Dave is way on the left. This picture does not do it justice. Those cliffs are way higher than you can see in the  picture and water was much choppier. I opted out because I have never rock climbed before and I didn't think this is where I wanted to learn. 

Jumping!

And I had a lot of mangoes + food poisoning. But you all already know about that one!

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How to Get To Railay

-You will need to get to Krabi airport. We flew AirAsia round trip from Bangkok, both of us, for under $200. 

-At Krabi airport, right before you exit there will be a booth that sells bus tickets to Krabi City and AoNang Pier. They are very cheap - I think around $3.00. You will take that bus to AoNang Pier. If you don't want to take the bus you can take a taxi as well just make sure you have them meter it so they don't charge you an outrageous fee. 

-At AoNang pier the bus should drop you right at the ticket booth where you can purchase your boat trip. The boat trip is around $3.00 - $4.00. 

TIPS - People at Bangkok airport offered to arrange a taxi and boat trip for us. They were really nice but they wanted to charge us around $45.00. It might sound nice to have all your transportation ready for you upon arrival but it will cost you a lot. Also, it took some time to get to Railay but I didn't think it was difficult and we never got lost. 

Activities We Did

Sunset Cruise - We did pay around $55 a person for this but it was well worth it! We went with Krabi Sunset Cruises and I highly recommend them. 

Hiking to the View Point - This post here has great directions on how to get there. Also there is a huge sign at the entrance point so you should not have any trouble finding it (see picture blow). Some people hike this in flip flops and some people we saw were barefoot. I recommend good tennis shoes. Those who didn't have proper shoe wear seemed to struggle.