The South Islands: Part I

Our first experience of the Gulf of Thailand was on Railay, a small peninsula barley connected to the mainland, on approach you see sheer limestone cliffs, bright in the sunlight marked only by tropical plants and rockclimbers, the waters surrounding Railay are turquoise and tranquil and littered with small but tall islands, there are a few longtail boats drifting on their lines in the bay. We have collected some new friends; Sam and Shrilaka, two girls from New York and a well spoken Harry from Wimbledon. Arriving on the beach with no idea where to go, the best course of action was to sip from a ‘decision beer’ and mull over our options, you see a lot of Railay's accommodation is resorts, full of friendly families but way out of our budget, even worse, nowhere seemed to sell alcohol, many places instead suggested a healthy lifestyle. But eventually we found a shacklady who gave us what we wanted and here we made two Swedish editions to the group; Edith and Sara. Together we all found decidedly cramped but cheap accommodation.

Our newly formed motley crew, born of chance and a love of beer actually turned out to be a wonderful bunch of people and I have a lot of time for every member. Our evenings saw us playing drinking games, including ‘I have never’ (dangerous game to play in the presence of a close friend) we shared meals and sang Karaoke with a live band backing us up. I didn’t think it was possible but I think we managed to butcher Oasis beyond all recognition (we were quickly ushered off stage). Sara could hold a tune though and the band kept her on, I came to join her and redeem myself for ‘no woman, no cry’ but I am fairly sure the band turned my mic off. Railay is where I also experienced the perils of glow paint. We wrote on the floor of the bar in big bold letters; England, America and Sweden. England and America tried to walk all over each other whilst Sweden stayed out of it, things escalated after America was all smudged up and Shrilaka took it upon herself to turn me and my clothes luminous green.

The days we explored some stunning beaches (best I have seen on my wanderings thus far), we waded under overhanging cliffs, over rocks and between crevices to discover a secluded segment of beach, here we tried some Scoutmaster style fishing using some gooey mollusks as bait, alas the fish here are smart, they nibble at the snotty bait and steer well clear of the hook, We discovered an abandoned kayak, the reason for it’s desertion quickly became apparent when we tried to hope onboard, it gurgled and sank to the shallow seabed , we sat on our wreck relaxed and sang Tenacious D (special moment). On the way back to the main beach a rogue cloud opened upon us. I stood there, waste deep in the warm sea water, half squinting half staring at the cliff face while fat cool droplets hit my face and torso.