Ao Nammao, Railay, Ton Sai

Liana, our treehouse for the second night

SMS and I left Our Jungle House after another excellent breakfast with what I think has been the best coffee of the trip.  After inquiring about a shared van, we ended up booking a private taxi to Ao Nannao since we could leave when we wanted.  In addition, we're travelling in the low season and the van may not have even gone if there weren't enough people.

Longtail boats

We drove to Ao Nannao to Thip Boutique Residence Hotel.  It was a very nice hotel across from the pier to Railay.  We dropped our stuff off and took the longboat over to Railay East.  We walked to Railay West with its much more beautiful beach and ate lunch.  Next, we scrambled over a rocky trail (with fixed rope handrails!) to Tonsai.  The area is gorgeous and we spent the rest of the afternoon beaching it out!  We also met two Japanese climbers so we spoke a mix of English/Nihongo with them.

Tonsai

Tonsai

Oh, it's just a 5.13.  No big deal...

At this point, it was nearing 6 and we had to get back to the longtail boats.  We stopped for some mango sticky rice and a talk with the guys at Hot Rock climbing outfit.  When we got to the dock, it was 6:20 and we split the cost of the boat with another couple, so our trip back was 200B/person rather than 100 B.  For future reference, the regular boats stop running at 6 and they probably up the price as the deadline approaches!

For dinner, we ate at a soup stand on the side of the road with delicious beef broth, rice noodles, beef, basil and bamboo shoots.  It was delicious!  I was still a little hungry so we went to Ao Nannao Seafood restaurant across the street, right next to the Family Mart.  We got a delicious stirfry and better than the food was the owner/chef/waitress who was one of the sweetest ladies I've met on the trip.  She noticed things and helped us out, like rounding up the stray cats that were making me nervous (I know, I'm such a chicken) and lighting a mosquito coil.  It sounds small but she was just so friendly and awesome.

Then, it was time for bed.  Since SMS and I are basing all of our activities in Railay, we decided to move hotels since airport transfers were a lot easier to arrange than I thought.  The info on the internet was slightly sparse for this part of the trip and Railay is accessible only by boat due to the surrounding cliffs, even though it's a peninsula and not an island.  Thip was fine, but it was a bummer to miss the sunset and worry about the boat schedules.    So, since we could move, we decided to check out the next day.  We had big plans for rock climbing in the morning and a 7 island cruise in the afternoon/evening!