Thailand Holiday Diaries: Day 1

(Sunday, January 12th, 2014)

Just before sunset. Railay Beach

After an intense and highly charged 3 days at the International Schools Job Fair in Bangkok, at the tail-end of an excruciatingly difficult year in which I lost my father tragically and unexpectedly, I had been waiting and waiting for just a few days of respite before returning to the Taiwan teaching grind. (More on the Job Fair in a future post – I’ve actually been taking notes throughout that I want to share with all of my teacher friends – and whomever else may be interested – about the experience, I think they’ll provide invaluable information that I wish I’d had beforehand.) I spent a day in Bangkok catching up with my beloved friend Erin, with whom I worked at the international school in Boracay several years ago, and who now resides in Bangkok with her fiancé. It was SO WONDERFUL to catch up with her, meet some of her friends, and have the most amazing Thai street food I have ever eaten sitting on plastic chairs at an aluminium table in the street.

I booked a flight to Krabi on a whim, as I wanted to get to the islands as soon as possible the next morning, wasn’t prepared to put myself through the ordeal of an overnight bus (been there, done that, over it), and it was one of the islands that I had not visited yet. From Krabi airport I took a bus to the "pier", and hopped on a longtail boat to Railay Island, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas in Thailand. Unfortunately, it has been completely taken over by tourism in the last few years (much like the rest of the world, I suppose), and as such is overrun with fancy, expensive resorts filled with rich Russians, Europeans, Americans, and a smattering of South Africans. When I tried to book accommodation online beforehand, all of the nice resorts charge between 70 and 200 US dollars a night (!!!) and so I made a booking for one night only at the cheapest place I could find. To be fair – at 50 dollars a night – still not so cheap by any stretch! The plan was (as all good backpackers will know) to drop my bags off as soon as I’d arrived, and then go on the hunt from one resort to the next for a better place to stay.

So where were we? Ah yes, the "pier" at Krabi. Picture it, if you will: yours truly wading through thigh-high water towards the longtail boat (basically, a wooden canoe that seats about 20 people, with a small engine attached). I had a 20 kilogram backpack on my back, my frontpack with my laptop and other paraphernalia draped over my front, and another big bag filled with all of my heels, suits, pashminas and other formal attire from the Job Fair slung over my shoulder. Feel free to laugh at the mental image. I have STILL not mastered the art of packing lightly, it appears.

20 minutes of gliding through light blue waters, surrounded by limestone cliffs and green craggy islands protruding from the seas, blue skies and warm sunshine above us, life seemed far lighter than it had in a long time.
…
… until we got to the shore. Here’s a hint: when you book a hotel, make sure that you know where it is. Because the people whom you ask on the shore may not have a clue, but will confidently give you directions to god-knows-where instead. The boat drives up as close to the shore as it can, where Honey-the-pack-mule proceeded to wade onto dry land and try to find her way home. From the powder white sands on a tiny beach cove on which the most expensive of all resorts exist, I set off on my way. Sidenote: there are no motorbikes, no tuk-tuks, no jeeps, no transportation of any kind on this tiny island. Sooooo… ya walk. And walk, and walk, and walk. This island is much like Boracay, where I used to live, in that on one side you have the sunset beach – expensive, touristy, glitzy and glamourous, powder-white sand and exquisitely beautiful – and if you cut through the island and walk for about 15 minutes, you get to the sunrise side – in this case mangrove tree mud-flats, less swanky, cheaper eateries and resorts, more grungy, a beach you’d rather not swim in but still pretty to look at.

So after about 15 sweaty and ghastly minutes (with breaks in between, I won’t lie) I finally found myself at the Railay Viewpoint Resort. Sounds glorious, no?! Don’t be deceived. My room is hideous. It’s at the back of the resort, facing the back of the resort next door. The bathroom is all cracked-tiles and the most basic of utilities, bedroom is old wooden furniture, bright pink walls (I know!), 2 bare light sockets, cracked mirror. On the plus-side: clean sheets, and a perfectly functioning air conditioning unit. So at least that.

Dropped my bags off and went on the hunt for alternatives. (But first! Strawberry daiquiri and spicy prawn curry to welcome myself to Railay!) I literally stopped in at every single resort I saw. All of them were either fully booked, or stupid-expensive. And I do mean STUPID. Finally I found the resort right next to mine (up on a hill, so I’d avoided it before) which had rooms for 70 dollars, but was newer, cleaner, nicer, and has a lovely little pool at which to lounge. Made a booking for the next 5 days, and was now ready to relax. So I had a nap. Which doesn’t sound like a big deal, except that it has been years and years since I just lay down for a few hours in the afternoon and rested. It’s such a gloriously relaxing thing to do, isn’t it?! FINALLY – I was truly on holiday.

Woke up feeling wonderful, so I headed off to catch the sunset on the main beach. Got there a little early, so I found a table on the beach, and just sat there for a few hours taking it all in: the view, the sun, the people around me. There are so many families with young kids here, and of course my mind wanders to dreaming about one day in the future when it’ll perhaps be me there... I got lost in my own thoughts for a while, fantasies of the future – of my friends and I, and all of our assorted children, on holiday together. Happy thoughts.

Too cloudy for a sunset, but still a very chilled and beautiful evening. Found myself thinking about my father a lot too, and wishing I'd had more time with him, more conversations with him, saddened by the thought that he would never get to meet his grandchildren, and that they would never know the fascinating, complicated, wonderful man that their grandfather had been.

In his honour - because it’s exactly what we would have done together if he was there with me, I went off and found a restaurant that was serving beach barbeque for dinner and ordered 3 giant prawns which took up my whole plate. Imagined him there with me, had some conversations with him in my head, catching up since the last time we’d seen each other. I’ve realized it doesn’t get easier, ever. The loss is there forever. You just learn to cope with it better, to bury it deeper, so that’s it’s not at the surface all the time. But it’s always there, always with you. I don’t think you can ever truly understand it until you go through it. I know I didn’t.

So a bittersweet evening, but one that left me feeling warm as I walked back to my hotel through the hustle and bustle of the sunrise beach’s eateries, bars, souvenir shops and tour operator stalls. Back in bed before 9 pm. Delicious sleep.

Waiting to board the longtail boat to Railay

My favourite shot of the day. They were playing right in front of me. Snapped it just in time.