Railay Beach

We are now in the province of Krabi on the Andaman Sea coast. Railay Beach is a peninsula that is actually two beach, known as Railay East and Railay West. The peninsula and nearby islands are incredibly scenic, with giant limestone cliffs jutting straight out of the water.
Up until now we had not gone snorkeling yet, so we immediately booked two snorkeling trips. The first one went yesterday afternoon, and visited four islands. We did something I have never done before, and may never do again: snorkel in a cave. You can see it in the photo below:It was kind of scary at first, but we entered slowly and slowly got used to it. There were beams of light shining through holes in the wall and down into the water, and schools of fish were gathered around them. There were some waves, but with flippers it was easy to swim in and out.

After lots of snorkeling, the boat brought us to a trio of islands connected by sand bars. We watched as the sun set. It was really beautiful.

After dark we sat in the sand and ate a dinner of curried seafood and rice, and drank beer. The only light was from two torches. Then on our way back, we stopped for a night swim. When we jumped in the water we could see thousands of little lights amongst the bubbles created by our arms and legs. There was algae or something in the water that would illuminate whenever disturbed. They were like waterborne fireflies. I will have to find out more about what causes it, but whatever it was, it was incredible.

Today we took another boat trip, but there wasn't as much snorkeling. We visited some of the same islands as yesterday as well as some new ones. The limestone formations have incredible caves, stalacmites and stalactites. Some of the islands are quite eroded at the bottom so that at low tide there are large overhangs. I can imagine how, in many thousands of years from now, they may become so eroded that they tumble over into the sea.

This photo was taken on Poda island. In the foreground is a longtail boat, which gets its name from the long propeller shaft at the stern. It looks like they've taken a car engine, extended the crank shaft straight out, and put a propeller at the end of it. It is driven like an outboard motor with a guy pivoting the engine with his whole body weight. And they don't have mufflers so they make ahelluva noise.

Railay is famous for its rockclimbing, so Julia and I are going to try it tomorrow. Then we are off to the Phi Phi islands.