Well it has been a few days since we last blogged so i guess i have a bit to catch up on. yesterday, Candice and i switched hotels and moved to a bungalow on the opposite side of phi phi. We were excited for a change of scenery and also a change of pace-  the old hotel was closer to the hustle bustle of phi phi and the new bungalow we are staying at is much quieter. We checked into the new bungalow and realized we might want to go to a new island since we had already seen everything phi phi had to offer. we met up with a travel agent on phi phi and after a lengthy discussion he organized us a trip over to Railay beach in Krabi. He was very helpful and assured us that everything would be fine. after our last encounter with a thai travel agent we thought it might be wise if we only book one night accommodation on railay beach just in case the place was gross. The travel agent kept assuring us that the hotel was great but we decided to go against his suggestions and only book the first night (i will tell you how that worked out for us later in the blog). So we were now all booked up and ready for Railay beach the next day so we decided to spoil ourselves our last night on phi phi. We walked into town and found a beach front restaurant where you get to select your seafood from a big buffet and then they cook it for you. Candice debated for a while between lobster and prawns but finally opted for 2 GIANT prawns (i think she made the right choice), i got a steak. Dinner was great and then we headed back to our bungalow for some rest. We got back to the bungalow and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed and were greeted by some old friends: 3 giant cockroaches! I grabbed candices sandal and hit one of the cockroaches on the wall (he thanked me by spraying his guts all over me when he died). I made short work of the other 2 roaches and then went to bed thankful that we were only here for the one night.

We got up early the next morning and rented a kayak to tour around phi phi before we left for Krabi. The kayak trip was gorgeous, we toured along the coast line stopping in at various little inlets and coves to take pictures and hang out. we kayaked over to monkey beach to see if we could finally see some monkeys but to our disappointment there were still no monkeys there .It wasnt a total loss though, because monkey beach is beautiful and we played around there for a good amount of time. We voyaged out further into the ocean and realized it was getting pretty rough on the water so we decided to head back.  we were exhausted from kayaking and it took quite a while in the choppy water to get back to the beach. Thankfully we made it (burnt and exhausted).  Now we just needed to wait a couple hours to board our boat to railay beach.

We got to the ferry and found a spot on the outside at the very front of the boat (it was supposed to only be an hour long ride). I laid there and listened to my ipod and candice read a book ( you will be happy to know that I have not caved and read a book yet- even though my dad supplied me with numerous true crime books to read during our trip). The ferry ride started out nice but shortly into the journey we heard some booming thunder and saw lightning in the distance. In a matter of minutes we were being hammered by a massive tropical monsoon. we staggered to the back of the boat but there was no room inside so we stayed outside and got pummeled with water. I felt like Mark Walberg in "a Perfect Storm" (minus the 6 pack abs) - i was just hoping the ship would make it to our destination safely. eventually we arrived to Railay beach cold and sopping wet, now we just needed to find our hotel. We were greeted on the beach by a hotel worker and he escorted us through the jungle for what seemed like 15 minutes. Railay beach is much smaller than phi phi, not as many tourist shops here and is heavily focused around mountain climbing. we walked right passed the nice area of town and entered into what can best be described as the penticton indian reserve of Thailand. We quickly realized we were staying on the esquimalt side of Railay beach and were now quite leery about what our hotel would be like. We got to the base of our hotel where we had to climb an enormous wood staircase (probably about 5 flights straight up) we were used to climbing stairs on our trip but this staircase was more rickety than any we had been on so far.  We got to the top and checked into our room, we walked passed the pool (which im pretty sure was home to about 40 leeches and possibly one of the water monsters from star wars) and entered our room...the room was pretty gross (similar to the "49er" hotel in Spokane where i stayed with my parents when i was 10 years old).  We breathed a HUGE sigh of relief that we only booked the one night here! That was definitely our best decision to date. It wasn't all bad though, the view from up there was pretty spectacular. We decided to head to the nice part of town and look for a fancier hotel to stay at for the rest of our time in Railay.

More to come soon.......