Hat Rai Leh - Railay Beach

This is the post I've put off.  It's a bit too precious and I have wanted to both keep these memories to myself. Being in landlocked Zambia....the time at the beach in Thailand was absolutely incredible.  We have to give a big, huge, ginormous thanks to our hosts, Todd and Sihin for finding this great spot and also for coming there with us.  Pitty...what can we say but "Thanks."

That is one gnarly cat.

Close Encounters with the superfreaks.

One afternoon of rain towards then end of our time...we all took a much-needed break from the beach.
 (The view from our balcony)

Some days the beach was crowded.  Like this day: Gid AND Peter Finch had to share it with that guy in the red shirt back there.  Later, his two kid showed up and wanted to build a sand castle.  We said to go find your own beach.  I mean, couldn't he see this beach was taken?

Hi, Solo.  XOXO

The view from the plane.

One morning, we hired a boat.  We wanted to do a big 'four island tour' but the activity office talked us into just hiring our own boat and going over to the marine reserve and to Chicken Island.  (Did someone say Village Chicken?)

We had breakfast, packed up and headed out.  We had no idea what we were in for but when we landed on this beach....it didn't really matter what else happened the whole trip.  We were shocked at the beauty of this place.  We had two boatmen; they tried to explain where we should go.  At one point, they were kind of rushing us -- they said we needed to cross a sand-bar before the tide got too high. 

sho'nuf...the tide came in quickly.

But we come to find out that while the tide WAS coming in and we DID need to cross, they also wanted us to get going b/c before long, the beach was properly INVADED by nearly a dozen boats packed to the gunnels with tourists doing the 4 island tour!  It turns out our guys' itinerary and our private-hire boat was taking us to all these incredible spots BEFORE anyone else got there. It was actually pretty darn funny once we realized it.  (And finally understood what the boatmen were really trying to tell us. duh.)

"Hi, sweet Family."


"Hello, Friends."  

"Hi, cute boy."


"HOLY CRAP! Let's get OUT OF HERE!"