Visiting Railay Beach

Railay is a popular beach destination when you're staying in/around Krabi.  They say it's kid friendly but from our experience, you'll have to be pretty comfortable traveling with your baby if you're planning on getting there.

As you can see from the photo (taken from the southern view), there are 3 pristine sugary white beaches:  Railay West (left), Railay East (right), and Pranang Cave Beach (bottom).

But as you can also see, there are massive limestone mountains that block any land access to Railay, so you have to reach these magical beaches by boat from Ao Nang beach (far upper left corner) and go around the limestone cliff border.

But the trip is worth it, because the area is quite stunning and makes for amazing photos that you can use to passively brag to your friends online (which is the whole point of Facebook anyway, right?) But I digress.  "How do you get to Railay," you ask?  Well, let me tell you.

I'm only 16 months old, but I'm getting pretty good with reading maps.  The best way for us to reach Railay was to take a Sheraton shuttle van from Klong Muang Beach (just to the left of the penis looking figure) and drive to Ao Nang (towards the center of the map where all the roads converge). From there, we found a cheap ferry.

Ao Nang itself (seen below) isn't much more than 2 long streets lined with various restaurants, lodging, souvenir shops and massage places. At the end of the street closest to the west, there's a bunch of street food carts selling fried chicken, noodles & rice, and fruits.

On the far other end, after the turn (mentioned below), there's a shady redlight district area full of cheap bars.  They're not on the main street, so you have to go through one of the side alleys. Overall, Ao Nang isn't much but it's very much a backpacker haven for those who want to visit Railay but not pay the resort prices to stay there. 

The only thing of interest for a baby would be the pharmacies & convenience stores to get diapers or milk. We did pass by a 7-11 under construction, so they have that going for them...

When the street reaches the beach, it turns sharply left and turns into the 2nd street. At this corner, you'll find a small ticket booth (seen here in the photo) on the beach side of the road.

Here they sell tickets to the longtail boat ferries to take you around the cliffs to Ao Railay as well as other longtail boat tours/rides to other island destinations like Chicken Island or Tub Island.

A few notes about the Ferries:

1.  Tickets cost 100 THB per person one way (about $3.33 USD).  Babies ride free.

2.  You should buy round-trip tickets from Ao Nang because rumor has it that one-way tickets back from Railay back to Ao Nang can be incredibly expensive.  I don't think this situation is true (or at least anymore), but might as well play it safe.

3.  The ferry has no set schedule and departs whenever the boatmen decide there's enough passengers to make it worth their while.  My father the day before around 3PM and after waiting about 10 minutes, they just took him by himself.  Most tourists go in the morning and actually come back between 3PM-6PM.

3.  There is no pier, so to get on board the boat, you will have to wade into the water -- probably up to your hips if you're my father's height (or to your knees if you were a normal sized man).

4.  Any thing that cannot get soaked (cameras, phones, towels, adorable babies and return ferry tickets!) should be held in your hands up high and put into the boat before trying to climb on board.


5.  The ride should be smooth provided the waters are calm. If they're not, the ferrymen will still take you over, but you may be in for a roller coaster of a boat ride.

6. The boat ride to Railay should be about 11 minutes (my father timed it - what a dork!)

As you first approach the limestone cliffs, you'll realize how beautiful they are. Then as you get closer, you realize how truly massive they are. It's almost as if they were created solely to be a wall to protect Railay from bad swimmers and poor people who couldn't afford to buy ferry tickets.

But after you clear the cliff, then you see the magnificent beach of Railay West ahead of you and realize all the effort was worth it.

As the boat pulls up to the shore, you have to steady yourself and jump off into the shallow water. Some friendly advice, don't jump off with a baby in the bjorn.  Rather, wait for your significant other to get off the boat and then do a hand off.  Just sayin....

As picturesque as Railay West is, you cannot visit Railay without going to Pranang Cave Beach on the southern end.  But getting there isn't as simple as walking along the water.  Nope.  First you walk to Railay East, then from there, you continue south and then turn as you get to the mountain and head on towards Pranang Beach.  So here's how you get there.

First, as you start on Railay West, you'll see a bunch of restaurants and shops.  Walk south until you find a sign for Railay Bay Resort & Spa.  Immediately to the left of that hotel sign, there should be a paved pathway that heads away from the water.

Take that path and pass the tourism shop until you find a fork in the road with signs steering you left. You've found the Path (no, not the train that connects New Jersey with Manhattan), but the paved walkway that connects Railay West with Railay East.

In case you get worried you're going the wrong way, there is a part of this walkway that leads you behind some of the hotel rooms. That's the right way. As my mother put it, "it looks like you're walking through Auschwitz" because of the old cement walls lined with rusty barb wire. But you're going the right direction. Eventually, the path returns to the normal serene garden view as soon as you get past the hotel buildings.

Now, at this point on the Path, if you turn the wrong way on any of the side walkways, then you're actually going into one of the resorts. Luckily for you, they have signs informing you that they're for hotel guests only (what a great security system).

Eventually, you will reach Railay East.  They say it's not as nice of a beach (and they're right).  It looks more like an island lagoon (that during low tide gets really muddy) instead of being a sandy beach to sunbathe on.  Nevertheless, it still makes for an amazing screensaver on your office computer. But a word of caution. As my father says, "If I ever saw someone with computer wall paper of some tropical place, I'd just assume he's a lazy daydreamer and fire him."

When you reach the water, you then turn right and proceed to walk south, continuing along the paved path until you reach an intersection of sorts.

To the left, you'll find a rock climbing area where white people pay money to try to be monkeys, scaling the steep face of a limestone cliff.  To the right, you continue to walk around the limestone mountain.

This path follows the base of the mountain which is lined with dozens of small caves and what looks to be pathways (probably not fit for babies).  But if you had proper shoes (ie, not Crocs) and a flashlight, then you would likely see some cool limestone stalactites & stalagmites.

But even if you just stayed on the paved path, you'll still get to see enough cool cave formations to check it off your bucket list.

About halfway down that path though, you'll reach a "resting area" with covered benches that looks like a primitive bus stop. This is the location where you can venture off the proverbial beaten path and climb up the jungle side of the mountain to reach a "secret" lagoon (that apparently everyone knows about).

Even if my father had me strapped securely to his baby bjorn, I'd still freak out if he climbed on tree roots and ropes to visit some lagoon fill of sweaty, dirty European backpackers when I'd be perfectly happy splashing around in our hotel bathtub. But I hear the view is quite nice and worth the 20 minutes of climbing/hiking to get to the top.

We, however, opted against climbing up to the view point and continued to our final destination -  Pranang Cave Beach.  As it turned out, we reached it in about 2 minutes continuing down the path.  Suddenly, the narrow pathway opens up to an amazing beach with a massive cave along the left.  It's very striking.  Between the sharp knife like intensity of the limestone structures and the powdery white serenity of the white sand beach and emerald ocean, you realize you're definitely not in New York anymore.