New year around Railay

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From Khao Sok we got back to Takua pa and got a bus down to Krabi, here we stayed a night because Ian wanted  to do some birding around the Mangroves, Emily and Ian hired a longboat with a man called mr dai in the hope of seeing the mangrove pitta. We said we only wanted an hour, though he carried on for two, didn't bother us though, Ian only had enough money for one hour in his wallet, (300 baht each) after secreting the 1000 baht notes in emilys bra. We were unfortunate not to see the pitta, though we saw many kingfishers that we hadn't seen before. The following day we headed for Ao nang and from there got a long tailed boat to our enclosed bay of hat to sai (later named the armpit of the world). We came to this area because many people said it was the most beautiful place in thailand, that and the promise of a good new years party. In fairness the area would have been very beautiful if there were no people, boats, buildings etc. We stayed in a bungalow (shack) for 500 baht a night, which is the most we have paid for a nights sleep no electricity during the day and water was on the blink because the macaques kept destroying the pipes. There was something quite mellowing about hat ton sai perhaps it was the waves gently hitting the beach why we drank pina colada's or it may of been the haze of marijuana smoke in the air from all the bars. Hat ton Sai was alot of fun over the new year, every night was a party night and new year itself was incredibly mad everyone bought there own fireworks and it was by far the biggest display I had seen even if it did just last minutes. We were also quite fortunate to run into a couple of people we knew, Phil and Jacky both our tutors from Berkshire college 4 years ago it was nice to catch up they did the wise thing and stayed on Ao nang. The Sea was warm and the water clear we had a fair few beach days and also one day with phil and Jacky we did probably the most daunting trail so far on our trip which involved climbing using ropes 300m up to the observation point. We did have lots of fun here we are probably a little harsh on this place mainly because we both got ill here we did after all stay for 5 days.

We came to this area because many people said it was the most beautiful place in thailand, that and the promise of a good new years party