I'd heard that Thailand's most beautiful beach wasn't actually on any of the islands but was actually a spot on the coast, Railay so that was my next destination. I said bye to Sam and Kelven and got a boat to the mainland. Railay isn't an island because its attached to the mainland, but it kind of juts out and has 3 different type of beaches and you can only reach it by longtail boat from the mainland so it feels like you've arrived at an island. Because the place has probably the best beach in the whole of thailand, the main part of it is steadily being built up and already has luxury hotels, where people go with families and suitcases. So I went to find the part of the 'island' where you have to climb over loads of rocks for ages to get to because no boats will take you there so I had to climb and wade in the water with my massive 60l backpack and in flimsy flipflops , but no jokes when I got there after all that intense trekking, it was like a little backpackers haven. It was all secluded and foresty on a beach surrounded by massive tall rock structures with loads of rock climbers dangling down from ropes halfway up them. All the accommodation was cheap but niice little bungalows, and I walked along the beach and at every bar/restaurant were signs for special pancakes, special shakes, bob marley pictures, and you could smell weed everywhere just on this little bit. It was insane. Imagine going to a luxury beach resort town and then finding a special section dedicated to backpackers and hippies that just sit and smoke weed all day by the beach... mental. And I was by myself so had the sickest time hanging out with the rock climbers all day. The 3 that I was with mostly were these 3 guys from san francisco who I called rambo, chuck norris and wild bill cus the name suited each one so much, and I would say the best night of my entire time here was just lying down at a bar with these guys one night, being joined by a whole bunch of different hippie-esque people that came and went, and just looking up at the sky tripping on mushroom shakes and special pancakes for 7 hours until sunrise, laughing and making jokes about people we'd met from quebec and texas... it was the most intensely surreal night ever.

During the days, when I wanted to take a longtail boat out to another beach, I'd have to sit with the longtail boat drivers and wait for more passengers to come before the boats would leave, so I made friends with them and they had this hideout called 'The Cave' where they all went to sleep and chill out and which they'd decked out with mattresses, TV, stereo, strings of cds, decorations, a wooden carving meant to be bob marley I think. So they invited me up, chopped up fresh marijuana on a chopping board and we smoked it through a big bong at like 11am before dropping me at Ao Pranang the famous beach, so I ended up spending my day on thailands most beautiful beach as high as the sky. I went with an english girl I'd met called Sophie but she didn't stay long because there was some lagoon she wanted to check out. I thought I was gonna be by myself but luckily I bumped into a guy called Shaun I'd met on Ko Tao who was also by himself. We hung out on the beach and then went to see the dick cave which for some reason had loads of discarded wooden penises of all sizes, which were meant to be some sort of religious offering from the fishermen. We had dinner and drinks on East Railay where some very pierced and tattooed thai guys came over and chatted with us and designed me a lotus flower tattoo. The next day I got high in the Cave again before the longtail boat drivers kindly dropped me off at the mainland to catch my boat to Krabi.