If there was damage done here by the tsunami, it is hard to tell. There are a few broken down buildings and the odd plot that looks abandoned or is being rebuilt, but you might expect that anyway. It is a peninsula, white sandy beaches at one side, the remains of a mangrovne cliffs on the other, and between them towering limestone cliffs and dense jungle. The sea, in all directions, dotted with long tailed boats and precipitous islands. It was probably idyllic.
Apart from the derelict lots and those that are being rebuilt, every foot of the lowland shorline is occupied by ‘resorts’. Twenty years ago they would have been a collection of unpretentious bamboo huts, hammocks strung between the coconut palms, but today, things are more grand.
There is only one real resort here though, the expensive Rayavadee Resort, with prices from US$550 per night (breakfast included, along with a club carrying security guard to keep the rif-raf out. The others establishments have copied some of the ideas, the expectations you have of a five star otel, but not the most important ones. Outwardly, the buildings, challets and bungalows look good, but is in the details that they fall down.
The first problem is with service. The staff, in fact almost everybody in Railay, is young - perhaps that is the legacy of the tsunami. That might be the reason for the attitudes here too, but I suspect not. The workers here are apathetic, lazy, dispirited. They scuff around in flip flops, play cards, chat to their friends and sleep. Trying to place an order in some restaurants is a waste of time - you will sit at your table until closing time before the girl gets off her but and brings you a menu.
I suppose that if I was in my early twenties, without much education and workng here I might be the same way. Every week young people come here on holiday - their journey alone might have cost your annual salary. They climb, swim, sit around drinking beer at three dollars a bottle. You earn less than two hundred dollars a month. Why should you work hard? Are they better than you?
And so the ‘resorts’ with potential to be wonderful, fall apart. The cleaning is cursory, there is no attention to detail and the staff leave you feeling irritated. At every restaurant speakers blare out Bob Marley and songs from the 1980s, or there is a television, more for the entertainment of the indolent staff than the tourists. It is impossible to find a place where you listen to the island, the waves and the wind.
Some good points though: the climbing is unbelievably good, sewage treatment has been handled unobtrusively and the garbage is shipped back to the mainland every day. The garbage is bagged and taken away to the mainland every day. Why though, are they still using plastic waterbottles?
Apart from the derelict lots and those that are being rebuilt, every foot of the lowland shorline is occupied by ‘resorts’. Twenty years ago they would have been a collection of unpretentious bamboo huts, hammocks strung between the coconut palms, but today, things are more grand.
There is only one real resort here though, the expensive Rayavadee Resort, with prices from US$550 per night (breakfast included, along with a club carrying security guard to keep the rif-raf out. The others establishments have copied some of the ideas, the expectations you have of a five star otel, but not the most important ones. Outwardly, the buildings, challets and bungalows look good, but is in the details that they fall down.
The first problem is with service. The staff, in fact almost everybody in Railay, is young - perhaps that is the legacy of the tsunami. That might be the reason for the attitudes here too, but I suspect not. The workers here are apathetic, lazy, dispirited. They scuff around in flip flops, play cards, chat to their friends and sleep. Trying to place an order in some restaurants is a waste of time - you will sit at your table until closing time before the girl gets off her but and brings you a menu.
I suppose that if I was in my early twenties, without much education and workng here I might be the same way. Every week young people come here on holiday - their journey alone might have cost your annual salary. They climb, swim, sit around drinking beer at three dollars a bottle. You earn less than two hundred dollars a month. Why should you work hard? Are they better than you?
And so the ‘resorts’ with potential to be wonderful, fall apart. The cleaning is cursory, there is no attention to detail and the staff leave you feeling irritated. At every restaurant speakers blare out Bob Marley and songs from the 1980s, or there is a television, more for the entertainment of the indolent staff than the tourists. It is impossible to find a place where you listen to the island, the waves and the wind.
Some good points though: the climbing is unbelievably good, sewage treatment has been handled unobtrusively and the garbage is shipped back to the mainland every day. The garbage is bagged and taken away to the mainland every day. Why though, are they still using plastic waterbottles?
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