Rai Leh and THE TRAIL OF DEATH

Reading through our Lonely Planet, we came across Rai Leh West, described as 'the best beach in Thailand'. Holy guacamole! The best beach in Thailand? Having loved the beaches on Ko Payam, naturally we were very excited to see this beach.

2 hours in an uncomfortable long tail (a type of boat driven only by inconsiderate psychopaths), we arrive in Rai Leh. The boat either cannot or does not take us right to the shore (rather than shallow waters, I believe that we were made to wade because our longtail driver was a cock). Backpacks on, we wade through the murkiest water and gloopiest mud I have ever seen. John lost a flip flop to the mire, the poor soul. Luckily this was the only victim. In the silty sludge I could make out some strange looking worms with spiky mouths that I had no intention of going anywhere near (not that I could have gotten away had one decided to approach me, the mud was so thick) - luckily, they were more scared of me than I was of them.

I wasn't very impressed with our mud-laden, oil-polluted, longtail-psychopath-infested beach. Rai Leh West wasn't much better; full of European families paying ridiculous prices for everything (more than you'd pay at home most of the time). LP describes Rai Leh sunsets as 'orgasmic' - the soggy, pitiful display was an anti-climatic end in every possible sense, a feeling compounded by the hundreds of people sitting on the beach cooing at the view and running around taking pictures. If only they could see the skies of Ko Payam at night, a deserted beach 6 times as long as Rai Leh West, just you and the symphony in the sky.

Bitterly disappointed, we left sharpish before our wallets and our tempers took any more damage.

Having said that, the sea kayaking in the area was very good (see previous post), and we saw the finals of a 'fire contest' (if you dance and you can do it with fire, you're in). That was highly cool.

On a side note, the other day, we decided to go on a waterfall hunt at the local national park. Dressed for swimming, I was seriously unequipped for the walk to the waterfall, romantically named: 'THE TRAIL OF DEATH'. Wearing flip flops, I got bitten by a leech, on my foot. Ewww. We were about 40 minutes walk from the nearest salt, alcohol or flame (required to remove the leech without leaving it's teeth stuck in you), on a very difficult path covered in leaves and spiders and giant ants. Gravity wasn't being very helpful here, as the slopes were very steep, and the leech had attached itself right to the bottom of my foot - the bigger it got, the more in danger it was of being squashed by me as I slipped down the slopes. Dead leeches don't let go. This left me somewhat panicked and really grossed out. In the end, John was required to save the day by going on without me whilst I got well acquainted with my leech and various other creepy crawlies that decided to take an interest in me that day. It was a gourmet buffet for them, I'm sure. Eventually, the leech came off of it's own accord. I was furious with it. As punishment, I kept it in solitary confinement for 48 hours (in a plastic bottle) before I felt justice had been done and released it back into the wild, to attack the next unsuspecting flip-flop foot that wanders by. Apologies to whoever that is...

We have now reached my 30th post. Anybody bored yet? ;)