A short stay in a 'Jungle Oven' - Railey beach and Tonsai bay

We left Koh Samui on the 21st December and went for a short trip to a remote beach called Ton Sai - the beach is only accessible by boat or via a short jungle trek.

The boat trip over offered wonderful views of the mountains towering over the turquoise blue waters:

We finally arrived to our Jungle hut (a ferry a mini van and 2 long tail boats later) and the first thing that we noticed about this place was the terrible smell!! It took a while to figure out what it was but soon it became apparent that it was a combination of Monkey pee and over worked drains.
It was really unbearable and teamed with the burning heat (approx 38) we really started to question how we were going to manage 4 days here!!

it looks a lot nicer in this picture!

We decided the best thing to do would be to take a shower and go down to the bar for an ice cold beer! It had been a looong day.....

We both showered (which Wout had to fix before we could use it) and when we came out of our jungle hut we were greeted by these gorgeous monkeys

Seeing these closeup made the smell and heat a little more tolerable!

Upon arriving at the bar we were welcomed by Joe the Bar Man - he laughed like Mr Chow from The Hangover and wore a pirate hat!

Joe the Barman

Our first evening was spent drinking cold beers and working out how we were going to get to the ATM which was on the next beach and we had the option of a 30 minute Jungle hike, taking a boat or waiting for the tide to go out at which time we'd be able to walk by the rocks......

The next morning after not much sleep we decided to head out on the mission to the ATM and we'd opted for the rock trail as the tide was out. VERY BIG MISTAKE!! I hated every minute of the walk / climb / clamber! I reckon i cried at least 3 times and drove Wout nuts - it was so difficult to manoeuvre over the rocks and at points the water actually got quite deep. I had a full freak out when i saw this massive fish swimming around my legs only to realise it was in fact only a leaf! Embarrassing. 

We got our money though and headed back by long tail boat! No way i was getting back on them rocks.

The following days were much of the same. Not much sleep (due to the incredible heat and humidity and the fact that all we had for cooling down was a broken ceiling fan) and making the journey via the jungle trail to the next beach where we were able to get food and drinks etc.

We also only had electricity access 6 pm till 6 am so the only option was to go out and about as opposed to cooking alive in our jungle hut. 

We learned that the main reason people visit this place is because it is a Mecca from Climbers and we passed most of the final day sat at the beach watching people climb. This particular day neither of us had put on sun cream as we hadn't intended to stay out long. However we got so into watching the climbers we complete lost track of time and both ended up with a massive sunburn (Not the best considering our accommodation arrangements) no amount of after sun was cooling us down!

The rock climbers

When the time came to leave we could not have been happier - knowing that we had a lovely 4 star hotel with air con booked for over Christmas we were more than ready to move on.

Railey beach and Ton Sai are truly stunning but in hindsight a day trip to here would have sufficed!