WHAT'S THAT I SAID?: First Day at Railay Bay Resort and Spa

Railay Bay and Hong Island

I made the transition from one resort to another and boy what a difference. At the first resort the area was very touristy, with many shops to buy all the junk a tourist could ever want, lots of english speakers around to communicate with and lots of room for taking long walks.

Railay Bay? Almost the complete opposite! Not a lot of English to be had here, but the staff are still super nice and try really hard to understand what you are asking for. Shops? Not many and they are all on the east side of the peninsula.

Low tide. Not the prettiest thing to look at.

One of the shops on the east side.

I really like the scenery around this area and its super quiet here so far. Lots of younger European people here, but I'm not seeing any partying going on so far. Not much for tourists here, just quiet, calm and relaxing atmosphere. As an anti-social person maybe not the best location. I don't think I've spoken socially to another person, excepting resort staff, for over a week now.

In order to try and break the silence I decided when I got to this resort that I would book a day trip and do some snorkeling. The islands around here are very picturesque.

Longtail boat

Hong lagoon. One way in, one way out.

Very nice looking water

The symbol of Hong Islands. Not sure what it's trying to say.

The next stop was small sand bar that we stopped at for a quick swim. I had bought a cheap knock-off Gopro, so I decided to give it a try here. Not much to see with it but I did get this fairly nice picture with my phone (in a waterproof pouch). Indonesian smoke haze was fairly low today so that was good.

The next stop was the snorkeling location and I used the fake Gopro properly.

There is a crab in the bottom right quarter of this picture. Hope you can see it, it's orange.

As you can see the water is a little cloudy. I don't think it's the best time of year for snorkeling here. It's definitely not as nice as Tioman in Malaysia was. My cheap little camera did a decent job of it though.

I was told that there was a Barracuda in the area, but I didn't see it while I was swimming. As I watched the video I realized that I got it, if only for a couple of seconds, but it's so cool that I got it. Here's to having good luck.

All in all, this day was pretty good. I got to talk to a few people, see some fishes and relax.