Rai Leh--Phra Nang Beach

So sleep feels really great after a whole day at the beach and in the water. Just a comment.
Anyway, this morning we woke up and got ready for our day at Rai Leh, also spelled Raile and Railay. That's the great thing about Thailand. Spelling doesn't matter. Not one bit. When they spell Thai with the Roman alphabet, it's phonetic, so however you wanna spell it, go for it! I love how I've seen things spelled here--Rast Berry, Milk Shak, Raicins, Netella, Yoghuet, Sandwish, Pann Kaka (pancake)--those are just things we saw today. It's a constant surprise to see what spellings they come up with.
Okay, back to business. We walked down to the beach area and stopped by a couple different ticket booths who informed us that we had to wait for 6 more people so that we could fill a boat to head to Railay. Annoying. We're on vacation--everything's supposed to be on our timetable lol. We walked some more and found a place where we paid 100baht for a longtail boat ticket. We had to wade out to the boat, and it was kinda nasty. Squishy mud :( Anyway, 10 minute ride and we were at Railay. Pretty water :) Also, some palm trees growing down out of the cliffs. We got dropped at Railay West beach. It was overcast today, but it was kind of nice since we don't want to get fried. We blew up our beds and got out into the water. That was so relaxing. I definitely could've napped there. We got out to eat some snacks and find some food. It was pricey! I got a mango/pineapple/strawberry shake that sucked for 60 baht. Tasted like water and ice with a tinge of mango. I'm not bitter.
Then we got back in for a bit until deciding we wanted to head to Phra Nang. I tried to find a pathway since I know you can walk there, but we had all our stuff, and it was supposedly a 25-minute walk. So we paid 75baht each to be boated around the cliff corner. Yeah, annoying. We wanted to float over on our blow ups but we were a bit nervous about sharks and what creatures might be in the water lol. 150 baht to get us 2 minutes away was frustrating, but that was only half what they originally wanted to charge.
Phra Nang was beautiful--a much longer beach than Railay West, and apparently one of the most beautiful beaches out there. We wasted no time getting in the water, but then decided to check out the rest of the beach. So cool! There was a mangrove and these amazingly cool caves! Also, a weird shrine with certain symbols that I won't go into here. We got our stuff and moved it to that area since we wanted to try snorkeling around there. The further we got from the beach, the clearer the water was. We floated to the cliffs and got to see some nice fish :) We also found this cool little cave/inlet area where the water was super clear and the stalactites were beautiful. We spent some time in there as people jumped off the nearby cliffs. That area had some nice fish, plus lots of crabs. We found a shallow, sandy spot where, everytime we stepped onto the sand in the water, we popped airbubbles under the sand. It felt so strange to walk on that sand.

Palm tree growing with gravity

After that, we floated back near to shore and stayed in the water for a bit longer before taking a longtail back to AoNong. Such a beautiful area we're in! It's incredible.