After staying couple days in Ao Nang on my last day I decided to visit probably nicest beach in area – Hat Phra Nang. Although Lonely Planet calls Railay(Rai Leh) most stunning beach location in all Thailand I would name it nice but not the “most”.  Ok is not about this today. How you can get there from Ao Nang? Only by long tail boat.  It takes about 15-20 minutes and cost 80BTH at the moment. You can go from Ao Nang directly to Hat Phra Nang beach or go to Hat Rai Leh West and then walk to Hat Phra Nang beach. It is about another 20 minutes walk, but I would recommend to do that walk to see how different is Hat Rai Leh East side of peninsula.
Day was not the best for beach. It started raining, so didn’t stay on the beach more then half an hour. Was no any long tail boats on Hat Phra Nang beach so I went back to Hat Rai Leh West. It looks was no shortage of long tail boats here.

I showed my return ticket to Ao Nang and guy pointed where I should wait. Long tail boats go when there are at least 8 persons. In Ao Nang it took about 10 minutes till was enough people to go. But different story in Railay. The couple I met in waiting area was waiting for a boat more then an hour.  It was strange because boats were leaving almost every five minutes. I didn’t realize there are at least two different companies which transfer people from Ao Nang to Railay and back. I did wait less then an hour, but situation wasn’t very pleasant – I needed to catch bus to Bangkok that afternoon, another couple was going to airport – and boat owners even didn’t discuss possibility to go earlier.  It was happy ending and I made on time to my bus, but don’t make mistake I did – don’t buy return ticket (it is not saving you any money anyway)  and check which boats will leave earlier (i.e. more people are waiting) before buying your ticket.

The post Ferries from Ao Nang to Railay, Thailand appeared first on Vi Travel Tips.

Next day in afternoon guy picked me up from guest house and dropped in some coffee shop on edge of Ao Nang. There another mini bus should pick up me and transfer to Krabi from there bus goes to Bangkok. Never travelled with bus in Thailand before, so didn’t have any expectation how it works and wasn’t worrying much about it, as after 20 minutes mini bus came and dropped all passengers including me somewhere in Krabi. Place doesn’t look like bus station at all. But bus was were and a lot of other people also were waiting for it. No worries. Only after talking with another guy I met there I understood it is fake (not government run Transport Company) VIP bus. What I can do now? I must in Bangkok tomorrow. Bus wasn’t full and I had two seats available. Not bad, as usually in such private buses they have more seats then in real VIP bus. Which means less leg space. So far so good, except driver was smoking and all bus was full of smoke. At night when we stopped for a break a could look at real VIP buses. Not much difference from outside, except serial numbers and company title on it. But inside it was much cleaner, had working TV and probably could find other cons, but I will check it next time I come to Thailand.

This time I arrived safe and sound to Bangkok and actually it stopped near Khao San Road there a lot of hostels are, so no need to take taxi from bus station.
My experience with fake VIP bus in Thailand was not such bad, but want to know everybody about it. Next time I at least will know about it’s existence and will think should I take it or not. Price I paid for ticket was higher then real VIP bus, don’t know what insurance they have in case of accident and most unpleasant thing happened – at night somebody checked bags left in bus storage unit and even didn’t bother properly to close bags after they opened them. Nothing was stolen, but it is not very nice feeling when you know somebody went through your stuff. So don’t ignore warning: “KEEP YOUR VALUABLES WITH YOU”.

The post Beware of fake VIP buses in Thailand appeared first on Vi Travel Tips.