Paved Paradise

After the Full Moon Party, Charlie and I went our separate ways for a week. He went to Koh Phi Phi and Phuket (both of which I visited the last time I was in Thailand and did not need to see again, and Charlie had never been to) and I went to Krabbi (which he visited last time, and I had not). I was excited to go to Krabbi to see Railey Beach, which has often been reported to me as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Perhaps it is just one of those things that tends to happen when expectations get built up, but within 10 minutes of landing at Railey, I wanted to leave. It was very packaged tour and crowded. Railey is a small, thin stretch of beach bounded on two sides by the water, and on the other two sides by sheer limestone karsts that rise dramatically hundreds of feet high. I can see why people fell in love with Railey in the past, before every last square inch was developed into time shares. If you squint and look past the rampant development and hordes of tourists, you can see that the land itself is very beautiful.
I later heard that many areas in Krabbi were devastated by the tsunami in 2003. After the extensive damage, tourism dried up and the modest landowners in the area lacked the necessary resources to rebuild. So their land was bought out from underneath them at bargain prices. (If only I knew, I would have pounced on a little piece of paradise myself and hung my own hammock.) The whole thing reminds me of the snakes that eat their own tail - their jaw only works in one direction, so they can't undo their mistake and they end up devouring themselves. And so it goes with tourism in Railey and other formerly ideal beaches in Southern Thailand.