From Ko Lanta to Railey Beach

We are now leaving the somewhat rainy and very lonely island and heading back to Railey early in the morning with a taxi, ferry, bus, and boat. We have been there before 15 years ago and are curious to see what it looks like now.

We booked the Diamant Cave Resort in advance because the pictures on the website looked very nice. We were first shown a very spacious hotel room. Unfortunately, there were pieces hanging from the ceiling that looked like mold. Next, we were shown a bungalow. It was on a hill, so it was steep uphill. When the hotel staff opened the door, a wave of smoke hit me, so I didn't even enter this bungalow. When we walked back down the hill to the reception, it felt like déjà vu, but unfortunately it was reality. 15 years ago, I went through exactly the same thing. It was the same resort. Christian liked to tell the story of the bungalow search over the years. Nevertheless, I wanted to give the bungalows a chance. Maybe something had changed in the last years. So up the hill again. It was supposed to be the bungalow next to the one we had just looked at.

Something had changed. It was even more run-down than before.

So I asked to see another bungalow. The hotel staff sighed, grabbed a handful of keys, and off we went.

After seeing more bungalows and rooms, it was probably too much for the staff, so he took us to a new building complex where the rooms seemed much better. Unfortunately, they only seemed that way. The room we then took there looked quite good. But after one day, it turned out that water was coming out somewhere in the toilet. Fortunately, not dirty water. But it didn't smell great either. To avoid having a completely wet bathroom all the time, we took our bath towel, which also smelled terrible, and stuffed it into the hole. The towel had to be changed every day because it was completely soaked.

The resort is really nice, it's such a shame that it is so neglected.