Ok, so Railay on paper sounds very confusing and for someone who hasn't been, you don't know where the hotels you are booking are.
Tonsai: you only want to stay here if you don't mind having no electricity in the day. Rooms are cheap for a reason. Full of die hard rock climbers, it has a very backpacker atmosphere.
West Railay: this is the beach you expect to have all over Railay, it's not the case, this is the only beach you really have in your head when you imagine Thailand (apart from Phrang beach which is just packed). Also, life winds down much earlier on this side than in East Railay and doesn't actually have that many bars and restaurants anyway. They are also all more expensive than on East Railay. But, it is only about a 7 minute walk to the East side, though bring a torch as street lights there are not.
East Railay:
Home to the bars, restaurants and cheaper than West Railay accommodations. There are some really expensive hotels on this side which surprises me as there is no beach. I'm not sure I would want t pay in excess of £100 for a room with no beach outside. When the tide is out, it looks pretty grotty here, but when it comes in, it is lovely. I had the misfortune of first seeing it with tide out and wondered what the hell attracted people here.
Anyway, Anyavee; having traipsed around in the unforgiving heat looking for something not outrageously priced and not grotty I stumbled across this place as I figured I might as well see how much it cost. I was very surprised to find a bungalow only cost 1,500 baht when for just 500baht, bungalows were pretty gross and tiny. So I snapped it up. The hotel is very well kept, clean restaurant, pool area and well maintained gardens.
The bungalow was great, very spacious and clean. All come equipped with TV (including Fox movies!), safe, tea and coffee making facilities and aircon. Be warned though, the steps down to the shower in the bathroom are treacherous and almost knocked me unconscious when I slipped on them.
The staff were lovely, very helpful. Breakfast was ok, it seems that no hotel in Thailand gives you proper coffee which really sucks. Food was initially restaurant style in low season so you had to wait for food to come to your table ( I guess they didn't have too many guests so it was more economic this way), so this was good, but when it turned high season and the hotel packed out, breakfast changed to buffet style which was good in that I got more food, but bad in that it was only luke warm, even when I had breakfast at 8.30am.
NO FREE WIFI, once again, the lack of free wifi strikes again. This hotel charges 2 baht per minute, which amounts to 120baht per hour, that's £2.50 an hour- way more than England! I don't understand how cheaper hotels can afford to offer it and yet Anyavee can't (claiming it's because they source the internet from someone else - so get your own yeah?).
Internet aside, I had a very pleasant 10 days in this hotel, and very nicely even though I overlapped into high season, the hotel kept my daily price at low season rate which I thought was sweet.
The hotel is just on the edge of East Railay bars and restaurant, so far enough away to be able to sleep without noise, but close enough for a quick stroll in.
