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Region: Southern Thailand> Province: Krabi> Location: Railay Beach
Railay Cabana
Up the hill - a long way from water
Inland, on the road from the beach near Diamond Cave Resort
Krabi Province
Description
Along the beach on Railay East you'll see a sign pointing to Railay Cabana just before you reach the Diamond Cave Resort -- it's a good ten-minute walk to get there. The setting is quite beautiful -- situated just below the looming limestone cliffs -- with a very remote feeling to it. It is remote, in fact, and the major drawback to this place that the walk to and from the beach can get rather tedious. Still, the cheap bungalows are a good deal for the price, with surprising amenities like towels and soap on offer, and so much peace and quite you can hear the gibbons hooting in the hills as you wake up in the morning. They aren't big on giving out contact info or booking in advance, so you'll just have to show up and take your chances -- this is the one place that often has vacancies when the rest of the area is booked.
Total rooms: 20
Bungalow fan private b'room
150 THB (low season)
300 THB (high season)
Upto 550B
Deluxe bungalow
300 THB (low season)
750 THB (high season)
With fan only
Added to Travelfish on: 20th June, 2004
Last visited or updated on: 7th October, 2006
Guest feedback
A good place when the beach is booked out. - 
By tezza ( total comments: 21 
) Stayed here 3/2006
In high season it can be quite difficult to find a place walk-in at Railay. However if you head uphill on the concrete footpath from East Railay past the Diamond Cave (follow the signs), you find after a total of 10 minutes Railay Cabana, which is the renamed Park View. For 300 baht, bargained down from 350, I got myself a traditional timber and bamboo beach hut style bungalow with big verandah, attached bathroom, clean, and just enough room inside for two and their gear. This had a comfortable queen size (double+) bed with slightly hard pillows, mosquito net in good condition and fan. Unusual in cheaper bungalows was the provision of towels and soap. There was no mirror in the small bathroom. Staff were friendly.
Cabana is set in a pleasant garden like setting with nice views of the surrounding cliffs. It’s pretty quiet up here - on awakening it was possible to hear the gibbons in the nearby rainforest hooting.
The restaurant which was great when I visited previously in 2002 seems to have given up competing with the excellent selection down on East and West Railay. There was a small cofee shop/bar which could do coffee, tea, toast, jam and eggs for breakfast and could always sell you a beer and similar. About 5 minutes down the track is a small restaurant belonging to the adjacent Highland Bungalows and 2 minutes past that is the popular Climbers’ Bar which had good eats.
I also had a look at Cabana’s more expensive bungalows (about a dozen - there are about the same number of the cheaper bungalows). The 450 baht ones were much bigger and newer, while the 650 versions of similar size and age could sleep 4. I actually thought these bungalows were worth their asking price, whereas my cheapie was definitely not a 350 bungalow, Railay or not. Note the adjacent Highland Bungalows were very similar to Cabana’s pricier bungalows, and there seemed to be at least 30 bungalows, so you should find something up here on spec.
If you walk the track another 5 minutes uphill you enter the rainforest and cross the saddle to Ton Sai, hitting the highest bungalows after about 10-15 minutes. It takes another 15 minutes to walk down to Ton Sai beach. Note that attractive West Railay is reached in less than 10 minutes from Cabana on a signposted branch off the main East Railay-Diamond Cave concrete footpath. This footpath has easy gradients except for one 20 m pinch which is moderately steep.
On my value for money ratings sytem I’m rating my bungalow at 300 baht 7/10, location 7, food 2 (selection not quality), staff 7.5, grounds/landscaping 7.5.
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