Railay West vs. Railay East: Tensions Boil Over At Source Awards
Shit just got real. A long simmering feud between upscale Railay Beach West and backpacker-friendly Railay Beach East, erupted into full blown beef at last night’s Source Awards. No longer will visitors to this Krabi paradise face a choice between natural beauty and cost effectiveness, they’ll now be choosing sides in an all out war.
Railay East preps for battle
After months of macho posturing, lethal diss tracks, and literal sand kicking, the conflict is now fully out in the open, and where it goes from here is anyone’s guess. Security at the awards venue was clearly unprepared and many in attendance feared for their safety as the night got more heated, heat stroke being not only a legitimate medical concern in the Southern Thai climate, but also the name of a specialty cocktail both sides claim to have invented.
Railay West’s iconic beach, which was properly taken down in the East’s recent track “Shorebreakover”
The origins of the beef are hotly debated, but many trace it back to when one of the East’s hottest bartenders, Skunk Bar’s Cloudy Carl, accepted a position at the West’s Railay Bay Resort as a bellhop now named Carl Gunderson. To add insult to injury, the West followed this talent poaching with an extension of their happy hour to begin at 3:00PM instead of 4:00PM, a move widely understood to be a deliberate encroacment on the East’s assertion that “every hour is happy hour”.
Does Railay East’s dense mangroves give them more of an edge? Or just less of a beach?
Things escalated from there, but few could have predicted the fireworks on display last night’s awards show (which are not to be confused with the weekly fire shows held by both beaches). Thing started off light-hearted enough with Why Not? Bar proprietor and defacto Railay East spokesman Eddie Puffins made a comment to a packed house deriding the West’s lack of proper dock for arriving and departing boats. The West responded swiftly, with Flame Tree manager, who simply goes by the fire emoji symbol, shooting back in his onstage appearance, “I’m about a beach, what the fuck is dock?” The crowd became more and more volatile until things came to a head when Puffins stormed the stage with his East crew and screamed, “Don’t no one on the West got love for Last Bar!”
Shots fired
So we are in uncharted territory here. The divide between resort and hostel, flash and back, a gorgeous beach and a concrete retaining wall next to a mangrove puddle, has never been clearer and more heated. Choose your beachfront accommodation wisely. It may seem a bit trivial from an outsider’s perspective, but if you don’t believe these conflicts can turn dire in a flash, just remember what happened between Big Sur and Pakistan. Look alive, look alive.
