Railay West at sunset

Railay West is where the longtails from Ao Nang usually run up onto the sand, about fifteen minutes from Ao Nang by boat, and it faces the sunset: a curve of beach between two walls of rock. Late afternoon belongs here. The cliffs at either end turn warm, the sea flattens in the dry season and the low sun comes straight in off the water.

The beach is busier at this hour than Phra Nang is at dawn, so the photographer works the ends of the sand close to the rock and frames out to sea. Start about an hour before the sun reaches the horizon: the light worth having arrives in the second half of that hour. Longtails moored off the beach make a strong foreground, and the wet sand at the water's edge doubles the sky. If small children and a boat ride don't mix, Ao Nang's beach at the other end of the crossing faces the same sunset, with the ribboned longtails pulled up on the sand and a road to the beach.

Above the peninsula, a viewpoint and a hidden lagoon are reached by a steep scramble up red clay with fixed ropes. It is a climb, not a session: slippery after rain and impossible in anything you would want to be photographed in. In rough weather the boats off Ao Nang can stop running and the crossing moves to a more sheltered pier — check on the day, and keep the boat back in mind before the light fades.