Wow...Thailand is worlds away from India. This is truly a vacation, and we are glad to have visited India first and Thailand second. First we headed to Krabi, which is mostly a launching point for catching a boat to one of the islands. But I will say that Krabi has a fantastic street market where you can get a vast array of really yummy food for cheap. The day we discovered it, we ended up eating one massive progressive meal that lasted all day. It was great to eat constantly, which sounds horribly gluttonous...but in our defense we were also walking all day, and everything was in small portions. Let me just give you a run-down of the day's smorgasport:
banana. coffee. yogurt. chocolate BonBon. ice cream. fish kabob. corn-on-the-cob. chicken kabob. fried bananas. pad thai. chicken kabob again. veggies and rice. iced tea. spring roll. shrimp kabob. egg pancake. more chocolate BonBons. And then after all that we got invited to a birthday party where there was tons of free food just sitting around waiting to be eaten. Dang...
So then we got a long-tail boat to TonSai Bay, which is the mecca of climbing in Thailand. It's a bay that feels like an island, because it's cut off from the mainland, and consists of one dirt road loop, a bunch of bungalows, and bamboo restaurants. It's a 4-for-1 deal, because you can hike 30 minutes through the jungle to 3 other beaches that are also cut off from the mainland. They all have their own feel: Railay West has the expensive resorts and sky high prices. Railay East is similar but for a slightly cheaper budget. Pra-Nang is a small beach that has food boats that you can just swim up to and order food. It's the ultimate in vacation laziness...sunbathe, swim, eat, repeat. And all without having to move more than a few meters away. TonSai is the opposite extreme in that it has dirt cheap prices and is full of backpackers and climbers, so naturally it was calling our name. It is very small, so within 4 days we had met nearly everyone and all of a sudden we were scheduling our time with dinner and climbing dates. BAM! Just like that we have a social life again. It was refreshing.
It was hard to not have our climbing gear with us, but we forked over the money to rent gear for a few days. The climbing is really aesthetic, with massive limestone cliffs jutting out of the sea and the shoreline. You get to climb up really great rock, maybe hang off of a stalactite on the way up, and see really epic views from the top. Some of the climbing areas you have to walk to at low tide, or you can get stuck there when the water comes back in. We also did a day of deep water soloing, which is where you take a boat to one of the limestone pillars out in the sea and climb stuff that overhangs the water. You don't use a rope, but just jump in once you get high enough for it to be too scary...which doesn't take too long.
Our bungalow was simple, and we slept with a mosquito net, and fought off mosquitoes every morning and night with our incense mosquito coils. We also had a major ant problem. Everyone has heard of a bear hang for your food when you're camping, right? Well, we had to make an ant hang...which sounds so pathetic, but it was absolutely genius, so we could keep some food in our hut. There was no electricity from 8am-6pm, but it would come on every night. Our reception area also had a ping-pong table, so that was amazing. We played our nightly matches and Clay only won once.
While there, they had the biggest rain any of the locals had ever seen. Even during monsoon season. We were lucky enough to be on Railay East, having dinner with some Austrians, and got stuck there. It took us an hour of trudging through the jungle and scrambling over rocks to get back, and we were totally water-logged by the time we returned!
My dream of learning how to spin Poi has been resurrected, as everyone here knows how to spin fire poi. We saw a fire show done while on a slackline, and were totally impressed. I will post the video when I get back.
Yesterday we arrived to Ao Nang, which is another launch pad for other cooler places...although we are loving it here too. We leave tomorrow for an island that has world famous "Full-Moon" parties of 30,000 people. We shall see how that goes! Internet triples in price on the islands and beaches, so the next time you hear from us...we will either be in Bangkok on our way home, or home. Wow...how the time has flown! Thanks to everyone for your comments and emails and skype calls. It has meant a lot to us!
banana. coffee. yogurt. chocolate BonBon. ice cream. fish kabob. corn-on-the-cob. chicken kabob. fried bananas. pad thai. chicken kabob again. veggies and rice. iced tea. spring roll. shrimp kabob. egg pancake. more chocolate BonBons. And then after all that we got invited to a birthday party where there was tons of free food just sitting around waiting to be eaten. Dang...
So then we got a long-tail boat to TonSai Bay, which is the mecca of climbing in Thailand. It's a bay that feels like an island, because it's cut off from the mainland, and consists of one dirt road loop, a bunch of bungalows, and bamboo restaurants. It's a 4-for-1 deal, because you can hike 30 minutes through the jungle to 3 other beaches that are also cut off from the mainland. They all have their own feel: Railay West has the expensive resorts and sky high prices. Railay East is similar but for a slightly cheaper budget. Pra-Nang is a small beach that has food boats that you can just swim up to and order food. It's the ultimate in vacation laziness...sunbathe, swim, eat, repeat. And all without having to move more than a few meters away. TonSai is the opposite extreme in that it has dirt cheap prices and is full of backpackers and climbers, so naturally it was calling our name. It is very small, so within 4 days we had met nearly everyone and all of a sudden we were scheduling our time with dinner and climbing dates. BAM! Just like that we have a social life again. It was refreshing.
It was hard to not have our climbing gear with us, but we forked over the money to rent gear for a few days. The climbing is really aesthetic, with massive limestone cliffs jutting out of the sea and the shoreline. You get to climb up really great rock, maybe hang off of a stalactite on the way up, and see really epic views from the top. Some of the climbing areas you have to walk to at low tide, or you can get stuck there when the water comes back in. We also did a day of deep water soloing, which is where you take a boat to one of the limestone pillars out in the sea and climb stuff that overhangs the water. You don't use a rope, but just jump in once you get high enough for it to be too scary...which doesn't take too long.
Our bungalow was simple, and we slept with a mosquito net, and fought off mosquitoes every morning and night with our incense mosquito coils. We also had a major ant problem. Everyone has heard of a bear hang for your food when you're camping, right? Well, we had to make an ant hang...which sounds so pathetic, but it was absolutely genius, so we could keep some food in our hut. There was no electricity from 8am-6pm, but it would come on every night. Our reception area also had a ping-pong table, so that was amazing. We played our nightly matches and Clay only won once.
While there, they had the biggest rain any of the locals had ever seen. Even during monsoon season. We were lucky enough to be on Railay East, having dinner with some Austrians, and got stuck there. It took us an hour of trudging through the jungle and scrambling over rocks to get back, and we were totally water-logged by the time we returned!
My dream of learning how to spin Poi has been resurrected, as everyone here knows how to spin fire poi. We saw a fire show done while on a slackline, and were totally impressed. I will post the video when I get back.
Yesterday we arrived to Ao Nang, which is another launch pad for other cooler places...although we are loving it here too. We leave tomorrow for an island that has world famous "Full-Moon" parties of 30,000 people. We shall see how that goes! Internet triples in price on the islands and beaches, so the next time you hear from us...we will either be in Bangkok on our way home, or home. Wow...how the time has flown! Thanks to everyone for your comments and emails and skype calls. It has meant a lot to us!
I am so happy that you guys went to Ton Sai. Hmm I can taste the Lassi and Pancakes right now!! And I cant' wait to have you back in the South West United States of America. It isn't the same with out you.
ReplyDelete