Month: May 2009

Did my rock climbing yesterday on Railay, in an area called the Diamond Cave. My guide was a Lao bloke, who basically just lets you get on and climb – “You know how to belay, yes? Good…” and so on. Then an Aussie lad who hangs about the place turned up as well so between us we did a few pitches, I got up most of them OK even though it’s pretty hard in the heat, but failed at the final two hurdles. Luckily the rope didn’t break, even though it looked as it was about to!

Today I made the reasonably early start to get the boats to Ko Phi Phi which is where I am now. The journey was fine with an added bonus of an American girl who was sitting next to me in the long-tail, who asked to borrow my suncream. Being the gentleman I am this of course was not a problem, and she rolled her dress down to her waist and proceeded to rub it in to herself, very slowly.. I am now burnt to a crisp as I am going to keep that sun cream forever now, in fact I think I will put it in a glass cabinet and display it when I get home.

I’d heard lots of horror stories about how much it would cost on this island but it’s not near as bad as I thought, have found a reasonable room in “Tourist Town” which is the sandbar that was basically totally obliterated in the tsunami. I’ve found some gorgeous cabins up in the hills just outside of the town though so will move up there tomorrow.

I’ve randomly bumped into the group of lads I was hanging out with in Railay, so am going to meet them in a little while at some big bar called the Reggae bar which has live thai boxing I believe. I’ve got about 50 fliers in my pocket for free drinks though so should be a cheap night!

No specific plans yet but I’ll probably stay here

Still on Railay, getting into the full swing of things now. I had a slight “moment” in the hut, I needed to use the loo but realised there was no toilet paper provided, so I had the choice of getting dressed and nipping out to the shop to get some, but instead I went for the “when in Rome” option. I have since invested in some bog roll…..

Yesterday I hit the beach for a while to get some sun on my milk coloured body which was most welcome, then did some hiking around the island. The high point of that was a mental path up to a viewpoint with a laughable safety rope at the viewpoint itself. It’s tied from side to side to prevent you from walking over the sheer drop of about 1000 feet I would think, the only slight hitch being that the ground has actually gone before you get to the rope. It was a well intended thought I suppose…

The path leads on and you do a few drops of about 25 feet or so each on ropes down limestone faces with really hardly anywhere to put your feet, it really is quite insane and incredibly dangerous! Anyway what you are greeted with in the end is worth every bit of risk and effort, you come to a lagoon, deep in a well inside the cliff. So you can swim out into it and lay on your back and look upwards towards the hole at the top, several hundred feet above you. Marvellous!

I had another late one last night, I hooked up with some lads in adjacent cabins from mine and hit a bar with some dodgy Thai band on doing covers of western music, badly. But it was great fun. Then two dudes came along with long sticks with fire burning at each end, and started juggling them and whatnot. They weren’t much good at it though and kept dropping them (or perhaps they were just as pissed as we were) which wouldn’t have been too bad excepting they were doing it at the area where you step up to the seating area. Tradition has it that you take your shoes off before going up to these areas and leave them at the step, so now we all have somewhat singed flipflops.

This afternoon I’m going climbing, not sure which area yet as it depends on where the tides are as to which areas you can get to. Some of them you apparently begin the pitch from a longtail boat! Climbing in this heat and sunshine is going to be testing, that’s for sure..

Probably tomorrow morning I will head to Ko Phi Phi. There’s a big boat which goes there from Phuket or somewhere, it can’t come here as there’s no pier so normal boats can’t get in, but as I understand it you get a longtail from here and it catches up with the big boat as it passes, and you jump from one to the other in the middle of the ocean. Let’s hope the sea is not too rough, eh?