First of all - we've surpassed 1000 page views! Inconceivable...when I started this blog it was just to keep family and friends updated on our whereabouts (we're still alive!) and trips (we're having fun!) but now Google analytics tell me that people are getting referred to this site from all sorts of places. Oh, internets, there you go again.
So - on to the trip!
The month of June saw Spouse and I both taking on additional responsibilities at work and late hours. We work hard - and play hard. Fourth of July weekend we headed out of town to Railay beach for sun, sand, surf, rock climbing, and relaxing. From Bangkok's main airport, it's a quick hour and twenty minutes south to Krabi. Since we couldn't leave work earlier, Spouse wisely arranged a hotel transfer from the airport for an extra $40. This meant on arrival at Krabi airport, a van picked us up and drove 45 minutes to the water, where we were greeted by a longtail boat. At this point it was pitch black and if we had not arranged something in advance, I doubt there would've been a single boat available to take us. Another 30 minutes to the Railay East beach - we hopped off into the water and then a golf cart (really??) picked us up and drove us across the isthumus to Railay West were our hotel was located.
The Sand Sea Resort is great - right on the beach, breakfast included, comfy rooms with kind staff. We woke up Saturday morning and walked up down our beach. It was incredibly beautiful, and traveling off-season is definitely the way to go. Costs are down 30-50%, there are still enough people to chat with others, and other activities like rock climbing and sea kayaking are still available. It rained once the weekend we were there, and it was just for an hour in the morning - no problem.
When the tide goes out, these tiny crabs pull little balls of sand out of their burrows and arrange them in the most beautiful fashion:
They were all up and down the beach!
Looking down West Railay's beach:
Low season = open beach!
Close-ups of the shell-adorned rocks:
Sun protection matters:
Ribbit:
After a day of beach-walking and hiking, we took on rock-climbing the next day. We met our guide and walked a little ways to an open space by the water, between two cliffs.
Whoa, it's a long way up. What are we doing??
Some way more experienced climbers than us joined, and started lead climbing - which means scaling the wall with no rope above them, and weaving the rope they carry into pre-set metal hooks in the rock face. This sets up the course for the folks following.
Two of the pros chat and a climber stretches. In this sandy spot, the ropes are kept on the mats.
Absolutely gorgeous spot to try climbing:
Husband is awesome and charging up the first climb, a 5 meter one:
Yours truly, starting climb #2, a 12 meter one.
As I'm trying to figure out the next toehold up, note the guy way above me - doing a THIRTY-FIVE meter climb. Whoa, maybe next time!
Absolutely amazing experience - it was pretty challenging and definitely something I want to try again.
Rock-climbing really takes it out of you...afterward I felt like these cats and just wanted to curl up and take a nap.
After lunch and a rest, we made the ill-fated decision to go sea-kayaking. I've been before and it was really fun, and it just looked like a nice little outing. Unfortunately our sea kayaks were those rickety red things below. We headed out to sea, and unbeknownst to us our boat began taking on water. Rounding an outcropping to the next beach, we made one sharp paddle, the boat couldn't take it anymore, and dumped us in the water. Thankfully we were just in swimsuits and Spouse had wisely convinced me to leave the camera on shore. We crawled back in the boat, only to have that episode repeat itself a few times. After the third spill, we just grabbed ahold of the boat and swam in to shore.
We dumped the water from the boat, which took about three minutes to drain from the quarter sized spout. We'd been out for about an hour now and the joy of sea kayaking had kind of gone out the window. Just wanting to head home, we steered our boat back out and tried to take a shortcut back home. Turns out the tide had gone out too far, and we got stuck on the coral a foot under the surface. Okay, so we had to take the long way around. Still, by the time we got there the water had also gone out quite aways. To make a very long and painful story short, we were too far out to try another path, but had gotten wedged in an area with so much coral that Husband GOT OUT OF THE KAYAK and started walking on the coral to make the boat lighter so we could get further out to sea and actually paddle. Not the most genius move, but pretty gallant.
He rejoins the kayak and we have one final corner to round until we can paddle back into our home bay. Of course we tip over two times more and just resign ourselves to the fact that there is no open, coral-free way to get back in. Holding the kayak and two paddles, we stumbled into the bay on an agonizing walk of what felt like an hour, cutting up our feet. As the waves broke when they rolled in, they also took it upon themselves to push us over and fall on more stabbing coral on our back and hands and knees.
See those two people in the bottom right of this photo? Yeah, that's basically what we felt like upon finally making it back. Just collapsing on the shore. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
We soaked in the hotel's pool to recover a bit and then took a nap, before capping off the weekend with a random Muay Thai boxing fight!
I don't know if Railay ended up being the relaxing weekend we were looking for, but it was definitely worth it. We'll be back - just no sea kayaking!
