Krabi, Krabi, Krabi, Krabi, KrabiChameleon

After a week in the hustle and bustle of Bangkok and another week in the beautiful mountain town of Chiang Mai, it was only natural to head south to the beach. When I pictured my experience in Thailand I pictured the beach, Krabi, the picture on the desktop of my computer for over 6 months. This picture

We arrived in Krabi Town, a small New Englandish town about 30 minutes from the beach. We both immediately noticed the silence. No cars, minus a few of the same exact model Toyota truck and a few scooters. It was great. We could walk across the road without looking both ways- Something unheard of in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. We ate at a great, small, inexpensive restaurant called Chok-De, which is "Good Luck" in Thai. We moved on to a bar called The Western Bar, a small rustic cabin like, open-air, Classic 70's rock blasting, shoes off, sit on your ass, drink whiskey kind of bar. The bartender looked like a character from Dusk Til Dawn, I thought at any moment, the doors could close and the entire staff of the bar would turn into blood thirsty Thai-Vampires. It was a great time, the doors never shut, and the could-be vampires ended up being very friendly locals.

We met a Spanish couple, Adrianna from Catalina and Uudie pronounced "Woody" without the W. from Barcelona. They were both very nice and spoke english well enough to keep us in good company for the remainder of the night. We talked music and about the beautiful countryside of Barcelona and how Uudie thought Krabi was paradise and out of the all the places he had traveled, which were many, it was the most beautiful. We met a Fin and a Icelandic couple, they were nice, but the Spaniards were our favorites. After a late night at the Western Bar, and 15 Zeppelin and Guns'n'roses songs later, we called it a night.

Side note: Kings of Leon are HUGE here, I mean HUGE. Played everywhere. We saw a punk band in Chiang Mai covering Kings of Leon and I've heard "Sex on Fire" MANY times since i have been here. We told everyone they were from our hometown and we were a hit ;) I have a video of said band playing Kings songs, Ill post if I can.

So the next morning we woke up, hungover, smelling like cheap whiskey and Thai Beer. We caught a Long tail Motorboat to East Railay. We were very distraught when we pulled up to Railay East, the beach we very muddy and surrounded my Mangrove trees. Unswimmable. We looked at each other in disbelief, I say, "This is NOT what the pictures looked like", then I remembered that West Railay was where we wanted to be.

So with 50 lbs of our life on our backs, the muderous Thai sun on our faces and a belly full of night-old beer, we hiked what seemed like hours to West Railay, which ended up only being about a Kilometer from East Railay.


The most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The water- turquoise, the sky- deep blue, the sand-white and velvet under your feet, the epic limestone cliffs hugging the beach like a mother to her beautiful little child, undeniably surreal. I don't think i blinked the first 5 minutes we were on the beach, taking it all in was difficult, the mountains in the distance, I had never seen anything like it in my life. I didn't know beaches looked that beautiful in real life, I thought they were all the deceiving works of a maniacal Photoshop junkie, but I was wrong, this beach was perfect.

This was the best part of the day. The middle part. Soaking it all in. The day got progressively worse as the sun set behind the 1000 foot cliffs to the west. We noticed people coming in and out and around the cliffs to the west, so I explored. I found jagged coral covered rocks in a cavernous path to another beach called Hat Ton Sai, apparently some of the best climbing in the world was here, I saw a lot of climbers and beach-goers, the beach wasn't very appealing to the swimmer, but I thought an adventure through the middle of this cavern would be interesting, so I holler for Maris. We made the trek through safely, it wasn't very dangerous during the day, it was well-lit and there were prettty easy pathes to go through to get to Ton Sai.


We made it through, we found a little oceanside restaurant and had a bite and a pint and watched the climbers attempt the same route for an hour or so. The sun began to set and we decided it might be in our best interest to head back through the cave while there was a bit of light left. It seemed though, the closer we got to the start of the trail, the darker it got. We made it to the trail and saw that it was VERY poorly lit, so we went about halfway and came back out. We then decided we would try and wade through the water AROUND the cliff, but I was carrying Maris's purse and a couple towels and snorkeling gear I was using earlier in the day. The water came up too high, we turned back. As we were finally about to call it a night and try and get a boat back, we see a group of climbers walk from a new path BEHIND the route we took. We asked them if it was easy, they responded, I quote, "Sure mate, very easy, you just walk with both your hands out, you feel the walls, it's easy".

So we give it a shot, this was an extremely difficult hike and then it became almost completely dark, we couldn't see the ground we walked on, we started worrying, when we saw head lamps bouncing in the distance coming up the hill toward us. We had been hiking about 10 minutes straight up, it was pretty difficult and probably pretty dangerous. The headlamps perched on the heads of two Spaniards, we asked how much further it was, they said we had only gotten to the beginning, so with their help and head lamps we turned around for the 3rd time.

We got a bungalow at Hot Ton Sai at a little community, camp-like "Mambo Bungalow" on the edge of Ton Sai. The staff were extremely friendly, and we joined in on a bar-b-cue, we had corn, potatoes and BBQ Baracuda. It was awesome, a great meal to top of a very stressful night. We were filthy, tired, worn, tattered, bothered, but we were getting better. We got very cheap bungalows, but we got what we paid for. Literally 4 pieces of Teak wood, a bed with a mosquito net and a bathroom. We woke up and took a boat back to West Railay.

We spent the entire day on the beach, it was a magical day, perfect weather, the water was warm, it wasn't too crowded. I buried myself in the sand help from Maris, something I hadn't done in over ten years. I felt like a kid again, jumping in the water, playing in the sand. Here are some photos from our day.

Maris went to bed early and I went out and met Australians, Austrians, Brits and ended the night back on West Railay in the water floating on my back watching the the stars twinkle. A great day and night, a great place- I could live here.

Oh yeah, that picture I had on my desktop for so long....

It looks a lot better with me in it ;)

_Brock

p.s. Crocodile tastes delicious with Pineapple and peanut ginger sauce.

PS Pics will be up when I get a good connection.

Take care all!