Thailand

Well it's  been a long time since I've added any pictures or updates to this little travel blog so I thought I better make an effort and put up some pictures of our time so far in Thailand before you forgot we exist. I blame a combination of laziness, lack of wifi, and better things to do for the lack of recent posts. Anyways better late than never I guess.

Bangkok

After our final couple of days hanging our near Delhi we caught a night flight down to Bangkok. For some reason Kiersten and I were under the impression that our flight was supposed to leave at 10:00am, however we made an important discovery at 11:00pm that our flight actually left at 2:00am. Oops, anyways, made the flight but didn't get much sleep and were in travelling haze when we arrived in the Bangkok airport. All of a sudden we were in Thailand. After 3 months in India I had grown quite accustomed to it so all of a sudden being thrown into another new country was a bit of a trip. My first impression of Bangkok was that it was a clean, organised, modern city. I was expecting things to be a little more chaotic, but compared to Kolkata and other big Indian cities, Bangkok was quite laid back.
 

The Grand Palace in Bangkok

Outside the flower market in Chinatown

Bangkok has the largest selection of BB guns I have ever seen

We spend a couple nights in a little hotel near Khao San Rd. before heading down to Phuket to meet up with our friend Jess. We spent our time in Bangkok wandering the city and seeing what it had to offer. We saw some cool temples and Thai architecture, ate tons of street food, explored China town, and got lost in mazes of markets. Overall I liked the place, and the food was great.

Bad news, let those little sharkies live

Koh Phangan and Koh Tao

From Bangkok we took a night bus down to Phuket and hung out for a couple days before heading to the islands off Thailand's east coast with Jess to meet up with some friends. Our first stop was Koh Phangan for the massive full moon party that they have every month on the island.  The full moon party was pretty much what you would expect: a massive drunken haze of buckets, bars, electronic music, and thousands of people. It was a strange place to be after 3 months in India but we still managed to have a pretty good time. After a full day of recovering from the full moon party we rented scooters and explored some of the beautiful beaches the island has to offer and did a little snorkeling.

Our only picture of Koh Phangan

After Koh Phangan we made our way to the neighbouring island Koh Tao by longtail (the ferry was full and we didn't book in advance). Koh Tao is famous for being one of the cheapest places in the world to get your PADI open water scuba certification. Within one hour of being on the island, Kiersten and I had organized to get certified through a four day course that cost us 9000 baht each ($300 cdn) and included accommodation. Not a bad deal at all. Koh Tao turned out to be a great place to learn and our course was great. The visibility was good there tons to fish and things to see. We saw sea-turtles, a thousand varieties of colourful fish, eels, squid etc etc. Unfortunately the course got us hooked on diving and now all we want to do is more. Jess did her advanced course and tried to see some whale sharks but they proved elusive.

Longtail driver to Koh Tao

Our only picture of Koh Tao

Railay

Finally, after successfully completing our scuba certifications we boarded a ferry-bus-minibus-ferry and travelled across the length of Thailand to west coast to Railay, a place we would end up staying for nearly two months.  Most people know Railay for it's massive limestone cliffs and hundreds of bolted rock climbing routes. Jess's mom had been nice enough to take our rock climbing gear from Victoria to Phuket with her when she went to visit Jess for Christmas. We just picked it up a Jess's place when we arrived in Phuket so we had all the gear we would need. However, carrying around a 60m rope in your backpack sucks, so we decided to stay in Railay for a significant amount of time to make it worthwhile. And boy was it ever worthwhile.

Looking out over Railay West with the Thaiwand wall in the background

Our only picture of the crew who left us too soon

We went Deep-water soloing for a day. It was surprisingly scary.

weeeeeeeeeeeeee

We went to this little area where they filmed a scene from "The Beach"

Sunset from Poda Island

One of our favourite meals: duck noodle soup

We spent the majority of our time in Railay staying at an awesome collection of bungalows called "Railay Cabana," set in the middle of the Jungle between Railay East and Tonsai. Our bungalow was the last one on the top of a hill. We had no neighbours, just jungle on either side of us. The price was right and bungalow had everything we needed, but the real reason we liked the Cabana was that the people who own and run it were some of the nicest people we've met.  Nung, the guy who ran the little bar at our place, became good friends with us and even took us into Krabi to a cock fight that he had a rooster competing in. It was a pretty intense experience and I'm not sure I would go to another one, but that being said we were both glad we went. I also one a few hundred baht gambling so that was good too.

Kiersten getting the climbing gear ready on our balcony

Wee bit of beach bouldering

Monkey like mango

Sung and his fighting cock

Railay Cabana

Kiersten in front of our little home

Railay

Sunset from Phanang beach

 

We happened to be in Railay for the Krabi Rock and Fire competition. For climbing there was a lead-climbing marathon and deep-water solo competition. We watched both. It was actually really entertaining because there were some really good climbers among the competitors.

Lead climbing marathon

Burly 7a+

8a I think

view from the Thaiwand wall

Halfway through our time in Railay we had to leave for Malaysia for a couple days to get a Visa. It was cool to see but we basically just got in and out. This pic is from Penang Malaysia

We ate Japanese food in Malaysia. It was good

The rockclimbing in Railay is amazing. It's like no other place I've been climbing. The stalactite formations make it look like the cliffs are melting into the sea, making for some interesting climbs. I like the way a Swiss guy that we met put it: "it's like climbing in 3-D." We spent our time ticking off all the best climbs that were within our level of skill, eating noodles, and swimming. After spending nearly two months climbing, there are still tons of climbs that we didn't have time (or ability) to do.  One of the highlights was a 4-pitch 5.10d called Humanality, located directly on the Tonsai beach wall. The crux involved a couple cool moves where you leave the wall, move onto a stalactite, climb a bit, then move back onto the wall. It was super exposed and fun. Railay is a place we will definitely be visiting again to climb. We basically just climbed and hung out and met a bunch of cool people. It was a hard life.

If you climb on this wall you have an audience.

Instead of street dogs there are street cats.

Really cool 6c climb on the Esher wall. It was kinda wet when we climbed it though

Hanging out in The Keep

Best climbers in Railay: The Dusky Langurs

Bag of rubber anyone

Kiersten and our friend Popang from Railay Cabana with fresh bananas

The cockfight stadium

First you match up the roosters and decide who will fight who

Nung making sure the cock is cool before the fight.

Fight!

Tamarind

Kiersten holding a 3-time champion fighting cock

Kiersten starting Humanality. This section didnt even count as a pitch

Kiersten starting Pitch 3

Smiling right before the crux

Rapelling to the bottom. We needed two ropes

The rope got a little mangled

Climbing up the easy but super fun "Groove Tube"

Kiersten rapelling down the Tube

When we finally forced ourselves to leave Railay, we took a short boat ride over the Koh Phi-Phi, the Island that was devastated by the tsunami in 2004. There we met Jess because it was apparently a long weekend (I haven't known what day of the week it is in over six months). Phi-Phi is a mega party zone, kind of like a miny Koh Phanang. So hence we spent one day partying, one day recovering/checking out maya bay/snorkeling, and one day diving. It was great to dive again and I think I am now pretty hooked. It's like being in space surrounded by colourful aliens. I love it.

From Phi Phi we made our way back to Phuket with Jess and hung out for few days before heading up to where we are now: Kanchanaburi. The night bus was ok this time but they wouldn't stop playing Thai pop in the bus. Finally I complained and they shut it off at 11:30pm but then started it again 5:00am. I almost smashed the speakers but I figured that I didn't want to get arrested in Thailand. Thai pop music is without a doubt some of the WORST music I have ever heard in my life, hands down, just sooooo bad. If you want to torture me just lock me a room with some Thai pop and I am guaranteed to lose my mind.