Day XXI - XXII: Railay Rocks!

We bid a fond farewell to our hosts at K Guest House and set off for the pier after another hearty morning feast. The backpacks were like giant targets on our backs, and after three days of peace we were set upon once again by the local touts. A very pushy man in rather shady shades wanted to play hardball and ignored our attempts to brush him aside, going as far as walking us all the way down to the tourism/ticket office which really aggravated Charlie & I. We were only mildly embarrassed to be told that he was actually the boat captain, and we begrudgingly made our way to his dock wishing our money could go to someone with slightly better people skills!

After the standard Thai wait for the boat to fill up we sped down river to cross the sea over to Railay Beach. We had already seen much of the karst limestone landscape on the previous day's ride, but seeing it from the sea was twice as impressive. Huge cliffs and forests framed the Railay beaches and as we approached the rock climber inside me became very excited indeed! We paid the man his 150 baht fare and set about finding a bed. The list of hotels of the map didn't bode well for the budget, as almost every one ended with the word "resort". The nearest rooms to the boat started at 2800 baht (£62), a little more than our £20-a-day budget and a long way from the £5 we had been paying in Krabi town! After a fruitless walk along Railay West (the postcard beach, very pricey) we finally settled for the cheapest rooms available on the East side - 500 baht for a private bungalow with shared pool. Not bad, we thought, ignoring the warnings from the owner of the resort next door...

With half a day's budget blown we had a reasonably priced lunch and then headed up to the cliffs to check out the climbing scene, eager not to waste the afternoon wandering around. A half day beginner course was 800 baht, and Charlie signed himself up having never climbed before. Our attempts to convince Doug to have a go failed miserably and he instead volunteered to remain on the ground as photographer and cheerleader. There was no option for me to just climb (kind of tricky without a belay partner) so I bit the bullet and signed up too. I was very happy to discover that beyond the basics we were just there to climb, and having previous experience I was used as the demonstrator guinea pig for the lesson. Despite the heat the climbing was excellent and sufficiently challenging. Charlie struggled to find his technique at first and came close to hanging up his shoes in frustration but after being assured by the guide that these were beginner crags he carried on valiantly and did very well indeed. (As we were leaving I asked what grade the climbs had been and was told that they were all around a 6a/6b... Not exactly what we'd call beginner level back home!) I finished the 4 hour session with some leading to really wear myself out and then we walked down to the posh beach for a cool-down stroll in front of the sunset.

Doug had left us by this point, deciding he'd rather stay the night back on the mainland and not keen to join us for another day of climbing. So we sat down for a tasty dinner at Mom's Kitchen on Railay East, mainly to use the WiFi, and after a minor incident with Charlie showing his displeasure at the taste of his papaya lassi I made my excuses and went to bed. Walking past the closed pool after a day of physical exercise was too much temptation to resist, so I grabbed my swimshorts from the room and had a stealthy dip. Only once I returned did I realise that my bungalow had been double booked, and walking into the bathroom I was confronted by a GIANT cockroach. This thing was enormous, not quite Men In Black proportions but so fat that it didn't fit under a glass when I tried to evict it! I ran back into the room to grab the ashtray, the only other container large enough apart from the bin or a pillowcase, but when I returned it had disappeared. I searched everywhere, armed with the bidet hose, but there was no sign of it. Sleep was out of the question now, so I turned on the TV and watched Harry Potter on HBO. Over the next few hours I met giant ants, flying ants and inquisitive geckos. I have no idea how I slept for those three hours, especially on that excuse for a mattress, and to top it off I even woke up with bed bug bites.

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Wednesday looked set to be a good day, the sun was shining and more importantly I was out of that god-foresaken bungalow! Quite why I'd agreed to pay for two nights is still beyond me, but nevertheless we had great plans today: deep water soloing.

Breakfast is rarely included in the room price in Thailand it seems, so without any cash tying us to our hotel we went back along to Mom's for some morning WiFi. We're still not sure what happened or what we said, but things turned nasty. Firstly, the lady tried to charge Charlie 50 baht for plugging in his laptop which prompted one of his frustrated rants about profit over service in Thailand. After this had been settled we then watched as three couples arrived and were served breakfast before us, and when the WiFi lady announced that it was turned off to allow the router to cool down we promptly left. Neither party was particularly impressed. We ended up back at our hotel and it was our best decision yet: 150 baht (seems like everything is that price) bought an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast, including eggs, juice, cereal, tea and pancakes. We soon forgot about Mom's (for the time being).

Deep water soloing is essentially rock climbing over open water. You are taken to the rock face wearing nothing but swimshorts and climbing shoes and once you've hauled yourself onto the crag you climb as high or as wide as you can manage until you either fall off - or reach the top and jump off - into the sea. This was the reason I'd come to Krabi, and I'd booked us on a "sailing boat" for the day which would take us out to the cliffs for a few hours of climbing, snorkelling and a free lunch. At 1,000 baht it was expensive for Thailand but it was £20 I was eager to spend.

Alarm bells should have sounded when the man who took my money the previous day called himself Bang Bang, and when he didn't show up we thought nothing of it. There were four of us in total, Charlie, me and two Icelanders plus our driver, Mi (this got confusing). The rubber dinghy that was supposed to transport us from shore to boat broke down more times than I could count on my fingers, and Mi eventually accepted that Bang Bang hadn't left him enough fuel to make the 200m transfer and grabbed the paddle to make up the distance. We arrived at our "sailing boat" an hour later than the advised start time, and boarded a slightly shabby vessel that had probably not seen a sail on its mast since it arrived here. With a splutter Mi got the old engine started and we trundled off into the ocean.

It was a long journey, but well worth it for the views - please look up images of Railay to see what I'm on about, I'll add photos once my camera is back in service!

The climbing was fantastic, absolutely amazing. Without a dinghy to drop us at the foot of the sea cliffs we had to jump in and swim to the makeshift rope ladders and pull ourselves onto the rock. In most cases the ladder was the hardest part! I took the first fall, largely to boost my confidence, and it was a great feeling to be caught by the warm sea. Charlie was glad of his afternoon's intro to climbing, but we were both outstripped by the beefy Icelandic bloke who managed to reach dizzying heights without any visible effort. The jump was the most nerve wracking part, and our first was from about 30ft up. Peer pressure and a countdown in broken English from Mo were enough to make me take the leap, though I managed to wind myself in the process.

Lunch was a dodgy affair, and my request for a veggie meal had been politely ignored. Instead we were each presented with a lukewarm Styrofoam box containing a lump of chicken, fried onions and damp, sticky rice. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we were all too hungry to think too much about the food and I filled up on rice and onions once I'd donated my chicken to the Icelanders.

The water was too murky for snorkeling, and after Malaysia I wasn't too bothered so we "sailed" around to another climb. This one was a bit of a beast and started with a huge ladder. I swam over for a go after watching Mr Icelander give up, and managed to ascend the ladder and another 20ft of rock before the jumping distance began to make my legs wobble! Despite the shouted encouragement from the boat I climbed down a few feet to find a suitable platform and stepped off, leaving my stomach behind!

Our journey back must have taken 3 hours. In true Bang Bang style the boat's engine coughed itself to a standstill on more than 5 occasions, and each time we watched as Mi jumped beneath the deck with a spanner between his teeth to provide a temporary fix. He did well, and I was relieved when he called in another boat to take us back to land.

Exhausted, Charlie & I headed back to Mom's for some dinner and I decided to clear the air and apologised (not sure what for, but it seemed to work). There was no trace of spit in my soup or coconut shake and we went back for an early night with a clear conscience. When I opened the bathroom door to find that Mr Cockroach's missus had moved in with us I was too tired to care and went to lie with the bed bugs.