Krabi is not an island but a town located on Thailand's mainland. Its famous beaches are Raily, Ao Nang and Ton Sai. Raily and Ton Sai are accessible only by boat, because they are surrounded by huge limestone karsts. Raily is a resorts' beach, with high priced accommodations. So obviously I went for Ton Sai.
Ton Sai is quite undeveloped, compared to Raily. It's all dirt roads and most of the accommodations are inside the jungle, a lovely setting, which comes with loads of mosquitoes at night and an active group of monkeys, stealing bananas from kitchens. I was told that Ton Sai is a hippie's favorite location, but I guess fashion changes. The dreadlocks and hoola hoops have been replaced with climbing ropes and quick draws. I barely managed to see one hippie, but all the walls around were loaded with climbers. It is a lonely place to be if you're not a climber.
Therefore to start my climbing session, I took an islands tour. Nothing like another day of swimming and sightseeing. This time the tour was on a long tail boat, luckily not the tiny kind. On the tour I met Melanie with whom I spent most of the day, and a couple from Canada and Sweden. Melanie is actually working for Teva Naot, an Israeli company, in Germany. Meeting people is one of the reasons I take the tours. The tour visited several islands, Tup island being the highlight, whereas chicken island was, well, just an island with a piece of rock resembling a chicken's head. Hmmm...
On the next day I took a half day climbing session. I went with a guy named Dee and he led the climbs for me so I could climb top rope. I had enough of leading in the meantime from my Laos climbing experience. I also asked him for easy climbs so I only went on 5 grades. The wall I climbed on is called “One Two Three” wall. Guess why... It was crowded with beginners, meaning you either had someone climbing right below you or descending above you. This time it suited my level and I had quite a good time, trying more things, and even slipping once. The slip wasn't that great though, as I slipped on my right knee, not a favorable knee to hit these days.
Dee, my climbing partner for the half day, owns and operates his own climbing shop. He opened it two months ago and he has been climbing for about three years. Later on I went back to his shop to rent climbing shoes, in order to help him a bit, instead to the already big climbing schools around. He also knew Adam, another climber who runs his own climbing shop in Vang Vieng, Laos. Of course, I met the guy. Small world...
The next day, surprise! (An e-mail coordinated surprise) I met Shannon and Zack again. They arrived to Ton Sai with a single purpose: to climb! Supriza! (Ok, I'm stopping now). They've been carrying their climbing equipment all around Asia and Krabi is the big opportunity to use it. Next day I went with them climbing. They needed a warm up after a long period without climbing so they mostly took leading 5 grades. Therefore I could climb top rope right after them, with a lot of positive encouragement from below. They urged me into climbing a 6a I felt too tired to even start, but I managed to finish it (though I cheated a bit, by grabbing onto gear instead of rock in a tricky part).
My original plan was to move on, but after the last fun day with Shannon and Zack it was hard making up my mind. I really wanted to sea the East side of Thailand's islands, but it would mean traveling without any company again, not to mention my destination was Phangan island, one day before the famous full moon party, a tough day of travel ahead. A rat or some other rodent woke up at 5am, crunching the wall, as a sign to leave (the crappy bungalow and take another?)
And so I made up my mind to move on to Phangan. But that's a whole different story.
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