So…..after a great time in Chiang Mai, we were off down south. We headed to Railay in the Krabi Province aka the climbers mecca. It has the most climbing routes of any place in the world. It has huge karsts (limestone towers that rise up out of the ground) everywhere you look and most of them have people hanging off them. We were staying at this beautiful hotel which was about a million stairs up hill but well worth it. Our bungalow was really just one giant room with a bathroom off the side and a huge balcony in the front. No one could see in but we had a beautiful view out over the beach and forest. The great part about Railay is that you can’t get there unless by boat so you get to feel pretty isolated. There are 3 main beaches that you can walk to although some you can only get to at low tide. The climbs are spread out throughout the whole area and the best guide to finding them is a guidebook from Wee who owns a climbing school there. The directions to each route are ………interesting. Most say things like ‘go to the end of the beach and lift up the branch that sticks out. Behind that there is a path leading to a log. Cross that and walk about 10 minutes until you see a white rock. Turn there and when you see a wall on the right with a tree in the middle, the climb is on the left’. Easy, eh?

Our days began to get quite a routine – wake up, eat breakfast, head out climbing. Maybe a rest or nap on the beach in the afternoon and then more climbing in the evening. Dinner somewhere out and then back to our balcony to drink beer, lay in the hammock and play cards. I could definitely get used to it. I absolutely loved climbing there. Most routes were pretty empty and even in the heat of the day, most were still in the shade. We were there in the low season so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. There were beautiful sunsets each night and even though the mosquitoes were as big as birds and extremely lethal, I enjoyed sitting out each evening (properly surrounded by mosquito coils). One day we decided to hire a boat to go to a little island nearby that apparently had a lot of good climbs. We got there and hiked for about two hours looking for these climbs. We walked completely around the island and even went through the center! After facing off with the awful mosquitoes, biting ants, monitor lizards (which were huge!) and monkeys, I quit! I’d had enough! I headed back to the beach to swim but I had to change into my bikini first. So I found a large rock and decided to use that as my cover. It worked well until I had my top on, bottoms off and a large monkey jumped on the rock and started baring it’s teeth at me. I had to run into the ocean pulling up my bottoms as fast as I could. Of course it was hilarious once I was safely far away from it!

After a great week of climbing we headed east to an island off the other coast Ko Samui. This is where our friends from SIS Abigail and Jesse were getting married. We weren’t able to stay for the actual wedding day (lobster season you know) but we were there for 5 days leading up to it and got to enjoy some nice chats and dinners with the bride and groom to be.  The first thing I was excited about on the island was hiring my own motorbike. It’s a relatively small island and the roads are never very big. It was great to zip around on one. Especially as we were staying quite a ways down the beach from where the rest of the wedding party were staying (their resort was beautiful just a little out of our price range). One day we found a climbing wall and got some amazing climbs in – the best I did all summer! Then on Marshall’s birthday we headed to a restaurant on the top of the hill in the center of the island. You could see water all round, it was stunning. On the way there and back, we saw elephants roaming! Unfortunately, Marshall was really sick that day and had to spend most of it in bed. Luckily, or unluckily, it lasted only one day – his birthday!

After all this beach time, I still wasn’t done with sun and sand – we were off to the Florida Keys!