Railey Beach

Upon arrival at this magical beach with sheer cliffs dropping into the blue lagoons far below Jo and I saw Steve-o with his ever popular mesh bball jersey and a book running up to the boat to help us offload. I thought this quite odd since it was only 9am but hey what are brothers for? He took us up to the seaview of viewpoint or some such bungalows in which he and John were staying and showed us the luxury of the rooms. One fan, one non-flush toilet, one hard pillow, and one shower with little to no water pressure. In case you dint know these are the kinds of things to look for when travelling. It really wasn't too bad so after a walk around to the west Railey and to Tranong beach (where the hard core climbers stay w/ no electricity it seems) we decided to stay at the same place. It had a pool for gosh sake!

Went and got some brekky at mom's the eatery that would take most of our business on the stay for the cheap and good eats and boy was it. Checked out the beach for awhile, Pranrong was the nice one with the views of the cliff islands dropping into the sea and caves and all that jazz. On the walk over there was a herd of monkeys that people started feeding so they started going mad and becuase of my fear, rather dislike, of monkeys i stayed a safe distance. In Ecuador a few years back i had a run in where a monkey stole my camera and was showing its teeth and wouldn't give the bag back. He was a real bastard so that is now how i feel about all monkeys.

Jo got her feet scrubbed and we chilled and napped and what not. That night was a sweet fire show being advertised so after a well negotiated dinner of fresh snapper at 35 baht per 100g (we actually didn't get them to change their price at all after 10 minutes of haggling) we headed down. At first there was the usual fire twirling with staff and poi but then came the fun with a muay thai fight (that we could see) and the cobra show. Woo scary. The Thai boxers were goofy little dudes who got drenched in water between each round and then hopped around. The water intensified the hitting sounds but there were a few knock downs. The guy in the red shorts had an interesting style keeping his pants pulled up with his thumbs and looking off into the distance (John says at him since he was sitting VIP) waiting for his moment to strike. I think he won but couldn't be sure because no blood was shed and no knockouts made. Afterward were the snakes and it was amazing what this guy could do with the things. He would stick his face in the snakes face and move it to and fro trying to intimidate the poor guy. To end the show he kissed the top of the its head to pin it to the ground before picking it up. Even more impressive was a boy of about 12 who had 3 snakes going at once and although they tried to escape and his partner had to save him once he was amazing to keep them all riled up and striking. He pinned one with his mouth and one with each hand to end his show.

Next night we found a pretty sweet little beach bar that we jumped in because the rain came out of nowhere. It was a downpour so we got stuck in this quarter moon bar with some Germans and a magic Thai. Yes, after playing a few games of connect four of which we were about 50% winners against him (yes, of course i won) he pulled out the magic show. He put coins through his arms hooked rings together and all sorts of crazy stuff. Loved it.

Went climbing with Nu since that's what people do in Railey. None of us had ever climbed before so we figured since we were all usually pretty good at stuff we were probably advanced beginners. Well after the intro climb in the rain we went ahead and did a 30m climb with a nearly sheer face for the last 7-8m. It was crazy but the view up there was worth it. Falling off didn't really seem to matter but i didn't actually until the last climb (cobra) where i kept falling even after thoroughly chalking myself. The crazy monkey was our fav and we got some good moves on there. This is the climb that John perfected his butt up maneuver that no other climber there had ever seen. It seemed to work for him so he did it on the next climb as well. Quite an intense and tiring day with the 4 climbs for 4 of us and rain and all that. Needless to say we were all quite sore the next day when we caught the ferry to Koh Phi Phi where 'The Beach' with Leo was filmed and the place in Thailand that was most devastated by the tsunami.