Ton Sai

See after a week and a half on another planet I'm almost update. I don't think I'm doing to badly, not when you consider Bill Clinton sent a grand total of two emails in his two terms in office.

So it's time to blog Ton Sai . I rocked up to Ton Sai not really knowing where to go on Railay but having an idea that there was some good sea kayaking in the area. The lonely planet suggested that the climbers beach, Ton Sai, had the cheapest digs so after getting dropped off on the other beach I hitched a ride on a long tail and walked up into the jungle to bed down in the cheapest room of the trip.

Railay has an international reputation with climbers owing to the steep, cragged limestone cliffs that enclose it. Ton Sai in particular is enclosed on three sides by cliffs, the ocean blocks the other one. That means that everybody there, bar me, seemed to be a climber. There were a handful of dive instructor's waiting for the high season to start and one lonely sea kayaker.

But after I while I got into the vibe of the place and got used to barrom conversations that went a little like this:

"So man do you climb? We had a super awesome day out there on Fire Wall. The cliffs are super juggy. I can't wait to try out my new skills when I get home."
"No I'm here to do a little sea kayaking and chill out a bit."
"Oh."
Cue adjacent bar stool suddenly becoming empty.

But seriously it was a cool, super chilled out place with some really mellow reggae bars ands some cool people. There were no roads on the island and no electricty while the sun was out which made it a little hard to buy ice cream. It's one place I'd like to go again and it is interesting to watch all these climbers, this whole other sub-culture, worshipping at their mecca.

As for the sea kayaking part of it there was an English bloke named John who rented out proper expedition kayaks so on my third day I booked on out for the whole day and headed around it to the next bay cruising through rock formations and generally scoping shit out. Then I cruised out into the open water to tackle the five k's to the island Ko Poda which had a stunning beach. Unfortunately it was chockers with day trippers in long boats. So I hung out for a while, rested and then cruised through the rest of the islands in the group. Their was a gorgeous sandbar... with sixty-seven long tail boats anchored on it and another couple of remoter islands. Then finally at about three it was time to paddle the unforgiving, exhausting five k's back to the beach.

I did a half day climbing cause that I booked through a girl named Louise who is an All Hallow's Old Girl. Small world huh? The climbing was fun though my skills weren't anything Napoleon Dynamite would boast about. But through persistence,a school year worth of chalk and a lot of resting I final got to the top of my second climb. Then our guides took us for a little caving, with one headlamp between the four of us and then we had a twenty metre abseil down the otherside to finish the day.

So that's Railay in a nutshell. A stunning, chilled place where you can be as active as you want during the day, watch the sunset from the beach with a frosty Singha and then spend the night chilling in a ramshankle, non descript reggae bar.