Islands and beaches

I've spent more than my fair share of time in this wonderful country, but in all my time here I have never seen rain like I did these last few days. It's been unbelievable. Constant, hard, pelting, torrential floods of the stuff. Interspersed with long periods of Irish style drissle. Unbelievable.
So I've high tailed it to the Andeman coast (the other side of Thailand)to Krabi in the hope of a reprieve, and my plan's worked pretty well so far.


I'm in Railay beach, a few k from Krabi town, and the main draw for rock climbers in this area. I just spent a great half day on the limestone cliffs here and I'm pleasantly shattered after it. The climbing was a bit tough as many of the hand holds were too smooth from overuse, but I only fell on one climb so not a bad days work. It seems like a pretty nice spot too, most of the people around seem to be decent.


My last night on hat rin saw me dropping my bike in another torrential downpower (front wheel caught in a rut I didnt see under the 6 inches of water) and I landed on my camera, and in the road-river. Of course the camera was dead, but lo and behold if it didnt rise lazarus like after a few days rest. Yippee.
From there I moved on my (relatively) trusty sonic up the coast via some pretty rutted dirt trackes to the toungue twisting beach at Ao Tong Nai Pan Yai. It was really nice, quiet and laidback. Maybe too quiet. I also made an expedition to Bottle Beach, proclaimed as the second busiest beach but only 3 souls were brave enough to stay there. The road there was totally crazy, I ended up in five dead ends before finially making it there, the last couple of k by foot, as I didnt want a repeat of hat rin spillages.


After a few peaceful, wet days I headed towards Ko Samui and Lamai beach, one of my favourite spots 12 years ago, but now unfortunately developed beyond belief. Most of the time there I took the "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude and watched the football and Rugby World cup while drinking pints and talking to other Irish people sheltering from the rain. It's like I never left home. Oh, apart from all the ladyboys. So it was kinda nice to spend a bit of time in Krabi, still a real Thai town with friendly people and nice night markets with all kinds of cheap delicious offerings.