Railay Day 2

Friday October 8th, 2004

I was up early, had an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (which carried me through until dinner), and headed over to Ton Sai to see if I could find Jessie or another climbing partner. I sat down at the Ton Sai Bungalows restaurant and within about 5 minutes an English guy named Colin sat down at the table next to mine and said hello. Colin had climbed a lot at Railay for a long time. He was living in Bangkok and flying down to Railay to climb at every opportunity. He already had a partner for the day but invited me along with them anyway. His climbing partner Shelly showed up a few minutes later. She’s from Michigan but currently living in Krabi, and doing lots of climbing at Railay. I met another acquaintance of his there too, “Cath”, which is short for Cathy I guess. She stays at Ton Sai for 3 months at a time, then goes back to Glasgow where she works helping elderly people in their homes. She’ll work for 6 months to save up money, then stay at Ton Sai for 3 months to spend it. She had a really thick Scottish accent, and I had a hell of a time trying to understand what she was saying. I caught maybe a quarter of it.

After an unsuccessful look around for Jessie, I headed out with Colin and Shelly to climb at Ton Sai Beach. We got a couple of good climbs in at Tyrolean Wall, off the Ton Sai beach a little ways towards Railay. I did a 6b+ (10c/d) and a 7a (11b/c) and they were both great climbs. I don’t remember either climb’s name, and one of them wasn’t in the guide book.

Shelly belaying Colin.

An ants nest that Colin backed into. These are some vicious ants judging from how Colin was hopping around yelling.

Shelly climbing.

Ryan climbing.

Then it started to dump rain, and I was leaving that afternoon anyway, so I bailed and headed back to Railay. The path up through the jungle way interesting; it was steep, mostly red clay, and had some fixed ropes along it. It started raining harder and harder and the trail became a small stream. I took off my shirt to keep it dry, but by the time I was half-way back my only shorts were totally soaked. Unfortunately my new REI backpack’s top compartment is evidently not waterproof, so all the stuff I put up there to keep dry got wet, including my camera and wallet. When I dumped that compartment out a pint or so of water dumped out with all my things. So I guess the upper compartment shell leakes like a sieve, but conveniently once the water gets in there, it’s held in by the lower shell which is completely waterproof. Sweet.

Once I’d dried out, I had to check out, and I had nothing better to do, so I went to the airport early. At the airport I changed out of my swimsuit and Tevas, leaving a big puddle and a bunch of sand on the airport bathroom floor. Then I checked in for my flight. Conveniently, it turned out I was early enough to catch an earlier flight (2:30 instead of 6:30) to Bangkok, which was great.

View of the countryside around Krabi from the airplane.

The flight was fast, about an hour. At the Bangkok airport a concierge-looking woman stopped me as I was walking out of the terminal and asked where I was staying. I didn’t know, so I let her direct me to a desk where a guy started flipping through a book showing me hotel rooms. I decided the odds of getting a decent price there were low, so I left him scowling and went out and caught a taxi. I asked to go to a particular hotel I’d seen in the guy’s book, but the driver wanted to take me to a different one (for a kickback, I assume). When I found out that was a 30 minute drive away I said no, go to a close one. So he took me to the Don Muang Mansion 5 minutes from the airport. That turned out to be okay, but with a funny feel to it. The hallway outside my room was a strange combination of dimly lit and sterile feeling, like hospitals always look in horror movies.

The bellhop that took my bags up looked expectantly at me after he’d dropped my bag, so I have him a 10 B coin. He looked at it sitting in his open hand like it was quite a curiosity for an awkward 5 or 10 seconds, so I have him a couple more and he seemed satisfied. Then he started asking me something while rubbing his arm. I couldn’t understand what he was saying for a few times, and finally I guessed “Oh, Thai Boxing?” and he said “No! Thai Massage!” Oh, so that’s what the arm rubbing meant. I said no thanks.

I skipped the hotel restaurant and instead went walking a block or two to a larger road with lots of shops on it.

A street by the Don Muang Mansion in Bangkok.

A couple blocks up that road I found a nice little open-air restaurant. Evidently that area was not a heavy tourist area, I got a lot of smiles and looks and giggles from the teenage girls working there. I had “Fire Kharaj Noodles”, which I’m pretty sure was supposed to say “Fried Kharaj Noodles”. It was great. The waitress asked where I was from and exclaimed “Wow!” when I told her America. Definitely not a touristy area. There was a brochure advertising grape juice, with a big “100%” with an arrow pointing toward some grape jelly on toast, seeming to indicate that the grape juice is made from 100% grape jelly. Hmm.