a place out of time

Friday noon marked the beginning of a long weekend, and in Thailand a lot can happen in 4 and a half days! Maggie and I chose Ton Sai beach as our destination and decided to leave straight after work so we could explore a little Friday night in Krabi, grab a hostel or accommodation and take a boat Saturday around to Ton Sai. From the bus station we were able to grab a deal including transportation, a hotel room for the night & elephant trekking in the morning for a total of 1000 baht (about $33.00). And the truck-tuk-tuk stopped the moment I saw a wall with a big piece up on it and dropped us at Krabi Guest House & Tour! 

Our room with taxi was only 200 baht total, and we were shocked it looked just like the pictures! On the 4^th floor with a balcony, double bed, fan, toilet paper, water bottles, AND hot showers! We headed straight to the huge night market we had seen driving in, and found ourselves in a beautiful and somewhat reminiscent thai market. Krabi had a lot more artists, musicians, and craftsmen than I have seen at any of the markets so far though! Still lots of food and clothing merchants too!

In the morning we were up early and ready for Nosey Parker's Elephant Trekking and River Camp! After breakfast at the hotel, only the most delicious pancake I've ever had topped with fruit and caramel, and a 30 min ride in a minibus we were stepping out into an amazing forest sanctuary housing 8 elephants, from 18 to 79 years old! We rode our elephant across a river, through the forest, down muddy hills, between rubber trees and back through the river! It was such a beautiful setting, and we got the feeling that our giant friends were happy there by the water and the mountains!!

From the river we went straight to Ao Nang pier to catch a long-tail boat to Ton Sai! This was my first time to the West coast and my first time to the Andaman Sea! 

After about 15 min on the boat we were approaching land, a small bank of sand known as Ton Sai beach. The cove is surrounded by large dripping rocks and jagged caves. Home to only a handful of Thais, maybe 15 bars (it was low season so only 4 of them were open!) and at least 100 or so bungalows ranging from thatched huts to walled structures, and one really nice resort-style place with a beautiful swimming pool. Ton Sai is world famous for its rock-climbing and truthfully I've never seen walls anything like this!! They also have deep water solos where you free climb a huge rock and then jump off into the sea!

We dropped our stuff into a bungalow and took the short, steep path one cove over to Railay beach, its a lot more touristy there, more resorts, restaurants, beginner climbing courses, and boat/diving tours. Maggie quickly bargained her way into a 45 min foot massage on the beach for 100 baht ($3) and vacation was in full effect. We spent the rest of the day lounging in the sun and collecting sea shells. AND I saw a monkey that was wild & not chained to a tree or to anything else!!! (throughout the weekend I ended up seeing tons of different kinds of them too!!) 

On our hike back the most beautiful cat found us in the cliffs and walked with us back to the beach! My favorite thing about this place was all the cats everywhere!! And they were all super healthy and pretty!!

Sunday we decided to be adventurous and try canoeing in the sea! I think they were calling it a kayak, but it didn't have the seats that hold you in, so in my book its still just a canoe. By 11 am it was still slightly overcast so we figured it would be a good day to be out on the water, but by the time we reached the nearby rocks off of Railay the wind started picking up along with the waves! We decided not to fight the weather and headed to shore for a break. We had the canoe for 5 hours so we had time, but after sitting on the beach over an hour the weather had not improved and waves were still high. Another hour passed, and we decided that we were going to have to give it a go and try to make a run for it! It was only around the point, but we immediately knew we weren't going to have a chance against these waves when the first one completely flipped us over! After discussing our options we decided we better go talk to a boat man. On the other end of the beach were at least 15 long-tail boats, and we convinced one of them to take us and our canoe back to Ton Sai! But surprisingly when the boat took us around the point there was no water! It was low tide and even if we had canoed around, we would have been stuck dragging our canoe through rock and mud!! Instead our boat man unloaded the canoe and took it all the way up to the sand for us! We needed a few laughs after that one, so we spent at least a good hour swinging on the tree swings and the rest of the evening bumming around Sunrise Bar.

By Monday it seemed as if time had already ceased to exist after entering a vortex portal into this place. Spent the whole day enjoying fruit shakes, beers, pancakes, tokes & playing games with the locals! The Thai guys were hilarious and were happy to show us their local version of Jenga, plus some fun mind puzzle games, cubes, and inventions! The whole place feels like it was made out of found objects from the sea.

Life here is simple. The more I am around Thais I feel like I am just slowly understanding them, they seem to be big jokers.. everything is funny! And they also seem to be very creative and musical!! It was nice to be in a place like this when it was low season and during the day the Thais might easily outnumber the tourists! It was cool just to see how they relax, and how they fish, how they eat together, how the kids interact with the adults, and I just love listening to them speak! They also seem to be eager to help teach me Thai as well, I need to keep a phrase book with me that I can write down things as I learn them because I have such a bad memory!!!  

..and just as quickly as I came, it was time to catch a boat and a bus back home to Suratthani where there was a hot shower and clean clothes waiting for me...