Rock Climbing in Paradise: Krabi, Thailand

I'm actually not hanging loose but belayed to a cliff.

Picture celebrating New Year's Eve on a Thai beach: a few revelers on a remote beach lighting lanterns and watching them fly into the dark night. That's what we wanted, so we went out to Krabi, one of the less touristy Thai islands. Like all the Thai islands, it's a gorgeous backdrop with white sand beaches and is a very doable boat ride to other islands for exploration. Plus, it's known for tremendous rock climbing for all skill levels, and we had some friends who highly recommended it. Plus, as another friend mentioned, when you're out there, they all kind of look the same, so it doesn't matter where you spend most of your time - it will still be breathtaking.

We spent 5.5 days in Krabi, including New Year's Eve, and hopped to other islands like Ko Phi Phi. Krabi is the capital of southern Thailand's Krabi province. Total resort town, just not as developed as Phuket and Ko Phi Phi. Here's the Krabi, pronounced "kruh-bee" not "crabby," breakdown:

West Railay Beach with long-tail boats ready for action. 

Railay Beach to the east. The difference between low tide and high tide is significant.

Sunset.

Near Railay Beach, there are really only two streets. Bird's eye view of some restaurants from a 2nd-story bar.

We did family style at every local Thai restaurant we ate at so that we could maximize our dishes. Fresh seafood off the grill. It was good, but looked better. Mangrove Restaurant was our favorite, Everything was cheap, but be prepared to wait. Thai island time is on another level of slow.

Can't sleep because of jet lag and wake up early, you get the beach to yourself. In the afternoon, this would be all under water. Notice how far from shore the long-tail boats are anchored.

In honor of the late king, no lanterns were allowed to be lit or flown on the island (assuming the country, as well), so we ended up at our hotel, the Sand Sea Resort's New Year celebration, which included an impressive all-you-can-eat feast of world cuisine. The show was pretty touristy, but that said - they had the most impressive fire dancers I've ever seen. One of the guys had to be no older than 13, but they were manipulating fire like that one lame X-Men character that can manipulate fire. Except these guys weren't lame.

Fire party

We hopped on stage for the party. There was a light steady rain that added to the island atmosphere. However, because of the rain and too many people jumping on stage, the stage started to sink into the beach and everyone was told to get off.

In an effort to find lanterns, we walked the island but there were none out of reverence for the late king. The 2017 NYE squad.

Switched to a less expensive hotel, the Avatar Railay, which depending on the time you choose to travel, is as low as $52/night. I'd recommend as a cheap hotel option.

The Avatar Railay still. It's less than a 5-minute walk from the main strip on Railay Beach.

Rock climbing is a must in Krabi. Climbers of all skill-sets can do this. You'll end up using muscles you never realized you had. There are several outfitters and we went with the appropriately-titled Krabi Rock Climbing. We went on an all-day tour that took us on 4 climbs, a hike and rappel, and lunch was included. If  4 climbs doesn't sound like its enough, don't worry - it's plenty. This climb was near Pranang Cave, which is famous for having a cave full of penises. I took some GoPro footage but then lost the camera, so y'all can Google it. It's a shrine to fertility. I digress.

Mindy around 60% up the cliff. This was the warm-up.

On the 2nd jump, I posted up on a ledge to shoot video of Mindy and Pete climbing. Love this shot of my bae.

Let's just say Pete was relieved to make it to the top!

This was a smaller cliff that was all about form. This route can crush your forearms quickly.

On my final climb, which was about 90-feet, I stopped to take a peak at a rainbow off in the distance. The guides estimated the climb was a 5.9, but I think he was just trying to make us feel better. It was more like a 5.7 with areas that are 5.8.

We ate dinner at Ao Naang on Krabi, which is a 15-minute ferry ride away from Railay Beach. This is like the Waikiki of Krabi - open markets, shops, cars (there are no cars on Railay), lady boys... you know, Real Thailand! Ate dinner at a hole in the wall. We ordered around 8 dishes on a 7-item menu.

This was the noodle soup with fish ball at 50bht, which is less than $1.50!

Look at all those fresh made noodles. At this same stand we ordered a banana Nutella rotee, aka Thai pancake. I've neglected to mention we ate about a zillion of these things things because they're about $1.15.

Oh and we also got some coconut ice cream. Someone was happy about that. By "someone," I mean "everyone."

'Til next time, Krabi.

Next: Ko Phi Phi and the surrounding islands

You're Not Cool Unless You Phi Phi in Your Plans

To The Phi Phi Islands.

Thailand is famous for their immaculate beaches and breathtaking islands and whatever island you end up staying on, you'd be remiss if you didn't explore the Phi Phi (pronounced "pee-pee") islands. There are a few options for exploration. If you have a group of 4 of more, I strongly urge you to rent a private boat for the day. You can join a popular large speed boat tour of four islands for 2000bht per person (around $58), or you can rent a private long-tailed boat like the one above for 2500bht total (around $73). Brains! 

The Four Island tour is a bit of a misnomer because one of the islands included on the tour is actually Krabi, where we were based. The 4 Islands include stops at: Pranang Cave, on the southern tip of Krabi, where we'd later kayak and paddleboard to; Tup Island; Chicken Island; and Poda Island.

This is on Chicken Island and during low tide there's an isthmus that connects this island to the ones behind us, which is Tup Island. We decided to pass on visiting Tup Island because it's extremely small and was already crowded with tourists. That said, we beat all those tourists to Chicken Island, so it was like having our own spot.

Complete with swing.

Walking along the isthmus during high tide. There are life guards near by that yell at tourists not to stray too far into the sea because the current is strong and can snatch you away quickly. If you look closely on the right, you can see buoys. On the other side of this island, there's some solid snorkeling.

The clear waters of Poda Island where we were ablt to chill for a moment. Soft white sand, warm ocean.

The clouds crept in and it was back to the long-tail.

The other side of Poda Island. My favorite spot out of all the Thai island beaches we visited. This was like a mini-Maya Bay from the movie "The Beach," which is just a little further down. It was completely secluded and no one else came out to this side. Our guide knew we wanted to go away from all the other tourists. Incredibly soft sand. Like walking on powder. Softer than Destin, FL. 

Using a rope to climb to another vantage point.

Which looked like this. The weather was still overcast, but when you're looking at a view like this, who gives a ___! This was our last stop on the tour and we got back to Krabi around 430p.

Couple days later, we rented a private speed boat to take us to Ko Phi Phi, snorkel gear included. The total was $12,000bht, which comes out to $350 (divided by 5 of us, for the entire day!). If you saw this speed boat, in the states that would easily go over $1000 per hour. I don't know that for fact, but it seemed that way. If you go to Ko Phi Phi from Krabi, you'll want a speed boat. The long-tail boats will only travel that distance if the conditions cooperate - and it's a long, choppy ride even in a speed boat, so I can't imagine doing it in a long-tail.

The famous Maya Bay. Leonardo DiCaprio's sanctuary in "The Beach." It is spectacularly beautiful, but overpacked with tourists. It's one of those spots that you feel obligated to visit to say you were there, but it's really not that enjoyable. I feel totally snobby to say that and am happy that we went, but we stayed for less than 30-minutes. The beach was absolutely packed, which this photo isn't actually indicative of. On the far right, you could hardly find a spot to lie on the beach. That said, the water was warm and green and the sand was wonderfully soft.

Still pretty damn gorgeous, though.

A festive long-tail.

After bailing on Maya Bay, we went to a lagoon area to swim. Reminded me of spring break at Lake Havasu but instead of houseboats anchored next to each other, it's long-tail and speed boats. The lagoon is deep here.

Our next stop was Monkey Beach, which actually features an incredible spot for snorkeling. You'll see a lot of the Willem Dafoe fish from 'Nemo,' some rainbow fish, puffer fishes. Interesting that most of my knowledge of sea life only comes from a Disney-Pixar movie. Also some impressive underwater rock and shell formations that make you feel like you're scuba diving when you're just snorkeling. GoPro had taken an unfortunate unrelated dive at this point, so no footage.

Dude was parched.

You could've shared with these little babies, at least!

This dude scared the hell out of me. He was legit ready to pounce and beat the shit out of me. So I obviously had to take a pic before getting my face ripped off.

Next stop: Ko Phi Phi Don. This island is the biggest of the Phi Phi Islands and there's a huge marketplace. We were came here for lunch and ended up haggling at a store and getting another GoPro for around $430 US, which is not a great deal, but when you're a video fiend and need a video-shooting apparatus, what else can you do?

Forgot the name of this restaurant, BHM or something. It was delicious as we raided the entire menu as usual - noodle soup, green curry, glass noodle, mango rice, etc.

Our last island, the name of which escapes me, had some rocks to climb around. It was overcast and drizzling so we didn't stick around for too long. The ride back was choppy as hell and left some feeling less than ideal.

If my "The Beach" memories are correct, this is the view Leo saw when he decided to swim for their secret beach (which would be Maya Bay, which is not what you're looking at). I haven't seen the movie in over a decade and didn't really care, so if that's not true, oh well. Fake news rules these days.

Squad

Next: Chiang Mai