A Rocky Start

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Railay Beach, so I'm told, is one of the top 5 climbing locations in the world, I booked on to a three day intensive course, it was spread over four days with a rest day after the first two consecutive days of climbing.

After showing me how to tie a safe knot my instructor sent me straight up a 30 meter climb, apparently at this stage knowing how to tie a knot was all the instruction that I needed!

The first days climbing had been 'Top Rope' climbing which is basically pretty safe providing you have a good bellayer ( that's the person holding the other end of the rope who needs to support you if you should fall) the guy belaying me was an Australian lad who had never climbed before either and had just started the course same as me but fortunately I didn't fall so I didn't need to find out how much attention he had payed to the instructor before he was allowed to hold my life in his hands.

Later that day I absailed out of a cave about 170 meters up the view was fantastic but it started to rain just as I began and when it rains out here it really rains, it was all good though made the whole experience more fun.

By day two I was lead climbing this is where I am the first person to climb up and attach the top rope for other people to follow, this is a much more nerve racking experience, you find yourself half way up a cliff face, you cant quite figure out where to go next and as the panic sets in you hands start to sweat which then makes it harder to hold on so as your grip starts to slip you desperately look to secure yourself somewhere and reach for your chalk bag to dry your hands, its a right rush, you feel like you just cant do it but you have no choice you have to, it quite literally is do or die. Its an awesome sense of achievement (and relief) when you finally get to the top.

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Photos

This was my first climb
That's not actually me climbing it though, I have got picures of me climbing here but there on a disk that I sent home.

Another route on the same rock
This area has lots of different routes I did most of them on this one rock face over the three days but there are over 700 routes in the area.

A Long Boat
That's not my opinoion, that's what they're called. A common site in Krabi and my daily transport on my commute to the Railay Beach.