Long Tail Boats, Approaches, and Rocks

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And we're off, on a van to a pier to a boat for a 45 minute boat ride to Railay. Sea Sick meds? check! We ended up sitting at the front of the boat staring at the amazing view all around. We stopped a few places on the way and arrived at Au Nang. From there we took a local's long tail boat to Railay West beach. We got there and it was paradise. Huge rocks protruding from the water, hardly any tourists, no cars or mopeds, no one selling you anything..ah paradise. We basically got off the boat and wandered down a path till it looked like it ended at a rasta run bungalow that no one was working at. We finally flagged someone down and stayed in a jungle bungalow for the night for 200 Baht. After booking it we decided to check out Ton Sai beach. We hiked up and down the forest till we finally came across civilization, and Wee's rock climbing school. A woman there told us to come down to the beach for sunset, so we followed. Oh man, amazing. To our left a huge rock with people climbing at sunset, us facing huge rocks coming out of the water, the sun setting behind them while sitting on comfortable mats, the wind blowing through our hair with cool people, sweet! We talked about signing up for a lesson and decided to do a 4 day course and deep water soloing with Wee's Climbing school. (DWS is basically climbing as high as you can climb on a rock and then falling into the water below) So the higher you climb the farther you fall I guess, can't wait! After lounging around after sunset and dinner we had to go back to our bungalow on the other side of the island, we were told to take the ocean route, so we did not knowing where we were really going at night no less.. When the tide is low it's a relatively quick path to Railay West beach. We survived and the next morning switched to bungalows right next to the rock climbing school. Day 1 rock-climbing lessons begin! So, we suited up and started walking, and kept walking and walking..turns out or approach to the wall was about a 45min walk..phew! The first wall we climbed was the 1,2,3 wall. We started out pretty basic, just climbing various routes the first day, getting back into it while many other guides around were shouting "left foot higher" "more higher" all around, was quite a bit nerve racking but I got used to it after a while. We ended our day by climbing through Princess Cave and Belaying out the other side, fun and a pretty view! The next day were expecting to go DWS but there weren't enough people so instead started with theory on how to lead and tie various knots. So many steps how will we ever remember? Turns out it's one of those things you have to commit to memory or..you die. So matter of importance, we did it over and over on the ground and then the next half of the day it was time to try it for real, eek! We went to another wall this time called Diamond cave. This was my first time lead roping, which if you aren't familiar is very different than top roping. Top roping you are harnessed in and if you get tired you can always ask for tension and rest or if you fall it's not such a big deal you are for the most part safe. Leading..you are basically clipping in as you go, so if you fall you fall as far as the last place you clipped in, scary. What once seemed like a piece of cake was immediately terrifying. I had never though of falling before, Up until then I felt safe. Inching my way up the wall clipping in shaking my head 'No' the whole way up, I wanted to bail so many times but thing is...you can't really. You just gotta suck it up and keep going, or you get tired and lose energy. Talk about no choice but conquering fear. Finally I made it to the top, phew, only half of the hard part was over, next was remember the knots to tie to the final ring to set up the top rope and safely get myself down. I did this very slowly making sure I didn't unclip the safety sling too soon or undo the wrong knot and when I finally let go of the safety sling after asking for tension and sitting down to find I was safe a big sigh of relief came over me, phew I did it right! I couldn't wait to get down, I was so filled with fear, thinking I'd never do it again cause it was so scary. Brad was really supportive and did a great job as well on all the tasks and climbs, it was great to have him to climb with. Our guide was also amazing, keeping in tune with our needs, weakness and strengths.
We did leading a few more times on harder routes and learned how to belay from mid route incase we got stuck and couldn't continue. We also learned different knots for bolts vs. rings since US does their routes a bit different. After climbing was through, we wandered down to the end of the Ton Sai beach to discover a cool Reggae bar with Fire Poi and Staff dancing. Being daring I decided to try Pio on fire...very cautiously I might add having only brief experience from a friend Micha who does amazing things with fire. Pio is very popular in Thailand, there are many locals that are very good at it. So we spent the night hanging out and fire dancing not expecting to DWS in the morning. Next morning wake up! Knock Knock " You guys still wanna go DWS" uh..YES! We got on a long-tail boat with a few guys from Germany and one guy from Florida and headed out to a rock next to Chicken Island (looks like a chicken) We got there and a few people went before us, got really high and when it came time for him to jump it was exhilarating to watch him jump. The guide shouted out "just follow the chalk" "keep going up". My turn, I got on the kayak and approached the wall, right before I started the guide asked me "are you sure?" yes! Starting was very sharp, and seeing the water out of the corner of my eye definitely made it hard to keep climbing. These routes were quite a bit harder than what we were used to, and being that I lack a bit of upper body strength I didn't quite get as high as the guys but high enough for my comfort, time to jump...AHHHHHHHH!! man what fun! Then swimming back to the boat I realised I was being lightly stung by Jelly fish ahh! We did a few more routes, one time Brad went up and climbed a stalactite, once he jumped and hit the water he realized CRAP MY CAMERA! The awesome shockproof, waterproof camera has been lost to the ocean, NOOO!! Brad immediately strapped on his mask and snorkel trying to dive and find his camera. No luck 😞 we had to go and eat lunch. We left sad and headed to Chicken Island. We ate a great meal and stuck around the island for a bit Kayaking and Pouting about the camera. After that we headed back to the same spot and saw a divers in the area, asking if the found a camera they said no, shortly after that the dive boat got our attention, they were holding up..what is that..the camera...no way! Our guide kayaked over and gave us the camera, could it possibly still work? We turned it on and YES! It worked oh my god! What an amazing recovery. Not bad for a "Tough" camera. Deep water soloing was a total success. The boat ride to and from the DWS stop was on a long tail boat with crashing waves that we had to battle on the way back. It felt like being on a roller-coaster. The fun parts of a roller-coaster anyway. When we got back to shore we relaxed and had a drink with our deep water buddies. The next day was our last day for rock climbing. We spent time leading, top roping, and belaying. Having a day off in between we could really feel a difference in our strength and ability to climb. The routes were eaiser and leading didnt feel quite as scary, until the last route that our instructor had us do. The holds were very difficult to grasp, sometimes there would be a good undercling or two, and then the hard spot. You sort of had to shimmy your way up on leg on either side of this little area all the way up, and then with one of you hands reatch and hope a hold would be there, finally after a bit of effort I made it to the top. The ended our rock climbing lesson and we were given a free chalk bag a certificate for awesome rock climbing skills and took a picture with our instructor. Next Stop Full Moon Party!

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