Thailand-Phi Phi–SCUBA Dives 1 & 2 (Day 27)

We’d had two good climbing days and it was time to finish off our SCUBA certification.  So it was off to Phi Phi Barracuda for some diving.  We really had no idea what we were in for just that Dov was our instructor and we were stoked to go hangout with him underwater.

An unexpected bonus was diving was also going to be our Phi Phi Ley tour which was good as Ram wasn’t into that.  We headed down south of Phi Phi Ley to Bida Nok.

Dov’s roommate Travis was also out on the boat with us.

Dov going through the equipment check with Anja on the boat.

Our first dive went well and we saw some cool wildlife.

Back on the boat it was lunch time and we swung around Phi Phi Ley to Maya Bay.

Hanging out in front of Maya Bay.  For the certification we had to swim around the boat twice and then tread water for 10 minutes.  Right after we finished treading water a woman who had also just done this tried to do a back flip off the roof of the boat (where the above picture was taken) and hit her head on the way down.  It was pretty freaky but someone was in the water with her in seconds and pulled her out quickly.  She had a pretty big cut across her forehead but seemed ok.  The boat almost bailed on diving for the day but instead since she didn’t seem critical we all geared up quick and jumped in the water.  The dive boat with her and our stuff on it headed to Phi Phi Don while Phi Phi Barracuda’s second boat was being set off from the pier to come get us when we surfaced in 30-60 minutes.

We saw some awesome stuff on this dive and started to feel really comfortable underwater.  Since on the boat Dov had been attending to the injured woman until about 1 minute before we jumped in the water for our dive he missed the memo we were only supposed to dive for 30 minutes.  We were last off the boat and stayed down for 54 minutes.  Opps…  Good times.

Thailand-Phi Phi Don-Climbing Hin Tak (Day 26)

We were debating between going to drinking water wall (30 minute walk) or trying to catch a longtail to go climb at Oyster Blade with a four pitch route I really wanted to do.  100 baht each for the longtail ride and no walking, Ram was in.

We hoped this longtail right in front of the restraunt we ate lunch at and were headed off.  The boat quickly went past the Oyster Blade and we ended up further in the bay at Hin Tak wall.  That’s ok there is a bunch of good looking climbing at Hin Tak including a 5 pitch route called Happy Banana 5.11a I really wanted to do.  Ram talked to the boatman and got him to come back at 6 pm when we hoped to be off the route.

Hin Tak (broken rock in thai) is now the home of Ao Ling (Monkey Bay in thai) and monkeys there were.  Luckily, the start of the climb was 40 ft of 5.5 to a big ledge so we took everything up there and clipped it in.
I led off on the first pitch up a dihedral and it went pretty straight forward at about 5.10a.
Anja fired of pitches 3 and 4 together to a nice huge belay ledge. 
The climb had some great views of the bay and stupid tourists.  About every 5 minutes longtail boat would come in with tourist.  THEY WERE NUTS!!!!  All these people would climb out of the boat and walk into a herd of monkeys.  About every 5th person hanging out in a bunch of monkeys would scream and run away they were getting scratched and bite.  SCATCHY! 

The 4th pitch was really tough, Anja had to hang and Ram and I pulled on the quickdraws through the crux.  We would have got it but we were rushing a little at this to make it back to the beach to met boatman.  Right…

The huge belay ledge at the base of pitch 5.

Our anchor was good but had some reminants of the legendary bad bolts of thailand.
The last pitch was incredible.  One of the coolest pitches I have ever done.  The top of the pitch ends about 20 ft out from the belay 200’ ft directly over the beach. 
This means when you lower off you have to get pulled back into the belay.  Otherwise, you’d just dangle above the beach.

Headed down on rappel, opps its already 6.

Luckily the longtail boatman hungout even though we were late getting down.  Also since it was low tide we couldn’t get out to the boat without swimming but a fisherman with a kayak gave us a ride out to the boat.  What a fun day of climbing and longtails!!!

Thailand-Phi Phi Don-Climbing Ton Sai Tower (Day 24)

It was finally time for our first day of climbing in Thailand.  We head over to Ton Sai Tower on Phi Phi Don Island (not to be confused with Ton Sai beach north of here).  Anja and I had climbed here for a day in 2007 and had a great time.  The approach was a nice walk across the beach and then a short 20 m jungle trail up to the base.

Hiking past the longtails on the beach.  I think we started on the far left of the wall on Brain Fagman 5.9 I think.  It was ok but misquitos were back so we moved right where the wind might be better.

We weren’t looking at the guidebook so I just picked a cool looking flowstone route to head up.  Looks like it was Mr. Phi Phi 5.10c.  Climbing on flowstone again was pretty cool.

Anja then headed up Gladiator for the first 90 ft 5.10d and cruised it no problem.

I headed up after here and was pretty pleased to send it without hanging although I had to find a couple of good rests.  It was mostly a jug haul on horizontals.

Next I think we headed up Scenic Bulimic probably went at about 5.9+ but pretty cruiser up horizontal.

The sun was setting so we only had time for one more route and headed up Andrea's Spine Line 5.10c.

I struggled a little on the last moves of this as it got thin but was a pretty fun route.

We headed over to the Banana Bar with Dov and Deanna.

Immediately Ram saw the hot wing challenge and took it.  5 wings, a shot, and a bottle of water, if you finish it’s free and you get a free bucket.  If not 300 baht.

He started out powering into the wings.

He got about 3.5 wings in and slowed down and wasn’t really talking.

Things were not looking good as the heat set in on his stomach.

Ram was happy for the free bucket!!  However, later that night Ram had horrible stomach pain and I had to go out to get him some milk to settle his stomach.  Ram swore no more hot challenges.  Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts.