Thailand-Railay-James Bond Island Day Tour (Day 49)

We got up at 9 am and headed over to Ao Nang to see the tailor and then to go on the famous James Bond Tour.

I grabbed a quick pancake in Ao Nang from this lady’s cart all built on a motor bike.  The tailor stop was a mess because they had lost power so they asked us to check back in 30 minutes.  We did and ended up doing a little fitting in the dark and then running to catch our tour bus.

The first stop of the tour was the floating village; really it is just on stilts but it was an interesting place.  Before the moving and tourists it has been a fishing village now mostly it is little shops and restaurants.  We stopped here for lunch and then went for a walk around the village.

The rocks above the village were pretty cool and since the village is isolated in the ocean you will see the cistern for rain water collection.

Here you can see the “sandbar” more like a muckbar the village is built on and the septic tanks.  I just can’t help noticing the sewage treatment as we travel.

The next stop was a limestone bridge.

Which we drove through on the longtail.  It was kind of novel.

The best thing though was all these Chinese people getting kayaked around but 1 Thai guy in the back.

After that we headed to James Bond Island and landed on the beach behind it.  It was a busy tourist spot.

The James Bond Island was pretty cool.  Quick blog quiz which James Bond movie was this in and who played Bond in it?  No googling.

A quick self shot pose.

After the island we headed to Monkey Temple which was inside of a limestone cave with a large reclining Buddha.

It was also a neat cave.

The monkeys were not allowed to go inside the temple so they gathered right at the mouth of the cave to beg or steal food.

The monkey’s get there food anywhere they can from a trashcan to a fruit tossed to them.

After that is was another 1.5 hour bus ride back to Ao Nang with a stop at the tailor.  Things were not still all right with the clothes and I was starting to get annoyed with all the trips to the tailor.

Thailand-Railay-Ao Nang Tower (Day 48)

I’ll just say it right away.  WE EPICED so heres the story.

Anja really wanted to Ao Nang Tower.  Ao Nang Tower is definitely a landmark, if you take a longtail from Ao Nang to Ton Sai or West Railay then you have seen this remarkable tower.  It is a big tower sticking straight out of the ocean.

The only way to reach it is by boat either rent a kayak for the day (500 baht) or arrange with a longtail boatman to drop you and pick you up or for the boatman to wait all day out there for you (rumor says 600 baht).  Anja really wanted to kayak out there; she’d never climbed out of a kayak but had taken longtails for climbing.  I wanted to take the longtail but caved as she was so excited about an adventure.  We got up a little late for the outing but she twisted my arm and we hiked over to Ton Sai and rented a kayak and were off on an Anja adventure.

The kayak to Ao Nang Tower was surprisingly quick about 15 minutes.  Since it was low tide getting off the boat was a little tricky but there was a fixed line Anja used to standup and assist her climbing up.  Once she was up there I clipped the packs on which were each wearing a life jacket encase we dropped one. 

No problem then it was time for me.  It was going to be tricky for me to get there climb up and clip the boat in so Anja set a belay and hung a figure 8 down at water level and I shoved my harness on in the boat.  Opps there goes a wave straight into the chalk bag.  I paddled up, clipped myself in, clipped the boat to the fixed lines, pulled up on the fixed line, Anja took hard on the belay and we were off.  The chalk bag was a casualty but not bad we were on the wall and on our way, hope the 6c pitch at the top goes ok.  We traverse over to the first belay over the ocean and could clearly see our kayak floating and looking secure.

I decided I’d give the first pitch a shot.  At 6b it could be a tough pitch for me but I’d also led 6b on Big Wave which was real cruiser.  Got the first thread and it got rough real quick right belay the second bolt, I backed off a move…TAKE

…well that was quick and I turned the led over to Anja and she fired it off with no problem loving the pitch.

 

I followed it was long and tiring for me.

On with the second pitch.  It was a short 15 m of 6b+ with a little roof move and then a thin face move but mostly jugs.

Anja pulled the roof move and cruised.  I seconded this pitch without much problem.  On to the 6c pitch it was going to be a long one again and we knew there would be no way to communicate with all the longtails going by below us. We could see the second bolt out on this diving board feature…it might be exciting.

Anja fired up and clipped the bolt on the diving board.  It had a beautiful jug right below the clip.  Amazing move through the jug now 150 ft nearly straight above the ocean below. 

After that it turned vertical and a little thin.

With all the longtails going by we couldn’t hear anything (think an 80’s inline 4 engine with no muffler) but finally I heard “TAKE”; “LOWERING”.  I thought to myself I hope she was able to finish the pitch.  I had no idea.  Anja got back to the belay and said “IT WAS AWESOME!  except for the rope drag but it was easy so I just kept climbing above the bolts to clip”.  Well I was glad that worked out.  I followed; it was way hard!  Glad Anja got it done.  I cleaned the anchor and was back at the second belay. 

Time to head down.  We rapped to the second anchor and pulled the rope no problem and it came down no problem but didn’t equalize the ends properly and one end was suck.  WHERE?  Well I got it set as best we could and went on rappel.  I got down and could see the rope had caught on the outside of a stalactite and then wrapped under the stalactite and was stuck.  I clipped a bolt and pulled all the slack left to try to flip the rope around the stalactite.  Pull rope, drop rope, shake rope, repeat.  No luck but I thought I got about another 5-10 ft free enough to make the anchor so I went for it.  I made the anchor but not enough to get off rappel as the knot was jammed against the belay device.  It was weird too because the rappel device was being pulled on from above at the anchor, the knot and behind me on the stalactite but I got up to the first thread, got off belay and down climbed 3 ft to the anchor.  Once at the anchor I pulled down enough rope to flip the rope around the stalactite and called off rappel.  When Anja came down she had to clip into a bolt and readjust the ends but they came free no problem now.  Pulled the rope; no problem.  We’d avoided epicing on rappel but it cost us about 30 minutes.

The traverse back to able the boat was easy.  Now time to get back in the boat.  My guess was I was going to take a swim to get back in but since it was now high tide I was able to get back in without much problem but WOW the SEA WAS ROUGH! and I was having trouble controlling the kayak in the water but we went for it.  Anja lowered me the bags and climbed down in.  WOW we made it…SPLASH…Anja and one pack were in the water.  She got back in and we figured out we could only stay up right if our feet were in the water.  OK paddle.  We made it about a quarter way back…SPLASH…everything was in the water.  Glad the packs had life vests on and that I made Anja leave her passport in the room. 

I’d had enough and had only agreed to this adventure knowing the longtails go by every 10 minutes.  HELP I called to a passing longtail but it went by.  SPLASH…SPLASH…ok we not getting us and the packs on the kayak so Anja started swimming with the packs and I was trying to just paddle the boat which was almost more than I could manage in the rough waves.  It was dark now.  “HELP” since it was dark and Anja was in the water it was clear we needed assistance and he pulled around to pick us up.  It was rough even getting into the longtail as it rocked in the surf.  To get the pack with the rope in we had to clip it on so we could both pull it in.  We were both in and the kayak was being towed behind.  The epic was nearly over we thought. 

The boatman took us back to Ton Sai and we returned the kayak.  We were exhausted but still needed to get back to East Railay.  Hey the headlamps still worked!  That was a plus as it would make getting home easier.  A drink at the Freedom Bar was tempting but we got a couple beverages at the mini-mart and headed up the jungle path.  As we headed up the path out of Ton Sai it sprinkled a little and by the time we were at the top of the saddle of the path we were in full down pour and thunder and lighting.  We were already soaked; oh well.  We charged down the path with the headlamps on only able to see the path right in front of us through the down pour of rain that is until CRACK everything would light up in the lighting.  We charged on for about 20 minutes in down pour and were happy back at our room.  We caught a rope on rappel, swam in the ocean, called for help, and been drenched in a down pour.  The Epic was finished. 

Happy back at the room.

We watched the lighting form our room and then moved on to so what was ruined and started washing everything in the bathtub.  The casualty list for day was a bag of advil, bandaids, chalk, and two guidebook.  Not too horrible.

Thailand-Ao Nang-Suits, Drugs, and Work (Day 47)

Anja enjoying her favorite shake from the ladyman restaurant.  It was about a 1/4-1/2 cup of coconut milk, a cup of sugar water, and ice.  She loved it as it wasn’t too sweet.

Two days earlier we headed back out to Ao Nang to the tailor for our first fitting.  I was unprepared that we would have to come back for a second fitting.  This was turning into a hassle.  At the first fitting Anja was stoked on the blouse she had made.  It is always hard for her with broad shoulders and skinny waist to find shirt which fit well so she ordered 3 more blouses, 2 more dresses, and 1 more jacket after the first fitting.  I felt the suit pants they had made for me were too tight and although they looked nice I wasn’t that trilled about the fit.

3 blouses: 1,000*3=3,000 baht

Jacket and skirt: 4,000 baht

Skirt: 1,000 baht

This brought us to a total of 12,000 baht ($400) in stuff being made.  Keep your fingers crossed it comes out well.

We went back out for the second fitting.  They had my suit finished, and 4 blouses, 3 shirts, and 1 jacket for Anja.  One of the shirts was the wrong fabric opps and her second jacket wasn’t finished yet.  I guess when we had been in there we lots of customers had come in and the shop guy had gotten confused.

I was pretty impressed with Anja’s wrinkle free blouses so I ordered two shirts for 1,800 baht.  Anja also wanted another wrinkle free shirt and liked the fabric they got wrong so agreed to 700 baht for it.

Two shirts for Ken: 1,800 baht

Mistake blouse for Anja 700 baht; sixth blouse for Anja 1,000 baht

Our grand total is now  14,500 baht.

Drugs?  Well the little guy above has been living in my gut for a couple weeks.  I’ve finally nailed down it is giardia.  I’m going to prefer to think I got it from the Phi Phi bay scuba dive where I drank and inhaled a little water getting used to scuba diving and how much you don’t want to loose you mask scuba diving.  The good news is a quick 5 minute walk down the beach to the pharmacy and handed over 200 baht ($8) for 25 pills 400 mg of metronidazole and I was quickly on the way to recovery.  Definitely one great thing about travelling in Thailand no need to stress about prescription drugs just walk in and ask for what you want.

Anja spent the rest of the afternoon working at her table at the Diamond Cave Resort with her ocean view and coconut shakes.

Thailand-Ton Sai-Big Wave (Day 46)

We started the day with Anja’s favorite coconut shake from the lady man on East Railay.

Then we headed over the jungle trail from East Railay to Ton Sai.  I had in mind a couple of multi-pitch routes in the 6b range but thought they might be crowded.

We walked up to the first pitch of Big Wave and the only people we could see on it were just pulling there rope from the last rappel.  Awesome!  Maybe we can do Big Wave 6b (5.10b) and Beauty and the Beast 6b+ (5.10d) as they share the first pitch.  Anja quickly fired off the 28m first pitch.

I motored through the 25m second pitch.  The climbing was fast on mostly large juggy holds.  It was fun just cruising up this climb!

Anja continued cruising on the third pitch (15m)

I hit the anchor at the top of the third pitch and we grabbed a couple shots.

The views were great and I cruised up the 15m 4th pitch.

Cruising stopped at the very end of the 10m 5th and last pitch.  Anja fired it off and lowered back to belay 4.

A great climb with some the best view of Ton Sai beach, Railay West beach, and the Thaiwand we’ve had yet.

We rappelled back down to the top of pitch 1 and still no other parties were there so I headed up 6b pitch 2 of Beauty and the Beast and then Anja fired off the classic 6b+ Beauty pitch.  It was a great cap to the day.

The rappel down was nice and easy and we finally met a second party just finishing the first pitch.  Chris from Grass Valley, CA said it was roasting on the beach but over 100 ft off the ground all day we had a nice breeze in the sade.

Our climb for the day went up the center to the skyline.

Thailand-Railay-Diamond Cave (Day 45)

I thought we’d take the short walk today and push the grade a little so we headed over to Diamond Cave to try Seven, Seven, Seven; 3 pitches (6b, 6c, 6c).  I took the first pitch and almost got it clean but hung at the last bolt when it had been too steep for too long for me.

Anja took the second pitch a thin crimpy pitch and almost got it clean too but hung at the last bolt before the anchor.

Anja also took the third pitch

And sent it easy as the crux as a super steep section at the end of the pitch.  She loved it!

She then threw a top rope on Almost Heaven (7a+).  With a lot of hanging she was able to get up it.  I didn’t even try.

Lots of guide groups climb at Diamond Cave and Ya Ya’s bar was being used as a climber day care of sorts.

I then got on the second pitch of Diamonds are Forever thinking it was 6a (5.10a); it wasn’t it was 6b+ (5.10c) and I got a little worked and hung a few times but got it done.