The island is beautiful. It's covered with enormous cliffs. The beach doesn't surround the island. The cliffs go all the way into the water at parts, separating the beaches. You can take these little longtail boats from beach to beach for hardly any money. The beach we stayed at, tonsai, is a top spot in the world for rock climbing so we had to try it. There was a little climbing school right near our hostel. There were 2 guides and about 10 beginner climbers that we went with. They brought us to 4 different walls to try, some a little harder than others. I was soooo bad. I tried the first wall twice but could only make it about 1/4th of the way up. The next wall I did much better though. I nearly made it all the way up but once I was like 5 feet from finishing I was just too exhausted and my legs were bleeding so I came back down. It was a ton of fun though, and much more of a workout than I was anticipating. For the next 4 days every muscle in my body ached. I dreaded having to change clothes because it hurt so much to lift my arms over my head. Even typing on the computer and opening pop cans was difficult, and your hands get really cut up from the rocks so that was really uncomfortable. It's okay though, I felt pretty badass with all my battle wounds.
In the evenings we would hang out at the bars on the beach. It's not a typical party/bar scene, I didn't drink really at all. Everyone just lounges out in the sand and chats with people while they play bad music and serve drinks. This one bar had a slack line out front which kept everyone occupied. A slack line is similar to a tight rope but the rope is stretchy so it bounces much more when you step on it. It's about 3 ft off the ground and tied to 2 trees about 10 ft apart. A lot of the climber guys stay at this beach for weeks at a time so they get reeeally good and are able to do some tricks and stuff on it so that was amusing.
Some days I would take a long tail boat over to the next beach, Railay. It's a more developed beach with nicer sand and some shopping. Everything is SO cheap. I bought a ton of jewelery and a dress for less than $20. I also kayaked and did a lot of hiking. Instead of taking the boats from beach to beach you can opt to climb over the cliffs near shore to get to the other beaches. (I dont mean climb like with harnesses and everything, but as in really intense hiking that is so vertical at times you feel like you're climbing...you just don't have a harness). there were also some little rock islands that were about 50 ft apart where someone had attached a slack line between the two over the water. We swam out to these islands but it wasn't easy to climb up onto them and the rocks were very sharp so between that and all the hiking I acquired even more cuts on the hands and legs. You cant really see all of the scrapes in the picture but trust me when I came back to s'pore I was wearing a skirt and everyone was like "what happened to you?!?!"
I of course had to get a few traditional thai massages while I was there! It was only about $6 for an hour massage. They are INTENSE. This little thai woman would walk on me, have my body bent in all sorts of unnatural ways, and would crack bones I never knew I had. It was definitely an experience. I also took a yoga class two mornings (as if my muscles weren't sore enough already).
On our third night I realized I had made a big mistake. I bought granola bars and left them in the room. Alejandro and I were both woken by the sound of a wrapper rustling. He turned on his flashlight to see a huuuuge rat run away from my granola bars behind our dresser. It was horrifying. We eventually decided we wouldn't be able to sleep so we decided to go sleep on the floor of the bungalow his buddies were staying in. There was a special bonus when I was holding the box of granola bars to go throw them out and soon realized it was filled with a million ants and they proceeded to run up my arm! We got a room in the nicer place for the next two nights!
I met a lot of people while on the island. It was filled with backpacker-type travelers rather than typical tourists. "Travelers" are always willing to make friends. We actually ended up getting a 3-person room for our last two nights and sharing with a girl we met, Emilia from Sweden, who was traveling alone. It's so much fun speaking with all these people from around the world. We always have something to talk about. I think Thai people are the nicest people I have ever encountered. It's not that they're trying to sell you anything or are being fake when they smile at you and say hi...I think it's just part of their culture to be genuinely nice! It was amazing.
The last day we hiked/climbed up to this beautiful viewpoint of the island, so below is the overhead view of the beach, plus some other random pics I liked (I should note that Alejandro loves photography and has a very, very expensive camera that he takes amazing pictures with. The two sunset pictures in this blog and the one of me climbing were taken by him.) All in all, it was a great trip!
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