I guess Thailand has a different expectation when it comes to utilities as they informed us at the hotel yesterday that the power would be out all day today.  Assuming that they were doing some sort of maintenance to the hotel power system we though about going out for the day – well it turns out that the power outage is for the entire town of Ao Nang!! So all the business, shops, cafes, etc. will all be without power starting at about 8am.  Unlike the folks up in Carriage Estates I suspect few if any of them have generators 😉

We get up early so that we can get down and have breakfast before the power goes out, and after getting the new 411 about the power, we decide to go down to the beach and see how the seas look for a possible trip to Railay.  With very little to do in town spending the day elsewhere looks like a good idea.  The water has calmed a bit, and while still a little lumpy the boat operators say it is no problem going to out, so it is off to Railay.

Railay Beach is a small peninsula of land just south of where we are in Ao Nang, but the large limestone cliffs that run everywhere in Krabi province completely separate the small peninsula from the rest of Krabi.  There are no roads there (as there are no cars), and their power comes from a local generator – there are no power lines back to the main power grid, and I presume that their voice and data connections are done via satellite.  There are 2 beaches, one on either side of the strip of land, and boats from Ao Nang go to one, and boats from Krabi town go to the other.  The narrow spit of land between the 2 beaches is less than a 5 minute walk from side to side, and at the end of the peninsula another tall limestone mass rises up and is maybe a half mile across and a half mile long.

Railay is known as one of the top destinations for rock climbers and most people who go to stay there are either trying to escape the more active beach towns, or to climb the magnificent cliffs.  I will upload some photos when I can, but the photos themselves do not do justice to the awe inspiring feeling one gets when standing next to some of these formations.

Anyway I digress a bit…. We start out our journey by going to the Ao Nang pier to board our longtail boat for the 15 minute ride to Railay.  For those that don’t know what a longtail boat is, it is a long wooden boat made of teak wood about 30 feet long and with a fairly flat bottom.  Strapped to the back of the boat on top of a ball joint (so that it can pivot in all directions) sits the motor out of what I would guess to be a small car.  Attached directly to the transmission is a long shaft with a propeller at the end.  The motor and shaft are perfectly balanced on the pivot so that the operator, who stands at the back of the boat, can move the whole motor and shaft up, down, and side to side to steer the boat where he wants it to go.  The shallow flat bottom goes contrary to everything I believe about how boats handle best in the sea, but clearly these people have mastered the art, as they have been using these boats for a very long time for fishing and transportation.

We get ourselves all aboard, and start to make our way out of the harbor, as we get out into the open water we are in about 2-3 foot swells and everyone looks around to see if anyone thinks we should go back… I look to the boat operator and he is standing on his platform in the back with a smile on his face and I figure he is equally interested in getting his boat there and back in one piece as I am the family, so we figure it is all good and forge ahead – we did all put our life jackets on just in case tho 😉

After about 15 or 20 minutes we arrive at Railay West – the beach on the west side of the small peninsula.  We stroll across to the East beach for a stroll down to where the rock climbers all gather and wander around a bit looking at the half dozen or so people scaling the limestone that basically goes straight up.  I take a couple of photos, bat as with many of these spots the photo just does not compare to the real thing.  Rachael of course wants to go up, but we decide that in just flip-flops she does not have the required footwear to go.

From there we head down a little sidewalk through the trees to go to another small beach back on the west side.  The path takes us right alongside the cliffs on one side and there are many places where caves have eroded themselves into the cliffside that we can walk through, or where we are able to walk underneath the cliffs where erosion has totally removed the rock at the bottom and carved in sort of a tunnel.

About half way to the beach there is a little hut on one side of the path and a bunch of people milling about.  There is a small sign here that points off to a ‘lookout’ and a lagoon.  I look around and there is no real path to be seen other than a place on the rock face where the brush has been cleared away.  It turns out that the ‘path’ is more of a light rock climb straight up the rock face for about 300 feet or so.  However, being the adventurous sort and with Mrs. Columbus saying go for it – up we go!  It takes us about 20 minutes or so to make the climb and then a short walk through the jungle that grows on the top of the ridge to get to the lookout, and are rewarded with a fantastic view of the entire Railay Beach area.  We can see both beaches, all the area in between, and right over to the next ridge.  The edge of the lookout is marked by a piece of rope about shin-high, and certainly it would not prevent anyone from going over.  Making your way up close to the rope and looking over however shows that the 1st step off is literally straight down – if you were to go over the first thing you would hit is the path we started out on a few hundred feet below.

As it has been raining a bit here over the last few evenings we are advised that the path to the lagoon is quite slippery and fairly dangerous, so we opt out of that part and make our way back down our original climb and back to the path and hut at the bottom.  It was quite a workout, and all the climbing and hiking is double the workout in the 90 degree heat (even without any direct sun) and we certainly must have left several buckets of perspiration on the trail, but in the end the view was definitely worth the effort and we are glad we did it.

After returning to the path we continue our journey on to the small beach on the end of the peninsula.  The beach here is fantastic, the sand is so soft and very clean, and given that there is only one way to get there it is easy to see why it is relatively unspoiled.  There are a few vendors here that have roasted corn and various cold drinks for sale, but other than that just people relaxing.  There is a small shrine located at one end of the beach in a cave that people come to see, and the whole beach sort of fits under an overhang where the limestone has eroded away.  Just one more awe inspiring location that we have encountered during our travels here.

We head back up the path and back to the east beach and follow the shore up to the north end where we take a short path up into the hills a bit where our map indicates there is another cave worth looking at.  We get to spot where the cave is and it looks like just a small opening into an alcove or something but as we walk into the cave it opens up before us and goes deeper into the cliff.  As we are walking along the footpath we can hear bats high above us that have nested for the day (the cave ceiling is probably about 150 feet above our heads) and there is some debate about how tasty we look to them.  The cave itself continues on for about 400-500 feet and then opens up into this huge opening that could easily fit my house inside it.  The cave has been hollowed out over the eons of time by erosion, and the walls are all covered in mineral deposits, some that are forming into stalagmites and stalactites.  The inside of the cave is eerily quite and in another of those moments we are just awestruck by the spot we are standing in. (2 spots like this in one day makes for a great trip)

Slowly we make our way out of the cave and start to head back towards the west beach where our boat is waiting to take us back to Ao Nang.  We have been keeping an eye on the weather as we are worried that if the winds kick up the trip back will be a little more rough, but after a brief 10 minute rain storm where we hide under an awning the sun peaks out a little and things looks as good as they are going to get.  We jump into the boat and our seasoned captain returns us safely to Ao Nang pier and a short taxi ride back to the main beach.  We have about a 15 min walk back up to our hotel and by the time we get there we are well beaten down after a long day.

We are so tired from the day’s adventures that we get back to the hotel and decide that we are not up for a big walk anywhere for dinner so we decide to go to the first place we see for something to eat before calling it a night.  We spot this little restaurant right on the street at the end of the driveway to our hotel and decide this is the place as we are walking no farther.  Turns out that this is one of the best dinners we have had since we got to Krabi and everyone has a great meal and then it is really off to crash for the night.  Truly a great day!

We spent most of the day just sticking around the hotel and waiting for Laurie to return form Bangkok.  She flew up with Russill yesterday to make sure he got onto his return flights OK and is then catching a return flight back here to Krabi.

I give full credit to Laurie for getting more into the zone here – her and Russill took the shuttle bus from Ao Nang to the Krabi airport – like a city bus that just goes in a circular route between a few stops and the main city.  Then she decided to just hunker down in the Bangkok airport overnight instead of trying to find a hotel in Bangkok, and then a taxi to the hotel just to spend a few hours and come back.  So kudos to her!

She arrived back around mid afternoon today all safe and sound, but more than a little tired as the sleeping locations in the airport were a little limited.

We have a couple of days left here so we are hoping that the seas improve so that we can get in a day trip to Railay Beach. For now it is off to dinner and then an early night for us all.  They have informed us that the power will be out tomorrow from about 8am to 6pm for some sort of work, so that means that we need to get up early so that we can get breakfast in before the power goes out.

Sadly our time with Russill had to come to an end.  After 3 weeks traveling around with us it will be sad to see him go, but I’m sure his family misses him and the time we were able to get was a nice treat, so we take what we can get 🙂

We had hoped to get to Railay Beach when he was here, but the weather was not on our side.  The skies have been mostly cloudy with some sunny breaks the past couple of days and the rains come through at night but other than that first day here the rain has not been an issue.  But with the storm that did come through the seas were a little rough and the trip to Railay requires about a 20 minute ride in a longtail boat, so not worth the risk if the water is rough.  In fact I don’t even see the usual crowd of longtails out on the beach like normal, so they may not even be taking people at all.

Instead we get in a little pool time and some wandering around the town, and of course a few good meals and before you know it, it is time to see Russill off.  He and Laurie will be flying up to Bangkok together and spending the night and then he flies out in the morning and Laurie will fly back to Krabi.  We decide to let the kids decide where to go for his last dinner here and they pick a nice spot on the main road.  The girls all get american food, but Russill, adventuring to the end gets in his last Thai dinner.

Thanks for coming along with us Russill, you were a great traveler and the girls had a great time having you around for part of their summer – you are welcome to travel with us anytime!

Krabi – a place, not a disposition…….  Seems like a good manta to follow as everyone here seems to just go with the flow.

Well it seems that the weather has finally caught up with us a bit after 16 straight days of beautiful weather.  We knew that it was the rainy season when we planned to come here, so we were prepared for brief rain interruptions to our plans, or having to work around the weather a bit, but were pleasantly surprised to have gone so many days with no impact on our plans at all.

But our first day in Krabi was mostly an inside day as the skies opened up and the rain came down fairly steadily until mid afternoon.  Laurie and the kids ventured out when it tapered off a bit and did a little shopping while I got some work done, and then we all went out in the late afternoon when it had basically stopped to wander about the town here and get some dinner.  It was nice to have a bit of a down day so everyone could just relax a little and get some stuff done, but it would have been nice if we could have done it by the pool.

The weather outlook says to expect more of the same over the rest of the week here, but things seem to change here rapidly so we don’t put a lot of stock in the forecasts, and just work our plans around whatever comes.  Today is overcast, but dry, so a pool day seems to be in order.

More to follow…..

We set off for Krabi in what turns out to be another big adventure – more on that in a minute…

Krabi is one of the southern provinces in Thailand on the western side that faces the Andaman Sea.  It is directly across a large bay from Phuket, and many people come here from Phuket via boat.  The coast here is a little more rugged and mountainous than any of the other spots we have been so far, and this is where a lot of rock climbers come from around the world to climb what is regarded as some of the best.  Krabi is also the name of the largest city in the province and historically has supported a fairly large fishing industry.  We will be staying in Ao Nang, which is a beach town about 20 kilometers from Krabi town.

We head down to the travel agent the day before to look into our travel options.  After our interesting journey to Ko Samui from Phuket, we are looking for some better info about what we are getting into 🙂

We had at one point thought we hooked ourselves up with a private car for about 4000B ($110 USD) but that deal mysteriously falls apart (maybe the price was too low) and now the agent tells us we have 2 options – Option 1 is for a private car, the car will take us from Samui all the way to Ao Nang and to our destination hotel for 7000B (about $200 USD).  The other option is to take the regular tourist transfer for about 3000B ($90 USD).  Having been down the transfer road before we ask more questions this time……  The package takes us from our hotel to the ferry by van where we will transfer to an air-conditioned bus across the ferry and then to Surat Thani where we will transfer to another air-conditioned bus for the trip from Surat Thani to Krabi.  Finally we would take a taxi form Krabi to our hotel in Ao Nang.  We double check the facts, and Mrs Columbus says it’s half the price and a nice bus all the way so we should take the transfer vs the private car.  We did not really stop to process the fact that we were really talking about the difference between $100 and $200 to move 6 people around – but I guess this is the way we learn lessons.

So 8am rolls around and we climb into the van to go to the ferry where uneventfully we transfer our baggage to the bus and board the ferry.  After the crossing we travel the hour or so to Surat Thani and get dropped off at a restaurant/transfer station and are told it will be about a 20 minute wait for the bus that is going to Krabi.   After a short wait we are herded off to a tuk-tuk to go to where the other bus is waiting.  Here is where the adventure goes a bit sideways…..  The bus we board seems relatively new, and air-conditioned and we load our bags and settle into some seats, and then we wait, and wait, and wait.  All the while more and more people are getting on the bus and after about an hour and 20 minutes the bus is full and finally departs.  Much to our surprise though the bus stops frequently on the way out of town to pick up even more people, and soon the bus is completely full – including people standing in the aisle and anywhere there is a spot.  It turns out that this is a local bus that is going to Krabi, but not via an express route, and going through a bunch of samll towns along the way vs going along the freeway.  So instead of the short 2 hour ride were were expecting we hunker down for a much longer time – the one saving grace is that we all have seats vs the people standing.

After a 10 hour journey (that is only about 5h including the ferry if you go direct) we finally arrive at our destination, and after getting our bags stowed away in our rooms we grab a bite to eat and call it a night.

For anyone who is interested I have posted a few GPS tracks of some of the ground we have covered while here – you can look at the maps here