Khao Lak is a much much more laid back part of the tourists zones that we have been to.  The area is really a zone of about a half-dozen long beaches spread out along a 20 mile stretch of coastline.   Different than most of the other beach areas we have been to, the main road (and therefore the town) does not go right along the beach – and in some places is about a kilometer away from the coast.   This means that most of the hotels are more ‘resort’ style and away from the bustle of the town, and creates a much more relaxing atmosphere.

We spend our first couple of days here doing just that – relaxing.  The hotel we are staying at is right on the beach and there are lounge chairs set out right on the sand where you can sit back under the shade of a palm tree and listen to the surf roll in and out.  There is also a nice large pool in the center of a large courtyard, and between the beach and the pool we are able to just lounge about and enjoy the tranquility of this place.

Because this is the low season, and it seems to be even slower here than other places we have been, there are very few other tourists around, and at times it feels like you have miles of beach all to yourself.  We discover a nice spot at one end of the beach we are on, and the kids spend a few hours just playing in the sand, writing messages, and splashing about.

For our third day here we decide to venture out past our hotel and go into the town area and check out some of the shops, another beach area, and one of the local markets.

Our first stop is at the Tsunami Museum and the patrol boat.  Thailand was hit by a large tsunami on Dec 26, 2004 at about 10:30 in the morning.  Khao Lak was one of the hardest hit areas of the country with about 80% of the casualties in Thailand coming from this area, and more than any of the other places we have been there are reminders all around of the events of that day.

One of the largest remnants is a large patrol boat that was washed ashore by the wave.  The boat was on patrol about 1/2 kilometer offshore when the wave hit, and it’s final resting place is about 1.5 kilometers inland from the beach.  The boat itself has a 6 foot displacement, so at the place where it now rests the wave had to be at least 6 feet high!!

All around this area are blue posts set into the ground warning of the tsunami zone, and also marking the estimated height of the wave at any given point.  The one pictured here is several hundred feet from the beach (you can see the water in the distance) and the height is marked at 5 meters (about 17 feet) – and at this point the drop down to the beach is also about another 3-4 meters.  It is staggering to think about a wall of water 3 stories tall moving directly at you, and it is hard to not look around you and think of the tragedy of that day.

After all that it is off for some shopping.  We do the usual browsing in the various vendor shops, and then take some time to go into the big street market that is here.  The market runs 3 days a week and Mrs. Columbus and the girls are rubbing their hands together with visions of bargains to be found….  We get to the market and discover that rather than a tourist market full of trinkets for sale it is actually more of a local market where the locals in the area would come to buy their goods, fresh meats and vegetables, or perhaps an afternoon meal.  We did try out a couple of items from one of the stalls, but after walking down the fresh meat aisle, it was hard to convince anyone to try some of the roasted treats 🙂

Back to the hotel for a refreshing dip in the pool, and then off to Jo Seafood Restaurant just down the beach for another great dinner.

Could someone over there please call up Mr. Ted Stevens or Mr. Al Gore and let them know that the series of tubes the make us this new-fangled interweb thingy do not seem to be all that reliable over here…

Between the power outages and the irregular internet connections we have had since we got to Krabi, we have been offline for about 3-4 days.

As with most of the other issues we see over here, very few people seem to care, and just go on about their days.  Yesterday when the power was out, all the stores still opened – places that sold drinks brought in chests of ice and food was cooked over gas burners, and the souvenir vendors carried on in the dark, just without the fans that kept their stores cool.

I can’t imagine what would happen back home if the internet went away for a few days, but it is likely one of the signs of the apocalypse.

Anyway we get some online time this afternoon and get a bunch of updates up so that you all know we are still alive, and so that the Sandvig’s have something to read with their morning coffee 😉

We are moving on fron Ao Nang/Krabi tomorrow, and have decided to spend a few days in Khao Lak.  We were originally going to go to Chumphon on the gulf coast, but I think there must be a local holiday or something here as the place we were going to stay is all booked up now.  But no worries, with the day-at-a-time approach we have been using, it was a quick last-minute decision to go elsewhere, and a short van ride tomorrow and another new location awaits us.

That’s all I have for now, time to get my stuff packed up and off to bed 🙂

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!