On the move, again

So the weather has not been on our side here!

I will elaborate more later (running out of time and the mozzies are vicious) but our idyllic days on Koh Yao Noi came to an end rather abruptly.

The place is incredible, so peaceful and beautiful, and such friendly locals not spoiled by too many tourists. We spent 4 days exploring the island by motorbike and relaxing in the company of local farang (white people) and Thais.

However, all the climbing on Koh Yao is accessed by boat. And the seas have been anything but calm. We were able to get out one day after a VERY rough ride by longtail boat to some amazing climbing, not many people have ever climbed at the place we were at. Wonderful long juggy routes on wicked limestone, stalactites everywhere. Unfortunately after that day the boatmen refused to go out because the seas were too dangerous. So we could not climb, and of course we could not kayak (we probably would have died, seriously).

We spent a couple days lazing around the island, checking out the local markets, food shops, and coffee shops. Reading, talking, relaxing. It was nice. On top of that our bungalow was beautiful, high on a hill overlooking the bay with a view of the sunrise. We spent a couple of fun nights having beer with the owner, Mr. Ling, in his newly built bar.

But this is a climbing trip, and we got the itch. Relaxing was nice, but with ants in our pants and only 5 days left on the trip, we jetted out of Koh Yao Noi in the early hours of this morning on a big longtail (still a very rough ride), to the North Pier of Krabi Province, where we hopped a city bus with all the Thais going to the market, and went to Krabi Town, where we hopped a ferry to Ko Phi Phi Don. (Another island).

Phi Phi has climbing you can access from the land. So it was decided this was where we would spend the remainder of our trip.

Our departure was hasty and we did not have a place to stay on Phi Phi, so we jumped off the ferry and simply started walking to what we knew was the main climbing wall. We snagged a little bamboo hut right off the beach and about a 2 minute walk from the climbing with a nice little mosquito net for 600 baht/night (about $18 USD).

We spent the rest of the afternoon getting our bearings. As we walked towards the village we ran smack into Dylan and Sarah, the couple from Alaska/Oregon we had met on the Deep Water Solo trip way back on Ton Sai! How random! We talked with them for awhile and agreed to meet tomorrow morning to climb together.

The best way to describe Phi Phi is... complete opposite of Koh Yao Noi. It is a sensory overload. Where KYN was peaceful and idyllic, PhiPhi is loud, bustling, and busy. It is motion personified. There are people here from all over, and we spent an amusing hour in a coffee shop just watching the world walk by, quite literally. There are many vendors here and thankfully they are not as pushy as the ones in Phuket were. Still, it definitely is not KYN. If it were just for the atmosphere we could have happily stayed in KYN for the rest of the trip. But we are looking forward to 4 days of good hard climbing.

If it doesn't rain.


Salty Smooches,

Liz and Jamie