Lucinda & Kate Travel The Globe

Hello!!!

Sorry for the lack of blog again, we had it all ready to go, clicked on the post button and the internet cut out and it's been hard to get hold of wifi since!! So we are a lot of islands behind with the blog, this is about our time in TonSai Beach, Krabi, which we travelled to after Koh Lanta!

It was absolutely fabulous and not so fabulous at times, but defo our fav place so far and will be interesting to see where beats it, nothing else has so far! It's a little cove next to the much more famous Railay Beach, with not much to offer... to the unsuspecting traveller...for the first 5 minutes. Ton Sai is definitely rough around the edges, but a lot of fun if you can deal with that!

We got dropped off onto the beach via long tail boat taxi and from first glance, there is a couple of reggae bar shack things (obvs), very optimistically put together, and 3 accommodation options, one expensive resortyish place, one that's constantly full and one that isn't worth 500baht a night for the cobras /rats/mosquitoes/monkeys etc that are able to enter through the holes in the bamboo hut, again, very optimistically put together!

This is a Cobra caught in someone's "bathroom", killed and then hung onto a stick for people to look at!

After some help from the friendly locals, we ended up back from the beach, along the main/only, road/dirt track that is not obviously seen from the beach, in the jungle with the monkeys in a bungalow that was far below anything we'd stayed in before, or wanted to stay in. As you can see from the below pic, it was pretty basic to say the least! We managed to stay here for 3 nights and then enough was enough and we moved to a slightly more expensive but more acceptable room.

Except for a very sick Kate for 24 hours, which put off one of our attempts to leave, and our first few nights accom, everything else was amazing and far beyond any expectations, making our planned 3 days an actual 12 days. There's loads to do, such a chilled, community vibe and we met some amazeballs people. We were lucky that they were locals and long timers, who had been here for months and/or returning year after year.

On one of our exploring days we walked through the jungle, passing random bits of local Thai life like cars that had been abandoned and left to start growing their own jungle and little wicker huts on stilts, until we came to a jungle village. It was crazy to see how the Thai's manage to escape from the tourists in such a small place and it felt quite invasive of us to walk through, although they didnt seem to mind too much. We carried on walking to one beach, Railay West, then another beach, Railay East then along a path through the rocks, until we reached PhraNang Beach, which is the best of all 4 beaches we visited.

Just before you get to Railey from TonSai, you also pass a huge bat cave, which we explored one day.

There were hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling all screeching at eachother, which was pretty disconcerting since there was only one way out! The inside of the cave was awesome though as you can see from the pics.

We also ventured to the lagoon, which is in the epicentre of a rock/cliff/mountain. Its a pretty tough climb up and then down again using ropes and absailing in parts, causing us to have sore thighs for about 3 days!

When you climb to the top you reach the viewpoint, which looks out on the main cove and the different beaches. It was a pretty unbelievable view.

(sweat central)

The far beach here is TonSai.

And then came the descent down to the lagoon in the centre of the mountain/big rock (whatever you want to call it!) Some parts of the climb were literally vertical, with just a rope to absail down and the terrifying knowledge that you will at some point later in the day have to tackle how to get back up!!

However, the climb was worth it. When we finally made it down to the lagoon it was pretty surreal. There was only one other climber down there at the time we were there so it looked completely untouched.

We then had to get back up the mountain/rock again and climb down the outside of it back to the ground. Needless to say we were pretty pleased with ourselves when we were done!!

As we were staying in the Jungle there were lots and lots of monkeys around all the time. Unfortunately, we have both decided that we are now terrified of monkeys and their scary resemblance to humans and unpredictability, which has led, on several occasions, to us doing a u-turn and taking the long walk round to where we're going just to avoid the monkeys in our path!

On Phra Nang Beach, mentioned earlier, is the 'Penis Cave'. It is believed to be inhabited by the fertility Gods spirit so the Thai women believe that by placing statues of penis' inside the cave, it will increase their chances of conceiving. Due to how it looks, it has obviously now become a hilarious tourist sight!

Getting lunch on Phra Nang Beach!

One day we walked to Phranang Beach and then swam round the headland (with some bodyguards) to Railay West, which was a looonnnggggg swim!

The headland

In the pic below you can see Railay Beach and then the rocky headland sticking out, which we had to swim around. This was us watching the sunset...with a Chang!

We wanted and planned to do a beginner rock climb lesson as TonSai is famous for being one of the best places in the world to climb. However, due to Kate "pretty much having malaria" for a few days and then a spell of rain we, unfortunately, never made it.

We spent most of our evenings chilling on or partying on the beach, which in Thailand often includes a bit of UV paint!

We just so happened to be there for a once a year festival called TonSai Big Cleaning Day, where everyone gathers in the day to clean the beach and then at night there are live bands on stage and a fire throwing/breathing competition and all the bars and restaurants along the beach close down and then each have a tent by the stage instead. It was a pretty big event considering how tiny TonSai is and everyone was partying together, which was fun!

You see slack lines all around TonSai and Railey as they improve your balance which is important for climbing. It is basically a bouncy tight rope that some of the guys can do fancy tricks on. We tried to learn to at least walk along it, mostly under the influence, so not successfully, but we were getting better by the end. Below pic is one of the bar workers, Maxxy, very patiently trying to teach Kate(who gave up after a couple of falls!)

Sawadee Bar, where we hung out most of the time.

TonSai was so fun, with lots to do but mostly such a favourite with us because of the people we met. It was nice to feel at home somewhere and not move for a while and actually have people to be sorry to say bye to at the end!