This is splendid. A beautiful beach surrounded by turquoise water and great sand. You have to take a longtail boat to get here as there are no roads. There's great climbing too! Limestone cliffs are everywhere.
I've spent over a week in Ao Nang beach, paying 300 BHT ($7.50) for a room with cable tv, a fridge, and fan. The tv is sucking my life away. It's so easy to lie in front of it and watch the world spin 'round and 'round. I keep tempting myself by going over to Rai Lay and Tonsai to see the climbers there, but the tv keeps drawing me back home. It's pretty sad. But hey, besides boozing and eating, swimming and running, I also took a cooking class. It was pretty good, and I can now make three types of curry and soups and stir fried rice and pad thai. Even more importantly, I got a copy of the recipes so I can remember what I learned. I've also gone hiking at Rai Lay to explore the view point and the lagoon. To get to the lagoon, you have to scramble up a nearly vertical trail (aided by big hand and footholds and ratty ropes), then descend down nearly the same distance. It gets slippery with the clay everywhere, and it's quite easy to fall, but I've been extra careful; I've been wearing fisherman pants and Tevas. Ah, how to describe Rai Lay? A peninsula with limestone cliffs jutting out of the ground everywhere...soaring a few hundred feet high. Dripping limestone crags that appear to be melting. Jungle life clinging to the steep cliffs. No roads in or out. Bungalows next to a five-star resort. It's a paradise with an awesome beach at Phrang-Nga bay. Lots of climbers and tourists find their way there for a few days, and the climbers tend to stay all season. It's an interesting mix of people.
Yesterday I went climbing a little bit (it's all I could handle) on a 6b climb at Tonsai. I top-roped it with little difficulty, but quickly peeled off of a 6c climb further down the beach on a pretty big flake. What can I say? I suck. Today my arms are a little sore, which is good. Pain is weakness leaving the body.
I think tomorrow I will go diving at Ko Phi Phi. That's where they filmed the Beach. It was also pretty devastated by the tsunami, and there are a lot of tourist-volunteers rebuilding the expensive tourist resort there. I think it's kind of silly, but hey, a thousand points of lights. Stay the course. It's sort of like people going to Las Vegas to volunteer rebuilding the casinos after a fire. I've seen some backpackers wearing t-shirts that say "www.kophiphi-org -- rising above the wave". Um...LAME. But it's supposed to be pretty good diving there.
I visited a Thai Emergency Room last week, which was kind of interesting. A dude had slipped while hiking to the lagoon at Rai Lay and split his scalp and broke a rib. I escorted him to the hospital and spent the afternoon presiding over things. The Thai medical system is pretty efficient. There was no waiting, and the nurses, as usual, did most of the examination and stitching. The doc wanted to admit David, the injured Swiss, to monitor for a pneumothorax, but from the look of the facilities, I suggested checking into a hotel. There were ants crawling over the food trays. Yum. But I can definitely say the actual medical care they practice seems to be spot on. They had a little girl (about 9 years old) intubated AND awake, being bagged by the nurse in the ER. That sure takes care of the need for any expensive monitoring. I'm not sure how she could tolerate the tube, but hey, I think the Thais are on to something. They brought people in quickly, treated, then streeted them. No silly colds or sore throats in their ER. After the xrays and stitches and medicines, the total bill for the visit was 1100 BHT, about $27. So what if there are ants on the food trays?!
