Title:	Perfect Beaches, amazing Rock-Climbing, Kayaking and Relaxing.
Region:	South-East Asia
Countries:	Thailand
Date:	June 3, 1998
My Rating (out of 100):	40
	Hello Everyone! Once again, another dull email of my travels that you have to delete... I spend the last month in a few places in Thailand, mostly relaxing and enjoying myself. I haven't seen a single Museum or Temple in a month! Now, I can handle travelling again. I have spend most of the last month on a beach, with either rock-climbing or scuba-diving / snorkeling available. First I went to Koh Samui, which is a large island in the gulf of Thailand with beautiful beaches and great swimming / jet-skiing / water-skiing / snorkeling / etc. Spent a few days there before I got an email from Daymon Miller who happened to be a few short hours away in Rai Lay Beach doing some climbing. So, I put off my Scuba diving on Koh Tao and grabbed the first bus down to Rai Lay. Rai Lay is as beautiful beach on a peninsula near the town of Krabi in southern Thailand. The place is littered with limestone mountains, caves, stalagtites and stalagmites, palm trees and beaches. It's a great place with lots of climbing (well over 100 climbs) and great Sea Kayaking. The first day I got their Daymon decided to try and kill me with a 5-pitch 6b+ difficulty (French system = 5.10c North American) that goes up 100 meters over the jungle and beaches. Before you even get to the climb you have to do two access climbs. One is up a tree about 12 meters and the next is up a stalagtite. By the end of the second pitch my untrained arms were completely worn out and my new-found fear of highs over 50 meters had kicked in. So I got Daymon to abseil me 50 meters down and Greg and him completed the climb...8 hours total, for them. The limestone creates great climbing (and interesting) because in some spots you get great big hand holds that seem almost artificial. At the same time, you get wild overhangs and caves that the ocean has eroded away and stalagtites that you have to stem to. (stick a leg out to). In total, I spent about 8 days climbing with a few rest days in between where I went Kayaking or just exploring the caves and viewpoints and whatnot. During that 8 days I did my first "lead" climbing, which is where you are the first to climb up with the ropes and clip the rope in about every 2-4 meters. It's more frightening than top-rope climbing since you can fall up to 8 meters before the rope catches you. I also had my first lead falls, and fell about 3-4 meters each time. It's good that I got that over with, since it's a psychological barrier to good lead climbing. I had only climbed to about 15-20 meters before, and now I've done up to about 60m although it still makes me nervous. The only problems with the area is mosquitoes and tides. Many places are only accessible at low tide...I got caught at one place and ended up swimming holding my gear and camera and money over my head once! Anyway, all of it was good fun and I'd recommend a short vacation to Rai Lay to anyone who does climbing or just enjoys an interesting place. Accommodation in the small area of usable land (about 500m X 1.5km) runs from $2 per night to $1500 per night. I paid $2, of course! I'd expect that you'd get a hot shower for $1500 though. Mine was cold. A funny thing happened the last day I was climbing. I had just finished and a guy walked by looking for some other climbers...the funny thing was that I recognized him. It was a guy, Phil (can't remember the last name) that I went to high school with in Calgary and he had just arrived in Rai Lay. That's now 2 people that I have run into while travelling that I have known from home. This doesn't include Daymon, because we planned that... I also did 2 scuba dives off Koh Tao which is supposed to be a great place to dive. The dive areas were good, but we spend a lot of time running from trigger fish. I guess they like to bite divers a lot, and w sure did see a lot of them. Our Dive-Master kept signaling "Danger! Danger! Trigger Fish! Run-away! Run-away!!" Anyway, now I am in Penang Malaysia which is a really cools place. It's got lots of colonial spirit and plenty of ethnic diversity, which means good food! Malaysia looks like it'll be pretty good and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks before I get to Singapore. Anyway, later!