Thailand Continued

I'm back to finish posting about the rest of my Southern Thailand trip.  After I departed the beautiful Koh Phi Phi Island, I landed on Railay Beach.  Its not an island, but it sure feels like it because even though its connected to the mainland, the only way to access it is by boat.  So there are no cars or motor bikes.  My Lonely Planet guidebook resources described this area as having the best beaches in Thailand where you can "scale the limestone cliffs and recuperate on the sparkling beaches and in the blissful jade waters."  Railay is well known for its abundant rock climbing so it was a nice mix of families enjoy the beach and gritty climbers enjoying the walls. 

I guy I went to high school with, who is now teaching English in Bangkok, happened to be travelling around and was staying at the beach next door so it was fun to meet up with him and his friends.  As title of this blog describes, it really is a small world sometimes.  He was travelling with some folks from the Reno area who decided it would be fun to take a boat out to to the islands of limestone karst cliffs that rise vertically out of the ocean to try our hand at a type of climbing called 'deep water soloing.'  It was an amazing experience to jump off the boat, swim over to the cliff, pull yourself up onto the rock with a rope ladder and scale up the cliff until you couldn't go any further and then drop into the aquamarine waters below where the tropical fish were waiting to greet you.  The morning of the last day, we hiked up to a cave and explored through to the other side where we then rappelled down off the cliff on the other side.  Fun times on the rocks at Railay Beach. 

New friends from the Netherlands, Truckee (CA), and Kings Beach (Tahoe) of all places!

I also happened to be there for the Thai festival of Loi Krathong.  Loi means 'to float' and krathong is a lotus shaped sculpture of sorts that can float, mostly made of banana leaves.  A candle and some small offerings are usually placed in the krathong and set out to sea in this case (or any body of water).  The festival is believed to originate in an ancient practise of paying respect to the spirit of the waters, and the act of floating away the candle in the raft is symbolic of letting go of all grudges so that you can start life on a better foot.  Some people put fingernails and hair in the krathong to 'let go of the bad parts of oneself' in a thought that it will bring good luck.  In addition to the floating krathongs, there were also many floating paper lamps that people released into the sky.  A very beautiful event to witness!

I put together another little slideshow of photos from the trip, but I'm still having difficulty figuring out how to load anything of video form to the blog in standard or high definition even now that I have a really good internet connection.  Any suggestions welcome, but in the mean time I've resorted to posting it on YouTube, but even then its not that great of quality.  Oh well, maybe when I have more time I can figure it out.  You can only use this link to view the video, you will not be able to search for it on YouTube, but feel free to share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4x0aW-H5o