Railay

Well we made it to Railay, an awesome beach community cut off from mainstream tourist thailand. No road can reach Railay due to some huge limestone cliffs cutting it off from the nearby cities, so longboats are the only option. This was great because it cut down on crowds and made the whole place feel like another world. I just finished reading "Jurrassic Park - the lost world" so we half expected to see a couple dinosaurs pop out of the jungle. Sadly this never happend... But we did get to see plent of very original haircuts. Railay is a popular spot for rock climbing, with its huge limestone cliffs and ocean views. This attracts quite the large hippie climber population, and with the hippies came the dreads and wild hair. Something I had never seen, is the rat tail dread. Imagine a full head of dreads, then shave everything but one or two that come out of the back of the head, or the dread mullet was also a favorite.... we decided that the local climbers got the hair cuts to prove that they were locals, what tourist/anyone else would get that style unless you were planning on sticking around in a community cut off from the outside world.

A view of railay from above.

A cool swim through we did when the high tide covered the whole tube.

TonSai beach, Railay (some night climing happening in the background)

On Ton sai beach we got lucky and happened to be there when a thai reggae group was playing at one of the beach venues. They were great and did a bunch of covers and originals (atleast a 4 hour set. The fire dancers came out with the band too.

We also did some hiking around Railay and heard that there was a lagoon on the center of the pennisula. It was surrounded on all sides by couple hundred foot walls and the only way into the arena was up and down one of the steepest trails I have ever hiked/mostly climbed. (Also note: hiking in thailand is the best way completely drenched in minutes) The Lagoon was beautiful and was totally worth the trek.

We are now on our way to Koh Samui to get our visas extended and do some more diving!

Koh Lanta / Mantas

After leaving the Phi Phi Islands we headed south by boat to Koh Lanta. We arrived to find empty beaches, great food, cheap lodging and plenty more of Thailand to explore.

We spent about a week in Koh Lanta soaking up the sun and the salt. A couple of the days we rented a scooter (only about 7 dollars a day) to explore the large island. We found some great snorkeling and some cool underwater swim through.

We also came across a couple Elephants and Caitlin got to feed them!

I decided to dive again and ended up going with a Scandinavian company called Lanta Diver. They ran a tight ship and had much better prices than on the Phi Phi islands. I decided to do two of the most famous sites in Thailand, Hin Daeng and Hin Muaeng. These sites are 2 undersea coral pinnacles about a 4 hour boat ride south of koh lanta, and were supposedly the best places to see manta rays and whale sharks. They use the pinnacles of underwater cleaning stations. I got very lucky and on both dives got to see a 5 meter wide manta for close to 20 minutes on my first dive at hin daeng and then for the last 5 minutes on hin muaeng. It was amazing to see such a large animal underwater, very other worldly. It seemed that the mantas liked to show off and play with the divers and were not spooked at all. At one point I was only a couple meters away, breathtaking.

We stuck around for the rest of the week to see a couple other beaches and enjoy the inexpensive living for a couple more days. Koh Lanta has definitely been my favorite place so far!

Well up next is Railey, a boat only access beach town, known for its rock climbing and caves!

Kata beach, Phuket to diving in the Phi Phi Islands

Hey since the last post Caitlin and I have covered a lot of ground. We left Khoa Lak for Phuket riding a much less air conditioned bus we managed to hail from the side of the road. we arrived midday in "phuket town" a grimy commuter city nowhere near the beach. we needed a place to dump our packs so we found a super cheap room and rented a scooter (only about 7 dollars for 24hours!) to go exploring. we toured a couple beaches and decided to stay in Kata, a smaller town righ on an awesome beach. We got lucky with an awesome guest house to stay in for about 5 dollars each and spent the next 4 days swimming, snorkeling and sampling the local fare.


After a couple days in Kata we caught a boat to the nearby Phi Phi islands. One of the more beautiful places in all of Thailand, but sadly the most tourist overrun. Their are no roads so all transport is done in longboats around the island.

All driving is done standing and seeing the locals muscle around converted car engines with 15 ft props seemed like quite the feat!


I heard that the phi phi islands were rated in the top 10 dive sites around the world so i decided to give them a try even though the dive trips are a bit more spendy than the rest of the country... I did a 2 dive boat trip with an outfit called Viking Divers to the 2 small islands just to the south of the main islands. All i can say is the reefs were amazing! I got to see a sea turtle, multiple rays and the larges schools of fish I have ever seen, im talking 5-7000 fish schools. Truly incredible!

Awesome shirt.


One of the days staying on phi phi island we decided to go snorkeling at a place called sharks point. It seemed like a long shot but i had heard that it was quite common to see small black tipped reef sharks early in the morning in a rocky cove just to the left on the beach from the place we were staying. I convinced Caitlin to come with and we swam out to the point around 9 am. After snorkelling about for 40 minutes i finally saw a small 2 ft long black tip slowly swimming by. We followed the shark for a while until it finally outpaced us. We surfaced and decided to head back for breakfast. Only to find that after swiming maybe 20 yards we came across another shark, this one nearly 5 feet long. we watched patiently as is meandered along. Then another showed up about the same size! then another even larger about 6ft long.... then another.... to our nervous amazement we soon had 4 differed sharks swiming within eye sight! We turned slowly in the water taking in this amazing sight. At one point one of the smaller sharks got curious and came straight for me only to turn away about 5 feet from my face. We decided we had had enough when we noticed the sharks begining to circle us. wild.

The people watching is great in Thailand, with tourists coming from all over the world. Caitlin and I have enjoyed watching the very posed photographs the most and have tried capturing some of the best. (and then recreating...)


Hope all is well at home!


Some wild wiring in kata...looks pretty safe. It also emits a nice hummm 24/7...