Tonsai, Thailand - a paradise.

The South of Thailand is full of gorgeous beaches and clear blue water.  Needless to say, I was extremely excited to get down there!  I started off in Krabi, spending only one night walking around the town before catching a long-tail boat to Tonsai beach.  In the morning, I walked to where the boats leave Krabi, but had to wait until there were at least eight people for the trip.  After about 45 minutes, we had everyone loaded and were on our way to Railay, the beach adjacent to Tonsai.

 

 

Even though you can see one beach from the other, there are no roads between the two.  The options are a 45 minute jungle trek, a 20 minute climb, or a 5 minute long tail boat.  Since I had my backpack on, I shelled out 50 baht ($1.50) and climbed into the boat.  Once there, I walked around Tonsai finding a small private bungalow (for about $5 a night) just a short 5 minute walk from the beach.  The electricity was off between the hours of 6 am and 6 pm, so I "had" to spend my days on the beach.  It was rough.  My first night in Tonsai happened to be the night of the big beach cleaning party...people got together in the morning to clean the beaches and then carried on the day with competitions and a massive party at night (ironically, leaving the beach trashed).  The competitions included rock climbing (did I mention that this area has world class climbing?), beach volleyball and fire shows.  Fire shows!  So...during the day I hung out with some new friends, attempting to avoid the sharp coral while swimming.  As night fell, booths began to pop up on the beach.  Every local business had their own - selling food, drinks, and shirts.  We grabbed some food and sat down to listen to the band that was playing.

As it got later, winners of the day's competition were announced....finishing up with the finalists from the previous night's fire competition.  So hundreds of people gathered around to watch the finalists twirling fire around to their own soundtrack.  One guy was doing nothing less than head banging while spinning the fire around.  It. Was. Incredible.  So what if he accidentally threw one into the crowd...it was pure talent!  

After a nice relaxing morning, the girls and I decided to rent a couple of kayaks and check out some caves.  They weren't quite as big as I expected, but they were still fun to explore via kayak.

We did a little snorkeling near by...

...and then settled on to Phra Nang Beach for a bit of relaxation.  Then we discovered something...well...interesting.  We knew there was a cave of this sort in the area, but we thought it was  quite far away.  We were wrong.  It's called the Phra Nang shrine.  It's dedicated to the spirit of a drowned princess and it's full of...well.  Phalluses.  Literally.  Everywhere.

So we finished up there and began to kayak our way back to Tonsai.  

The next day, the German guy I met while in Chiang Mai met me out at Tonsai.  We took the long way around to Railay, stopping in Diamond Caves on the way.

The plan was to get up to a look out point with gorgeous views of the area.  We crossed paths with a few monkeys on the way.

We sat at the bottom of the path to the lookout (an extremely steep climb) changing into regular shoes.  People had been feeding the monkeys - even giving them water bottles.  So I sat there, innocently changing my shoes with my backpack and water bottle on the bench next to me.  I noticed a silly little monkey slowly making his way toward me.  I stood up with him on the bench and my stuff between us.  I could see him eyeing it.  We both lunged for it at the same time....I knocked it to the ground and he swung at me, barely hitting me in the chest.  He turned slowly and wondered off...Luckily he didn't get my bag, and I didn't get bitten.  Cheeky little brat.  Anyways - so we started our climb, which wasn't as rough as I expected.

We made it to the lookout point and were not disappointed with the views:

On the way back down we ran into some more monkeys...this time at a comfortable distance.

We settled onto Phra Nang Beach for a much needed swim (bath) and a little sun.  

We headed back to Railay where we parted - he had to catch a boat back to Krabi, and I had to climb back to Tonsai.  I foolishly thought I would be leaving for Koh Tao the next morning.  My stomach had other plans.  I woke up extremely early, barely able to make it to the bathroom (thankfully I had my own place with a bathroom)...travelers sickness had hit me.  I made it six months without anything too bad, but Tonsai wasn't letting me off that easy.  I spent the entire day sleeping, reading, puking.  It was not my favorite day, but luckily only lasted a day.  The following morning I was just about back to myself, a little scared to eat, but ready to take the journey to Koh Tao.  I said goodbye to the rocks of Tonsai, but I'm already looking forward to my next visit.

~Jac