Trying Freedom

The title is a bit misleading as I’ve been here for nearly a month now but the motivation to write and enjoy doing so comes in waves, but, better late than never…

After some of the flights I’ve had to take already this trip, it felt easy to get to Thailand, just a 3-hour trip to Bangkok and then another 1-hour trip to Krabi in the south, a destination I’d picked because it was well known for climbing and being more relaxed than what seemed to be the typical backpacker experience of going out and partying.

I booked an excellent 4-star hotel with a rooftop pool for my first few days as I needed it after my experiences in Nepal, which you would’ve (should’ve) seen from the last blog. After a day of travelling and barely eating (due to some very poor planning) and not arriving until late evening, I left any exploring until the next day.

The first realisation was that although the hotel was nice, it was entirely out of the way of anything, so first on the agenda was to rent a scooter and head out. As I’d chosen to stay in an area of Krabi called Ao Nang, I was only a few minutes from the beach which felt amazing, being by the sea is a happy place for me and I’d missed it since Australia without really realising.

The first few days completely got away from me enjoying the western creature comforts and it was finally time to climb, something I’ve been thinking about even since leaving the UK as I question what I’m going to do with myself since leaving my last job. May sound ridiculous as I’ve just left Nepal but that was a completely different type of climbing, this is outdoor sport climbing.

After being taken advantage of and losing money for one day’s climbing which I’d booked prior to reaching Thailand, we weren’t deterred and headed over to Railay Beach via one of the famous local long boats to explore and hopefully find another company that could get us out onto some rock.

Climbing aside, Railay Beach was stunning in itself so having the bonus of climbing some of the most world-renowned routes made this place something special. We went straight for it and ended up booking an afternoon of top rope climbing with Railay Rock Climbing.

I can’t recommend them highly enough, I enjoyed the first session so much that I ended up going back two more times, eventually trying my hand at some lead climbing which was what I really wanted to get back to as it’s got to be my favourite climbing discipline. The feeling I ended up finishing with told me this is what I’m supposed to be doing, I guess that’s something for me to get my head around properly at some point but this is enough for now.

One thing to be aware of if you are planning on making your own trip to the beach is that you should get the long boat back before 6 pm unless you are happy to pay the price of a private boat to bring you back later which although I wasn’t, we had no choice… did make for a good photo though.

The next day we went on a one-day Phi Phi island boat tour, there were 7 stops on the tour and to be completely honest I have absolutely no idea what they were, however, you have to visit, the views are absolutely stunning and the snorkelling along the way was amazing too, unfortunately, I managed to not take any videos or photos though so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Somehow everything above took me up to the two-week mark in Thailand, so far so good but I felt it was time to venture onwards. Following the same climbing agenda I found a small island called Koh Tao which was rumoured to have a good mixture of different climbing, with that we booked our bus and ferry tickets and departed on our hungover journey there.

Koh Tao has been the perfect place to give me the time to get a bit of routine back following moving around quite a bit so far, the island gives me a similar vibe to Bali but on a smaller scale which I really like, it also means that it’s not really possible to burnout as I did there, so I’m conscious to relax and get back to a kind of normal as I’ve been feeling slightly out of it over the past week.

The island makes doing so easy as it’s beautiful, I should say that originally we were only supposed to spend 3 nights here but in a similar style to Krabi, we’re already two weeks in and when you’re surrounded by this, it’s hard to get the motivation to go back into big cities or even away from the coast so for now along with a 30-day extension to my visa, this is home.

Thanks to tripping over a rock after getting off a longboat and taking a chunk out of my heel, I’m yet to put on some uncomfortable shoes and go climbing so that’s still on the to-do list, however, in the meantime, I have completed my open water scuba diving course and also treated myself to a tattoo, both of which I’ll probably end up doing more of in my time here.