May 15th, 2006 - Ao Nang Memories

Diving in the oopen waters around the island of Phi Phi was stunning. Both Laure and I agreed that the great barrier reef was more impressive, but we had some realy nice dives while we learned all of the necessary steps to dive. Our instructor was astonished at how well the two of us controlled our breathing and conserved our air! He actually boasted to other instructors the fact that all four of our dives were over an hour long. Needless to say the third day of our course was back in the pool and was pretty slack and boring after having been in the ocean. Day 4 brought some pleasant surprises, we saw two sea turtles, a morey eel and an absolutely surreal swim through. The swim through is a small cave like entrance just big enough to 'swim through' formed by different types of coral (fan and boulder mainly) and you pass into an open space with the sun shining through...very cool. We wrote our final exams on the boat and both excelled without any drama or studying. That afternoon, I enrolled in a day of rock climbing on the world renouned peninsula of Rai lai and ton sai, while Laure invested her time into a Thai cooking course for the afternoon. All the while we continued to enjoy getting our food from street vendors and sitting peacefully on our balcony looking out towards the ocean and limestone cliffs of Ton Sai...I miss Ao Nang!
The climbing trip was everything I imagined. Since it's low season I had a personal guide Moe, who although not overly talkative, was an outstanding climber and excellent instructor. After catching a long boat to Railai (the limestone cliffs block all street access.), we headed straight accroos the narrow peninsula to Rai Lai east where there are an abundance of top roping cliffs on the edge of the bay. We started climbing straight away to beat the tides. Moe would climb to the top setting up leads on the permanent hooks anchored in the walls while I belayed, then I would follow suit and unclip all of the leads and attach them to my harness before continuing to the top. The climbs were all chosen based on the faint memory of my abilities from Montreal at a level of 5'9 (5+ Thai system equivalent), but by mid day we adjusted to 5'10c (6+). The climbs all had a stunning backdrop of the peninsula and some went as high as 30 m! As the tides crept in, we had to catch the rope from falling in the water as the amount of usable sand diminished to nothing. We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the popular east side for a couple hours break while the tides came in. Next it was off to Phranang bay (stunning) where we entered a narrow crevice and climbed a wall that had very small hand holds at the bottom, from the top the view back on Phr nang was equally stunning to Rai Lai east. Next it was a stroll down the beach to a cave, where contrary to my expectations, we started rising higher and higher as we pregressed deeper into the cave. Next thing you know, I had a flashlight and was hiking in the dark up smal bamboo ladders and along guide ropes until we finally made it to the otherside, albeit 20m higher looking out accross Rai Lai West. We abseilled down, ie repelled and then walked down the beach to get a long boat back to Ao Nang. Overall, an awesome day trip with AoNang Climber...Thanks Moe!