Thailand Part 1: Phuket & Railay Beach

Ahhh Thailand!  The land of...well I guess it's most famous for it's party scene isn't it?  Tim and I did plenty of throwing up, but none of it was alcohol related.    But more about that later!

We've been dying to go to Thailand for awhile!  I mean, Tim would prefer to go to Tokyo, but since I'm the control freak who actually does the planning, I went for Thailand!  We have lots of friends who have gone there before, and have heard nothing but great things!  So this November, we spent two glorious weeks jet setting around the country!

First Stop: Phuket

En-route from Bangkok - Phuket

We were only in Phuket for a day.  We were staying in the "party town" of Patong, but we didn't see any action!  Perhaps that was because we were walking around in early afternoon and fell asleep by early evening (darn time change).  

Our first stop, obviously, was to walk around and find some Thai food!

We both had Phad Thai, one vegetarian and one with chicken I think!

The national beer of Thailand!  It's no Seattle Microbrew!

It was delicious!

Next, we walked around our area a little bit.  I knew we were only about two blocks from the beach, but we never made it there!  We were catching the tail end of a typhoon that hit the Philippines.  We only got some cloudy weather, so we were thankful for that!

Sunrise!  We both woke up at 3AM.  Time change!

Early the next morning, we hoped in a cab to the Rassada Pier to hop a boat to some islands!

Well actually our first stop wasn't an island, it was a beach on the other side of the bay!  Railay Beach in Krabi, home to some of the most famous rock climbing in the world!

The Thai travel industry is extremely organized!

The boat ride was fun!  It was about two hours long and we got to see some gorgeous views! 

Second Stop: Railay Beach

Gorgeous right?  This was our favorite stop on the whole trip!

Our first stop was lunch!  This tiny little town was lacking in authentic Thai food, and it wasn't as cheap as most places either.  I'd actually say the food in Seattle was a lot better than the food in Railay Beach.  But, this was a resort area, so you have to expect bland flavors!  We did find this tiny little path hidden in the woods with some GREAT food later on, but you didn't get the ocean front dining there!

We spent most of our time here laying on the beach or by the pool.  Shocking I know!

Our room was gorgeous!

We highly recommend this hotel!  It was wonderful!

And the sunset was even more gorgeous!

There were stray cats and dogs everywhere, I just loved it!  This little guy decided to jump in my lap one night!

And most of the stray dogs were shih-tzu-like, so I especially loved them!

I was most excited to do some rock climbing in Thailand!  We signed up for a full day trip on our second day in Railay Beach.  It was amazing!

Our guides climbing these rock faces like little monkeys!  They were so quick and nimble!  And they knew every single little crevice.  Crazy!

This crazy lady was climbing up a near vertical cliff!  It was insane!

Our two guides

I was so proud of Tim!  He got to the top of every single rope line!  He was the best in both our groups!

Lunch break!

And back to climbing!

Whew!  We were in freaking 99% humidity!  Every time we came down from a climb, we were literally dripping in sweat!  I got pretty light headed during lunch and almost didn't come back for the afternoon session, but I was so glad I did!    It was amazing!

We celebrated that night with a feast!

 

 

Our hotel had an excellent breakfast buffet too!  Actually all our hotels has awesome breakfast buffets!  I loved having so many options for free in the morning!

That about covers the first few days of our trip!  The next stop will be Phi Phi Island!