Rai Leh

We've spent the last 3 days in Rai Leh and had a blast. Rai Leh is a coastal area isolated from the mainland by limestone mountains. This means there are beautiful beaches, caves, and cliffs to explore. Rai Leh is only reachable by boat so we took a 30 minute ride on one of the ubiquitous longtail boats.


A longtail boat plying the waters of Krabi town
It's monsoon season on this side of Thailand which translates to low season. This was actually a blessing, as Rai Leh felt much quieter and the beaches were not crowded at all. THe only problem was the occasional tropical shower. The water on the beach was some of the warmest we've ever felt, and the beaches are surrounded by beautiful limestone cliffs. On arrival we jumped to the beach on the west side (there are a total of 4 beaches in Rai Leh) and enjoyed the warm waters. I did get my first Jellyfish sting though which was quite nasty. One moment I'm enjoying the water and eyeing the storm clouds, and then I felt something stringy across my hand. As I flick my hadn to brush it off I feel a stinging pain all around my hand! It swelled up a little bit but has almost returned to normal now, with just light marks where I was stung.


Rashmi on Phra Nang beach


My hand after the jellyfish attack
The limestone cliffs of Rai Leh also make it one of the premiere climbing destinations of Thailand and SEA! Knowing this I had to get out there and try it out. There were numerous climbing shops offering both guides and equipment rental, so we were able to rent all the gear we needed and head out to a local wall. The climbing was great and the views at the top were very rewarding. It was interesting climbing in a foreign country and seeing the contributions of local and foreign climbers to the scene. They use the French grading system and we climbed a few 5's, 6a's, a 6a+ (5.10b) that was a spicy lead, and a 6b(~5.10c). Not bad for not climbing for a few months!

Rash pulling on the Diamond Wall North Face

Cranking on a stalactite
The best thing about climbing in this area is the surrounding scenery! There are climbs right by the side of the beach of varying difficulties. A lot of them are pretty overhung with good holds and pockets. Who wants to go on a climbing trip to Thailand?

There's a top rope anchor on there somewhere...
Besides climbing there are numerous caves to explore. We spent an afternoon wandering around and looking at the different caves. There were great formations inside and out, and the aura in the area was almost that of a cathedral.




Inside the Diamond cave
A local legend of the island is that an Indian princess was shipwrecked on this peninsula on her way to be married. She died of a broken heart and now inhabits one of the local caves. Fishermen leave offerings of carved linggas to her for good luck and increased fertility. We found quite the collection lying about in the cave!

A local woman contemplating in the cave
One of the last things we did in Rai Leh was go to a viewpoint that overlooks the bay. This involved scrambling up the backside of a cliff which was pretty hard given that it had been pouring off and on through the day. We arrived at the view right when the sun was shining and Rash said something to the effect of "This is the most beautiful view I've ever seen ever." It was pretty impressive to see the area from above.

Scrambling to the viewpoint

Made it to the viewpoint!
We've headed back to Krabi town as the rain has started to hit in full force now, we'll look into hitting up some national parks nearby and then eventually head to the Gulf Coast of Thailand.