Arrival in Tonsai, aka Taxis, Trains, Buses

Well, here I am, typing on a computer within view of the Andaman sea, surrounded by towering cliffs of beautiful pocketed limestone, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. I can hardly believe it's true! But it wasn't that easy. I had some friends who just flew down here and now I see why...its kind of a pain in the ass to get here!

I knew that I was going to be in Thailand for about 6 weeks, and you only get 30 days on a transit Visa. So I was led to believe that all I had to do was go down to the Immigration office, pay $15 and be on my way. So after I had a nice, relaxing, two hour Thai massage (that only cost $10!) I hoped in a Taxi with all of my bags and immediately was on the edge of my seat driving through the terrible trafic! 30 minutes later I was standing in line at the Thai Immigration office where the nice uniformed man told me that I was out of luck, but have a great day. So I saddled up with my 50lbs of gear (ropes and quickdraws are NOT lightweight items designed for backpacking with!) and walked the two miles to the US Embassy. I didn't know it was two miles at the time...the map I had didn't have a scale. Who the hell makes maps without scales! I guess things like that bristle a geologist. Anyways, after arriving I was quickly asked to leave by a guard who barely spoke english. Feeling miffed I sat down across the street and realized I was right next to the US consulate office. I headed inside only to be told that they take off the last friday of every month and I should come back monday. Well, that was out of the question because my train ticket said I was leaving for Krabi that afternoon.

So, after having spent the better part of a day, all I wanted to do was get to the train station, find some food, and rest for a bit. It was another mile or so to the subway station which took me directly to Hualumphong train station. I was booked on a 12 hour sleeper train to Surat Thani, and then a bus to Krabi. Thankfully there was air conditioning! The train was, of course, about 2 hours late, which turned out not to matter anyways. The ride was manageable, and I think I slept a reasonable amount to boot. We arrived in Surat Thani at 7AM where I then had to catch two different buses to get to Krabi. Once there I headed down town amidst the bustle, found some delicious Pad Thai at a street vendor, and tried to understand how I was going to get to Tonsai Beach.

Tonsai and Railay East and West are separated from the rest of the world by tall limestone cliffs. The only way to get there is by longtail boat from Ao Nang. I read that the easiest way to get to Ao Nang was on a Sawangthaw (a taxi made by putting seats in the bed of a pickup) and that they would find me. Sure enough it only took 5 minutes after lunch for one to find me and then another 30 minutes to get to Ao Nang. Getting a boat from there was super easy and then, bam, I arrived on a beautiful beach. Its pretty hard to believe that I'm here. I've been planning this for long enough that it just feels unreal to be here. But I AM here and now comes the task of finding people to climb with until Emily arrives in a week and a half. Stay tuned for more adventures!