Thailand! At long last in the land of smiles...

Sunset on the water, Rai Ley Beach

Crossing the border seemed to lighten the sky and bring joy into my heart again... Not to oversell this, but I was getting tired of the surliness and big city impersonality of Malaysia, and just crossing into southern thailand put a smile on my face within minutes. Stopped at a hole in the wall bus station to change buses from Hat Yai to Krabi and had a rushed lunch at the restaurant next door, pad thai, price: 2 dollar canadian, so good there wasn't a scrap left on the plate after 10 minutes. Perhaps because of my choice of restaurants in Malaysia, or perhaps my choice of dishes, I can't remember a meal I wasn't at least partially wary of the contents of - Chicken curries marred by the thought of bird flu, Mee Goreng with gristle for added flavour, Roti Canai from a stall swarming with flies - switching to seafood, or thai food in general, has given me new confidence in what i'm eating.

Got to rai ley beach after dark aboard a longtailed boat (see above) and with enough time to follow a really nice new zealand couple down the beach past the expensive resorts to the cheap places - that can only be reached at certain points in the tide :) Nothing introduces you to a place like scrambling through waist deep water and over SHARP limestone boulders with a heavy backpack full of frivolous (and expensive) electronic devices. Slowed down on the second half of the crossing to help the guy behind me who'd tripped in the dark and broken his finger (a 90 degree bend in the wrong direction!) and guide him with my flashlight...

Rai Ley, or more specifically tonsai (the cheap section), beach is so beautiful I can't really describe it... limestone cliffs plunging into warm water, world class rock climbing and cheap meals on the beachfront, tiny bamboo bungalows perched on the hillsides. My 150 baht per night hut has a queen size bed, mosquito net, and an outdoor (no roof) toilet and shower. I went rock climbing today and prayed, swore, and scrabbled my way up the cliffs bathed in sweat - half from fear and half from the temperature.

At the end of the day i wandered back through the treacherous rock passage of the night before, but now at low tide, to change some traveller's cheques at the main resort and got caught in a massive thunderstorm which blew through. Lighting strikes, booming horizon to horizon thunder, and torrential rain - Sheltering under a rock overhang with the same new zealand couple from before, we realized that the heat of the rock face turned the freezing rain into warm rivulets and spent the time "showering" in the hot water.

I'm totally worn out, and a little lonely at having a huge empty queen size bed to myself, but things are pretty sweet down here in southern thailand.

The internet here is based on generators which power the island after dark, so probably no more posts until I hit Ko Phi Phi or Phuket, my next major destinations, but my plan now is for more of the same, more beautiful beaches, more outdoor activities, and more fabulous food...

In the land of smiles, mine is becoming one of the biggest...

Chris