"the lagoon"

now, the best way to travel in thailand is on air asia. no more buses for me.....although, i think i have sworn this to myself at least 3 times, i now will not travel on a bus for the remaining month in thailand. speaking of which...i have (sadly) officially entered my last month in this glorious country....and will be cherishing every last minute i am here...but at the same time, i've decided i'll be ready to go back to LA (and real life) come may 18th.




back to my kraby/rai lay beach story. so, we got back to bangkok at 6am on thursday morning and did some errands and interneting and then got onto a plane at 5pm headed for krabi. we arrived in the nick of time, a short 1 hour and 5 minute flight all the way down south. then, we got onto a bus that would take us to ao nang which is like a port to get to rai lay beach....and for clarification, it is NOT an island, but rather a part of krabi that is unreachable by land transportation. we sat at ao nang for a long long time waiting for 6 other people to come (because each boat takes 10 people and it is a flat 1000 baht fee for the boat, so the more people, the merrier...) but 3 beers and a bag of pretzels later, we decided we had waited long enough and decided to suck up the cost and each pay 250 baht. once we got to rai lay we found a place to stay (it met neither of my two requirements, but i was so happy to be there because i hadn't slept in over 36 hours) and then ate dinner, chilled at "the last bar" and called it a night.

the second day, we spent the entire day at the beach. i hid in the shade for most of it, but ended up catching some rays towards the end of the day. we walked around a bit when the tide went out because it goes out so far it feels like you could walk forever! we watched the sunset and decided to go home and have another relaxing night. the beaches on rai lay are so much more peaceful than any of the other beaches i've been to and it was perfect to just lie around, read, listen to music, swim a little and eat ice cream all day. we rested that night to prepare for the intense activities the next day promised to bring!

and so it did....we woke up earlyish...about 800 and then met our rock climbing teacher named "guy" (who we later found out was only 18!) and headed for the cliffs. guy wasted no time. we arrived at some random cliff/rock/thing coming out of the ocean, to tie a "8 knot" and then said with sharp rocks at the base and guy plopped his mat down, set the rope on top of it and showed us how "climb." jon went first because he's the expert ;), and andy and i watched in awe and debated over who would be the next one up. it turns out that guy was actually a really awesome teacher, and helped us out a lot...i was able to get to the anchor (top) of every climb and he was able to tell me where to put my feet and how to stand up and not to use my knees at all and not to use my arms too much!! plus, he was SO awesome, and chill...just like all of the other people we met on rai lay. i swear, they were all thai rastas...it reminded me a bit of hawaii and thailand mixed up together...best of both worlds! (and, this is off topic, but i think that my favorite part of rai lay, and the perfect way to describe the culture of the place, is that there is absolutely no law enforcement there, and none is needed. its a small little village where everyone knows everyone, and they all take care of each other's kids, and hang out like a big happy family). back to rock climbing....so, we did 3 different climbs in the morning, and every time, i didn't think i could do much more because my arms and legs ached, but it was so so so much fun. it's like a huge game/puzzle where you have to figure out where to go next and where you can jam your fingers into and how long you can hang on with your toes before falling ;) i'll definitely rock climb when i got back to the states. in the afternoon, guy took us to a super duper cool cave that overlooked a beautiful beach. we had to hike up the pitch black cave, and then suddenly, there was a ton of light and we could see out over the whole coastline. then, we got to repel a pretty good distance down the mountain to a new climbing spot. i was only able to manage one climb in the afternoon and then i got too tired and it was windy and actually a little cold...plus, it looked like it was going to rain and i didn't want to get stuck mid-climb in the rain ;) then, we hiked back to the east beach (from the west beach) to where we were staying.

on the third day, we were planning to relax at another beach on rai lay (the prettier of the two beaches) and let our muscles recover from the strenuous activities of the day before. but, no no. along came a grand idea to hike to the "hidden lagoon" against all warning that it was a pretty long hike, and we probably shouldn't do it in slippers, we went... and, i swear. it was one of the hardest hikes i have ever done. harder than the koko head hike at home. at first, we had to climb up a red dirt hill (and we should have known it was going to be hard because there were ropes along the trail to help people get up there). this hill went on forever, and once we reached the top we had to go down a bit and ended up in a jungle like area that was sort of in a lagoon shape and position. andy and i looked at each other and were like "wtf. is this supposed to be the LAGOON??? don't tell me we hiked all this way just to see a huge tree in a dried up swamp looking area....we should have known better than to hike to a LAGOON in dry season." but little did we know, we were not even half way there....so we went around the huge tree and found another small path leading up and down and all around and finally got to an cliff. it was a big cliff...with more ropes hanging down. i think it was vertical from what i remember. and there were three of them...it was like never ending and praying that we would reach some sort of lagoon at the end of all of this....so, we scaled three cliffs (and i am NOT exaggerating) with our bags and towels (all of which ended up in my bag that jon carried....) and finally, after the third and final cliff we saw it. and it was beautiful. nothing like that dumb tree in a ditch that we thought was the lagoon....it is too amazing to describe in words....suddenly a huge blue body of water appears and there are plants and big rock and caves encompassing the water. and there were fish and swimming lizards living in it. i think it took us over an hour to get there. but oh boy was it worth every single minute of hiking. it truly was a secret lagoon and we hung out there for as long as we could before it started drizzling....the whole time, we felt like we were in jurassic park or something...and according to andy, he saw more animals than during his whole time at gibbons!!! the hike was harder than rock climbing, i think. but it was so much fun. also, when we were exploring, we found a cave that had a hammock and sleeping mats and jars and lanterns in it...it was so eerie and creepy because we were joking the whole time that our adventure could be like some scary movie (or like the movie "the beach") where some dumb tourists hike so far into the jungle and come upon people living there and they get stuck and have to survive on lagoon food...etc. you know...the typical scary/adventure movie ;) charity had a whole scene and plot in her head and narrated it to us all the while. hiking up was a lot easier than hiking down into the lagoon, and we were glad to be on paved land again. finally, after the crazy hike to the lagoon, we were off to the beach. the thai guys from the bar were at the beach that day and we hung out with them for a while....so nice....can't get over it. (look at our facebook albums to see the pictures in normal size. mine is: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232317&l=3de04&id=3406342 and jon's is: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232315&l=fc61b&id=3422511...charity's and andy's to follow)

today, we woke up and checked out of our hotel and then caught a long tail boat back to ao nang. we were quite lucky and did not have to wait very long for the boat to fill up and ended up at ao nang around 1pm. we hung out at mc donalds and starbucks until 5 playing cards and reading. then, got on our plane back to bangkok. it was so so funny though because when we arrived at the airport, they were like, good thing you are early, the flight is leaving early tonight. and we all looked at each other, and were like, "can a flight really leave EARLY???" and there was no warning of any sort, so i guess if you came right on time, you would have missed the flight....so strange. it was scheduled for 650pm and we were literally pushing back from the gate at 630pm. i had no sooner sat down before we were moving. oh, you gotta love air asia!

now, i think i will be in bangkok for the rest of my time in thailand. i might try to squeeze a trip to cambodia or laos in between the end of finals and may 18, but i might just hang out here and enjoy bangkok :) we actually have to do some work and study for finals so that we don't fail our classes....i think i have two presentations tomorrow...but i'm not really sure! hopefully they go well if i do! and, i think it has officially gotten too hot to walk to school, so i will be catching taxis from now on...lazy girl will have to hit the gym upon arrival to la.

night night, xoxo, mer