Is this Paradise (aka bitten, burnt and bruised)?

Have I died and gone to heaven? Just check out our pictures from the past couple of weeks climbing on the Pra-nang Peninsular, Krabi, Thailand.Despite climbing around the world for all these years I have never been to anywhere so warm with beautiful beaches, amazing food (and cheap)and excellent climbing to boot. It seems that I have been a bit slow to catch on with this one, because when you get talking to some of the folks hanging out at Tonsai Beach, it turns out that many of them return each year and as a result a little transient community seems to exist. It's quite a family atmosphere, and I'm told one of the places that still remains within the budget traveller's purse. Greg visited here about 15 years ago before he got into climbing and says that the two Ralei beaches were more "backpacker" in those days compared to the posh (and some a bit package) resorts there now.
The Pra-nang Peninsular is only accessible by boat, so we had to catch a longtail from Krabi to the landing spot at Ralei East. We then spent an age in the swealtering heat making our way over a small hill pass in the middle of the peninsular to get to the other side, Tonsai. Boy, were we mozzified by the time we arrived there. To make matters worse. the accomodation at Tonsai is more within the jungle and them mozzies do love the shade (and our hot sweaty bodies).Our guidebook misled us a bit on this one as it says you can only walk at low tide - we only found out on our arrival that this was wrong. Here's a picture of our little bungalow we called home for a week. Bathroom with cold shower out the back.
Getting started on the climbing was a major head sort for both of us (me, Liz, especially). Firstly, we hadn't rock climbed or used our arms for months. Greg climbed quite a bit last Summer, but I only managed about 2 outings onto rock in 2010 and that's shameful. So we rooted around for easy climbs to help get our heads together. There were a small handfull of 5s (French Grade) and a slightly better scattering of 6As. Problem for us, though, was that in order to find these climbs, one had to do a lot of walking in between the different venues (remember it's very very hot in the sun). In the end, we climbed and walked all around the peninsular and by about day three, the head thing was coming together and I was back into the flowing kind of climbing I really enjoy. Very steep vertical to overhanging walls with big pockets and natural threads was the general characteristic of the rock. Many short pumpy routes and only a few multi-pitches which were well out of our grade to attempt. What bliss to go climb a bunch of lovely sport routes and then go for a swim in warm water on a clean beach, and then nip over to a beachside foodstall for fresh pineapple on a stick (or a bit of papaya salad). Am I rubbing this in too much - sorry?
Down at Tonsai I have never seen so many fit athletic bodies all in one place at the same time both of the male and female variety. Average age I would say about 30. There was quite a scattering of 6 packs and bulging biceps(apolgies to all clients of Awesome Walls). Fortunally our egos are reasonably robust and we didn't take it too personally, but I do admit to feeling a little self concsious as we took off our sweaty T-shirts to expose our pale (Greg) and flabby (me, Liz) flesh. However, I felt we had a cause to keep the flag flying for the over 40s! Oh yes, and there were older climbers too and they were just as ripped as the younger guys, along with all the other tribal belonging stuff like tatoos, piercings and dreadlocks.
Climbing aside, one of the highlights for me was going on an evening snorkling trip with the self named Captain Yum Yum. My sad attempts at underwater photography are on the gallery. It's really hard though. You line up your subject, yet whilst doing this start floating up - not on really. Really loved this and want to do more, more , more. Highlight of the trip was swimming in a sea cave in the dark and watching the bio-phospholuminescence. This experience left me absolutely in awe. It was like you had fairy wands attached to every limb and were scattering fairy dust every time you moved. Ahhh.....
A week further on, we dispatched oursleves to the island of Koh Phi Phi, where there was supposed to be more climbing, albeit more choices at our grade and less walking. Dear reader, you may recall this island as one of the worst hit spots after the 2004 (or was it 2005) Tsunami? Greg visited it before and it was very backpacker, but the developers have now moved in and it's a bit like an international (Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans)New Quay. Boom boom boom blares out the music from the bars and very hung over and lobster red people staggering around. Party town for the young singles! I should have realised this when the passengers on our ferry over were all tucking into their extra strong beers at 10am.
We only stayed for the two days as planned, but saying all this, the climbing was great, and it probably would have been a good idea to start here for the warm up, but I'm not sure if we could both face all that party atmosphere again being the old stuck in the muds we are.
Pictures here show some climbing , a view across Ralei West looking towards Tonsai, the riped dudes at Tonsai, our bungalow and at the top is the view from the belay at the top of the pitch on Koh Phi Phi. You can see the low level spit of land the tsunami swept over.
Next stop Bangkok en route for Cambodia!!