We caught an overnight bus that took way too long at every stop including the dinner breaks at 12h30am to get to Bangkok and meet our mate Liam. We tracked him down at his guesthouse bright and early at 7am and discovered that he had had a rough night on Khao San rd (most probably with the lady boys) and wasnt feeling too hot. To treat his ailing sore head we went and watched a movie at Bangkoks largest shopping complex zone - Siam Square. It isnt even 1 huge shopping center but rather several large malls all next to each other each the size of Sandton City with the crown jewel Siam Paragon reaching up 6 stories. As big as it was it took us almost 3 hours to find the Imax just because every mall has a cinema and we ended up going to several before hitting gold. Wow is that place big!
That night we hit Khao San rd again and enjoyed Halloween Thai style. Basically that means lots of "buckets", these plastic tupperwares are chock full of spirits and red bull and boy do they pack a punch. Hello Halloween! That night Liam had taken out his brand new camera and managed to take almost 200 photos of himself, us and other random people we met on Khao San, the next morning there were even some pics of him smooching what we all believe to be authentic Thai Lady Boys....oops.
After another day of shopping at what must be the worlds largest market - Chanuckanchuc?sp? We had some sore feet, over worked senses, new outfits and a new piece of art that the V had been dreaming about for almost a month and a very sore and lighter wallet for the Mavrix!
After one more uneventfull day in Bangkok we got on the cheapest night bus we found and headed for the South and Krabi. As the cliche goes, you get what you pay for and in this case they should have been paying us! During the night the M found a Thai guy crawling through the aisle while all on board were sleeping, when the M confronted him he pretended to be trying to sleep as well and at the time this seemed half feesible in M's groggy "just woke up" state, but still M held on. After a mini struggle the Thai left and everyone slept clutching their luggage a little tighter. At 5am the bus came to a sudden halt and everyone was thrown off the bus as we would all be getting connections to seperate destinations from here. The speed with which they did this seemed to suprise us all but made perfect sense once we started searching our belongings. They had rifled through almost everyones big bags held in storage while we slept and managed to get away with Liams phone and many others valuables. They also did the peculiar thing of accidentally putting things into the wrong bags e.g. V found someone ELSE's bikini in her bag and was not the only one with such a suprise. Luckily the Mavrix had nothing taken as our bags were mostly locked (M's lock was mostly broken now though) and our valuables were always kept with us, helps to have some South African paranoia once in a while!
As daylight arrived we started to relax as we arrived near the beach and the spectacular vistas of Krabi. Our destination was the little beach of Ton Sai which we would have to catch a long tail boat to. Arriving was like stepping into climbers paradise and the set of the Beach all at once! Here there were beautiful warm waters, white beaches and huge limestone cliffs rising high out of the oceans waters all around. As you walked on the beach you would see climbers trying out difficult problems with the waves gently lapping up against their shoes, as the sun came down we watched one of the most beautiful sunsets we had yet to see, with people Kayaking in the distance and climbing to our rear. Then once the sun was down and the stars were out, firedancers made their way to the beach and danced to Bob Marley and the wailers. This was our kind of place and the next week would be carried out at our kind of pace!
We spent the next day kayaking round the dramatic limestone karsts scattered around the horizon, it was great fun with many overhangs to chill out and catch a nap underneath and many islands and caves to explore. W paddled back with the sun going down behind us and sat silently watching it dip its head behind the blanket of a crimson sea....poetic no?
Next couple of days were all about climbing, Krabi and Ton Sai specifically are world renowned for their climbing so we had to make a plan and get in on the action. The beauty of the climbing here is that you have massive sheer cliffs falling straight into a beautiful ocean down below, many of the climbs are right on the beach and often the exposure is huge and a little daunting. The Mavrixs that we are loved it and had many happy hours pulling ourselves up the walls. We even organised a day of deep water soloing, unfortunately the V was a little sick so the M went off into the sea himself. Deep water soloing basically involves going out into the middle of the ocean on a boat, climbing up onto one of the cliffs that poke out and then when you are so high that you are pooing yourself you jump back into the water. This was great fun for the M but was a touch on the scary side...even Mavrix feel fear...
During this time (a little over a week) we had become seperated from good ole Liam who had headed off to Ko Phang Nyang for some partying. The Mavrix keen to get on the road again and mindful of the short time they had left in South East Asia went back up to Bangkok and straight across to Cambodia same day.
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