To end my entry on my trip to Phranang Peninsula, I’ve decided to post some of my favourite photos taken from Anna-Rina (check out her new blog!), Cris and Edmund’s photo albums. Due to this trip, we’ve decided to focus on outdoor climbing a little bit more and we’re planning to buy a 70metres rope soon!
Food is probably one of the other best things of Krabi. My personal favourites would be the roasted chicken, banana pancake, fresh mango and pineapple.
I had roasted chicken for 3 days consecutively until I fell sick on the 4th day. I had sore throat and fever. I think I ate too much roasted chicken.
Coconut milkshake – drink in moderation otherwise you’ll get diarrhea
2 of my friends had food poisoning from the food they ate. I was fortunate to escape that but when I came back to Kuala Lumpur, I had food poisoning after consuming local Wat Tan Hor. Tunasing!!
We had seafood almost every night. In every restaurant in Tonsai, they have a section for customers to choose seafood of their choice to be barbequed. Red snapper is not bad.
After a long day of climbing, we would consume couple of bottles of Chang beer at 50 Bath per bottle.
Pineapple fried rice is one of our favourite dishes as well. It comes in a real pineapple!
The prices are relatively cheap – depending on the location. Food in Tonsai was very cheap but food in East and West Railey was pretty expensive – almost equivalent to prices of food in shopping centres in the Klang Valley.
Pad Thai – West Railey serves good Pad Thai
Western food is quite common here
Further, food is abundant in the Phranang Penisula. You’ll never go hungry cause there are plenty of places to eat. One of our favourites would be a shop located nearby the beach. They sell fresh mango, mango sticky rice, roasted chicken and so on.
My favourite stall comes with a Doraemon baloon
Stall at Phranang @ Phranang Beach
Boat selling food @ Phranang Beach
The stuff on the right was sweet and spicy!
Drinks stall @ Tonsai – They even sell hard liquor. No ID required!
Mango sticky rice
One of the ladies selling Mango sticky rice tried to pick up one of my friends.
Lady: Are you single??
Friend: Er..
Lady: if you are, come meet me at Chill Out Bar tonight!
On that night, my friend avoided Chill Out Bar at all cost.
Other than Dum’s Kitchen, we climbed the following walls too.
Tyrolean Wall
This was one of the walls I climbed when I was sick. Nothing to shout about save for a great view of Tonsai Beach from the top!
Sun block overdose…
Thaiwand Wall
To reach Thaiwand Wall, we had to take a 15 minutes hike up a hill which is located at the end of West Railey beach.
The climbs were quite enjoyable and the view was spectacular. Anna climbed up one of the routes and anchored herself up with her camera. She took loads of great shots from up there!
I was told that some acquaintances saw the waves striking West Railey during the Tsunami tragedy from Thaiwand Wall. They were fortunate to be up there during that time.
But the drawback of Thaiwand Wall is that it was too sandy and dusty. Our gears were literally covered with sand when we left.
Muay Thai Wall
Muay Thai Wall is located at East Railey. I kinda dislike East Railey cause of the flies. We had breakfast around that area before our climb and we had flies everywhere!! The flies were trying to invade our food!
And while climbing at the beachside, we had flies perching on us! NIAMAH!!
We moved into the forest to escape the flies. Fortunately, there were no flies in the forest. They have 2 easy 6A and 6B routes. The 6B route was a little bit tricky as some of us swung out from the rocks. Steve and I both hit a tree. Thank god I didn’t fracture my tailbone.
There is another 6 grade route. However, when Ping tried climbing the route, he had to come down cause he realised it didn’t have an anchor!
Got place to meditate too!
Defile Wall
Defile Wall is located at Phranang Beach. The area has couple of nice rock formation.
One of the surfaces of the walls
Defile Wall houses a nice 25 meter 6A+ route called Mai Pen Rai. The first three bolts are pretty tough and handholds are mostly sharp crimps.
The rest of the route consists of jugs. By the time I reach the last few bolts, my mind kept thinking… “What if my harness breaks now? What if I slip and fall all the way down?? What if whattt ifff wtfff!!!”.
Here we climbed with one Canadian by the name Dan. He is one of those many travellers who come to Krabi alone and find their climbing mates here.
It was getting dark and Dan was eager to climb thee Mai Pen Rai route before leaving. He grabbed his headgear light and scaled up the wall. It was almost completely dark. All we could see was a dot of light up on the wall!
5 days of climbing took a severe beating on our physical health. We suffered hundred of bruises, cuts, rope burns and aching muscles. Not to mention, flu, fever, cough, sore throat and food poisoning – although might not be caused by climbing.
Steve’s fingers
Ping’s fingers
Ping’s knee
My thigh – rope burn
Anna-Rina‘s siew kai bei.
The popular walls were mostly crowded. We had, from time to time, people coming up to us asking us to bugger off so that they can climb the route. But this time round, we managed to climb some routes that we climbed on the last time and also new walls. We also had to line up until sunset to wait for certain route. It was like waiting in line for a Disneyland ride. NIAMAH!!
Notwithstanding the torturous bits, it strengthened me mentally. It strengthens my belief that everything is possible with commitment, confidence and determination. Leading up a 25 metres route made me believe that we can achieve anything with such principles.
Immediately after we dropped our bags at our hotel, we had lunch and headed straight to Dum’s Kitchen to climb. Dum’s Kitchen is one of the most popular walls. It houses a 6A, 6B, 6C and a 6C+ wall.
Ping praying to God of Climber before climbing
Some of the routes were climbed so frequently until some of its handholds have turned smooth. Kena molested 9 9.
Dum’s Kitchen is also a great spot to take pictures of sunset as it faces the sea.
Around Dum’s Kitchen. Water rises in the afternoon.
To be continued..
The Phranang Peninsula is a well known rock climbing spot in Thailand. It consists of, among others, Tonsai, East and West Railey, Phranang Beach. Due to its geographical location, Phranang Peninsula is only accessible by boat. In 2004, I was here and it left me great memories. I didn’t think twice of coming back to climb again.
Unfortunately, the Phranang Peninsula in 2004 is not the same with the Phranang Peninsula now. It has become crowded and more commercialised. You even have to line up to set up routes to climb.
The sea water doesn’t look clean and flies were everywhere. Speaking about flies, flies and sand flies were the biggest turnoff in this trip. I came back scratching my sandfly bites crazy for few days.
After 6 days of continuous climbing and eating, we (consisting of 11 people divided into Team Malaysia and Team Australia) came home with hundreds of bruises, rope burns, food poisoning, fever and flu. Team Australia consists of friends who work in Australia but came back to Malaysia to join Team Malaysia to Krabi.
My trip was marred on the 4th day when I fell sick. My sore throat was so bad that I couldn’t swallow my saliva. I stayed in bed until afternoon after taking some medication.
In the evening, I followed the rest to Tyrone Wall to climb. After climbing one route, I went back to the hotel with a fever. Fortunately, after a few Panadols and loads of burpees, I was fine the next day.
The journey to Krabi was quite a breeze. We took a 1 hour 20 minutes flight from LCCT to Krabi International Airport, 30 minutes van ride to Ao Nang and 10 minutes boat ride to Tonsai. Krabi International Airport is a small but modern airport. Once we stepped out from the departure hall, we had transport operators swarming at us as if we were shit and they were flies. We settled for a van to fit 11 of us to Ao Nang.
One part that caught my attention in Krabi International Airport is their reserved signage. At the departure hall, they have a reserved sign for women and kids which is just right after a reserved sign for monks. Monks get higher priority than women and kids. Wow.
The van that took us to Ao Nang a.k.a the Venga Van had dance music blaring out from its sub woofers and flashing lights to compliment the music. It looked normal from outside but it’s a mini disco inside!
We stayed at Mountain View Resort at Tonsai. It was way better than the one we stayed last time. I shared a fan room with Ping and Edmund. Toilet was quite nice and complete. The toilet of the last hotel I stayed only had a toilet bowl and a pipe.
Tiew Khao Lei!!
Our routine for 5 days was quite simple. We woke up around 7am (electricity gets cut off at 7am every day until evening), climb until afternoon, have lunch, climb again (except for one day where we went kayaking) and then have dinner. Massage wasn’t my top activity for this trip. Probably because my leg hurts big time from rope burn.
We celebrated the New Year along Tonsai beach with a thousand or more guai lous. Wei Chen and Mindy left dinner early to check out the Cobra show but they were disappointed to arrive early as all they could see is a fat guy sweeping the mat couple of times. The cobra came eventually but a few minutes before the fireworks. Once the fireworks shot up, everyone ignored the Cobra.
We also bought some Kung Ming lanterns to play with. We could see hundreds of Kung Ming lanterns floating in the sky. I was told that Kung Ming lanterns are very popular in the Thai culture.
I left for my room early cause I wasn’t feeling well. Further, we had to wake up early to catch our flight back to Kuala Lumpur.
The journey back home was a breeze as well. Within a few hours, I was back at home – shoving in 6 days worth of dirty laundry into the washing machine.
Ping ala Titanic Style
More details up soon!
While walking around Singapore city, we spotted one decorated post box. Unlike the normal white and blue postbox, this postbox has been decorated. On a bottom of the postbox, there’s a note stating “stamp.sg”.
“stamp.sg” is actually a website. In http://www.stamp.sg, I found out about the background of these decorated postboxes. There was some sort of competition whereby artists decorates postboxes in all sorts of ways.
According to stamp.sg website,
It’s kinda old news but please bear in mind that this entry was supposed to be posted a year ago!
If you want checkout the decorated postboxes, see their map on the stamp.sg website.
In Kuala Lumpur, You might not be able to see postboxes with such caliber .
Local postbox
You’ll probably see postboxes being decorated by local Ah-Longs (loan sharks), just like how they decorated the road sign below…
Related Links
stamp.sg website
Stamp.sg on flickr
[Note: I ran out of things to post except for entries which I have prepared sometime back and forgotten to post it. Here’s an entry which was supposed to be posted on my trip to Singapore in 2007. 1 1/2 year late!]
Sentosa Island – sucks ass.
Vivocity is one huge shopping centre located in Harbour Front. One may also take the monorial from Vivocity toward Sentosa Island at SG$3 per day.
There’s park up on Vivocity!
We read that Malaysians get to enjoy half price for attractions in Sentosa Island. It’s a pretty good deal. When we asked one of the staff at the Monorial ticket counter,
A: How’s the attractions like? Worth it?
Staff: Ummm.. to be honest, I do not think it’s worth it. It’s quite boring.
Thanks to the honest staff, we saved RM56 by not taking up the promotion. 😀
It’s been ages since we visited that place. It changed dramatically. They are building a new casino in Sentosa Island. The sight isn’t pretty though, construction everywhere and dusty as well.
The beach is pretty crap as well. Although loads of girls were running around in bikini, the sea seems to be pretty polluted. Just before the horizon, we could see loads of ships roaming around.
Si Beh Dirty
Barely 2 hours in the island, we headed back to Vivocity
After taking a rest, just like last year, we went back to the Tong-Sui street (opposite Sam Tet Primary School) for dinner.
Quite Sedap!
ABC + Fruits
The gang
We ate until we almost exploded.
On the next day, we had breakfast at Kafe Ipoh Central since all the dim sum places were full. The chicken noodles, nyonya kuih and popiah were extremely good!
Edmund: Before going to eat..
Egg Tarts damn gooodd!
Ipoh White Coffee
It was almost a rewind of our last Tambun Trip. On last year’s Hari Raya, we made a trip down to Tambun and Ipoh to climb and eat. This year’s Hari Raya holiday, we made another trip to Tambun and Ipoh but with more fellow posers.
Yes, we ate more than we climbed!
Everyone started their journey at 5am from Kuala Lumpur. However, Ping , A and I were still in bed at 5am and started our journey at 10am after breakfast at Yut Kee.
The journey to Ipoh was a breeze like last year. I guess most people were home by the first day of Raya. On our way, we spotted some devices to scare people from speeding. There was one cardboard with a picture of a police man holding a speed camera below a bridge. It looked like a policeman sitting underneath a bridge from afar. Another one was a mannequin in a police uniform up on a police tower. Those devices worked really well.
We stayed at the dodgy Tambun Inn again. Last year, I heard my neighbour moaning out loud in the middle of the night. This year is a little different. I had disco songs thumping all night long.
Immediately, after check-in, we went to meet the troops at the Lost World of Tambun. Anyone with a Camp 5 entry pass is entitled to a discount to entry fees. I Its around RM21 after discount. No discount is RM30. Before entering, a release form to exclude liability must be signed.
Probably the most photographed area in the park
Last year, we found out that we could access the climbing zone through a housing area. We could just park at the housing area and cross a small stream to enter the climbing zone. However, we found that the path has been barricaded.
Barricaded
Ping – like wearing underwear liddat.
Bahger Ping looking somewhere else while belaying!
Peeping Tom
Spot the climber!
Things you can do with a Milo tshirt.
Abner – what did you do last night..
Anna-Rina’s topless short.
My shoes – damn bad shape.
After a few routes, we called the climbing session off.
Two of the most common things on the roadside of Bandung are brownies and strawberries.
Brownies
Brownies are very famous in Bandung. In almost every corner, you’ll find brownies sold in shops, or vans or stalls parked by the roadside. I guess the most well know brownie is the Amanda Brownie. Our driver Hari recommended that we buy the brownies from a shop rather than by the roadside as it tends to be fresher and moist.
We bought one from a shop by the name Kabita (nothing to do with Nobita) located at Jln Terusan Pasteur. It came in a big box wrapped with a plastic cover. We cut it in half and kept it for ourselves. The other half we gave it to our driver.
The other recommended place to buy brownies would be Kartikasari, a very well known bakery in Bandung. Other than brownies, one should also try their other pastries. It has a few branches in Bandung. Just ask the staff for their recommendation.
Strawberries
Since Bandung is located 768 metres above the sea level, it is very suitable to grow strawberries. So suitable that you have them flooded on the streets. At certain junctions, you’ll find people knocking on your window asking to you buy strawberries.
Ice blended Strawberries are available in almost all restaurants in Bandung.
Note: Please avoid Florida Milk at all cost. Nothing to do with strawberry but it sucked. Tasted like Milk + Mandarin Oranges.
On another note, I found a place with sell freshly blended strawberries. It’s called Berry Passion, located @ Floor LG1 (near the Skating Rink area), Sunway Pyramid. I must say, it’s really good. At RM7.90 per cup, you’ll be craving for moar!
