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!