Rock-Climbing in Railay

After the hustle and bustle of its busier neighbour, Koh Phi Phi, we were happy to spend several days in the paradise of Railay. It is a quaint little island, with massive limestone rock faces jutting out of the ground everywhere you look. This makes for great rock-climbing and is one of the top rock-climbing destinations in the world. Like Koh Tao, this is also a place where many travellers find themselves staying much longer than intended, or even living here for months on end. We spent our days exploring the beaches and the caves, and our nights at 'The Last Bar.' There was live music every night as well as fire shows and the occasional Muay Thai fight. However, the special aspect was that the fire dancers actually hung around with the tourists after the show, and by the end of our stay, it felt as though we had made friends with many of the locals living and working on the island. We tried our hands at fire dancing one day on the beach, with one of the fire dancers as our personal teacher. We also spent a day rock climbing, caving, and abseiling ourselves down the edge of cave. We were not quite up to snuff as we had spent the previous night, along with our roomie, Kim, sick with food poisoning. But, we pushed through and somehow still managed to hoist ourselves up to the top of the rocks. It was sad saying goodbye to this lovely island but we knew Koh Tao was next on the list, and also knew it would not disappoint.