Well, it’s been two weeks since we last checked in, and they’ve been spent mostly on the beach. The Beach in fact, as every local tour agency insisted on reminding us. We paddled a sea-kayak (well one of us paddled, the other waved with intention), climbed, snorkelled and generally clambered about in some really cool caves.

The climbing in particular was amazing, the whole place (Railay) is dotted with massive and often overhanging limestone Karsts, with loads of flowstone, wierd pockets and tufas, caves and generally very hard routes. We did a couple of superb routes on the Thaiwand wall - accessed by climbing up into a cave from the beach on the other side of the headland, through passages and caverns full of bat crap, up bamboo ladders and then abseiling 20m out of a window! Lots of damp chimneys and holes for Tim to explore…

As the tourist season hasn’t quite kicked off yet Railay was balmy and beautiful with some rainy afternoons that we spent sitting in a coffee house reading the Bangkok Post to catch up with the world. The paper has a charming habit of inserting stories of a Cambodian monk producing lucky wrist-watches carrying his own image to protect bus passengers from crashes, or Burmese elephants being maimed by landmines on the front page. What, earthquake in Pakistan? Pah!

Railay already had a faint air of a Bob Marley theme park with endless bamboo shacks playing Buffalo Soldier until our ears bled and serving cocktails, containing mainly rum, in white plastic buckets. I’m not sure we would have been able to appreciate the full works during peak season as found ourselves gritting our teeth when the local Skunk Bar threw parties until 3am with Best of Bob’s.

We’re off to the Khao Sok national park in a day or two, hoping to spend a few days walking and exploring the jungle (not to mention sleeping in a tree house). Very much looking forward to the VIP bus that provides frilly pink pillows and fruit cakes packed with E-numbers for the weary passangers. Wrist-watch? Check.