Job Discussion Forums

richie122 · Joined: 15 Nov 2004 Posts: 101 Location: Seattle, Wa, USA

Hey everyone
I plan to visit Thailand in a few months, and I want to stop in Krabi to rock climb. I'm really interested in spending a few days there. Does anyone know of any descent hotels, and what kind of nightlife does it have to offer. Also I'm currently in China and don't have access to my rock climbing gear. Is there a place that I could rent some equipment, or buy it cheap. I don't really want to buy new gear and have to lug it back here to China. Anyone that has any info about rock climbing, or about Krabi in general please let me know... Thanks

sigmoid · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 1276

massivegeoff · Joined: 16 Dec 2004 Posts: 43 Location: thailand

railay beach is a peninsular quite close to krabi town. when people talk about "krabi" they usually mean railay or ao nang which is a bigger beach on the "mainland".

when you get to krabi, usually by bus, you can get a songthaew (pick-up) to ao nang direct and then you have to take a long tail boat. or you can take a long tail boat from the pier in downtown krabi.

you can also get a big ferry from phuket to either krabi town or aonang, and also phi phi or ko lanta, both of which are in krabi province.

there are several climbing shops operating on the railay peninsular. tex, king climbers, cliffsman, etc. they're all much of a muchness, and offer gear rental (which is good quality stuff) and guiding/courses. the mainstay is beginner courses, but that's ok especially if you haven't touched real rock for a while because as it's sports climbing it's pretty steep. (and because it's so popular it's fairly polished.)

hotels - there are a few really expensive places on railay, but a lot of people stay at ya-ya bungalows still i think. alot of the climbing shops are round there, so it's convenient. you could stay at ao nang, but then you have to get up really early to go climbing, and you may be difficult for meeting up with people after.

nightlife - seems to be a lot on railay.

Kent F. Kruhoeffer · Joined: 22 Jan 2003 Posts: 2129 Location: 中国

Here's another decent website to browse through on a rainy day:

http://andaman-island-hopping.com/ "Andaman Island Hopping"