20th Jan - Limestone cliff climbing!

Still very much in love with the island today and it's quiet charms. We had a late start to rest a bit then biked 15minutes up the road where we'd arranged to meet a climbing guide."Dude"- apparently his real name- was a Thai man from the island who learnt to climb as a young boy in order to work in the bird nest trade. Later he showed us a book of pictures of the bamboo structures built in caves in order to harvest the precious bird nests (mostly sold to the chinese) and the people climbing (ropeless up to harvest them). He now climbs less due to an injury sustained in the Tsunami and guides more, in partnership with an American, Mark who's is bolting (titanium only!) more and more climbing routes on the cliffs around Ko Yao Noi and climbing here is becoming better known.

Anyway, we took a boat from the pier and stopped by a 35metre + cliff, climbed from the boat up a ladder onto a platform built under the cliff- from here we were to climb! Just 6As seconding Gemma's lead for me but enough with the incredible height and the spectacular view, a beautiful cliff- I've never climbed up stalactites before! Gem loved it and could have carried on for hours I was rather scared most of the time!
Dinner on the beach of fresh crab. Power cut later- very common though apparently brown outs also major problem with insufficient voltage (we heard this from a very annoyed German restaurant proprietor the next day!) so we read by torch light under mosquito nets listening to bats in the roof.