The Great Dopamine Rush of 2025

Today I woke up realizing I may have been just a little heated to be writing my blog last night. Alas the past is past. By the way my room still sucks, but I digress. I came to Railay beach for one singular purpose, and that was to climb until my arms fell off or I died of heat stroke. And today I completed day 1 in a fabulous kind of way.

Back in Vancouver 11 days ago I met a stranger walking through the international departures waiting area with a pair of climbing shoes hanging off his bag. My spidey sense tingled a bit as I imagined the only place he’d be going to would be Thailand so as I had some hours to kill I went up and started a conversation with him. Ends up I was right on the nose. His name was Kal and he was from Toronto, flying to Thailand with no idea if there was climbing or where it was. We hit it off immediately and ended up chatting for about 40 minutes as we waited for our respective flights. I shared to him all the limited knowledge I had of the Thai climbing scene and we exchanged whatsapp info in the off chance our paths might cross in the future. Well sure as shit he happened to book a room in Krabi on my recommendation that it was the place to be for climbing here. Just a short ferry from me, in the same timeframe that I’m in Railay. he reached out the other night and we ended up connecting today and climbing a half day together. It was such a cool traveling happenstance and just another reminder that a stranger truly is just a friend you haven’t met yet.

As I am traveling solo through SEA, I put out a bunch of feelers on multiple area specific Facebook groups when I was leaving Canada. That tree bore some fruit as a super cool gent from Poland Named Andrew sent me a DM and we also connected today. The 3 of us climbed together, which was totally epic. Andrew just happens to be in the Krabi area the exact same days as me so we are gonna climb together every day. Also he is almost the same weight as me which makes belaying much easier and safer for the both of us (its rare if I ever meet any climbers close to or the same size as me).

Speaking of happenstance. I was walking to get some dinner from Family Thai restaurant tonight, and I literally bumped into Natalie. A super dope climber who I climbed with in Chiang Mai last week who is from the UK. We chatted for a bit and ended up grabbing dinner together. I seem to be collecting climbers as tomorrow is now a foursome. She is quite a bit below the level of climber the rest of us are, but that is the beauty of climbing and the climbing community. It does not matter your level its the joy of the sport that brings people together. Especially in places like Thailand where most people are who come to climb are solo travelling.

I ended up climbing for like 7 hours, It was a fantastic day. I made new friends, ate some pretty great food (that I took no photos of) and almost forgot how much of a rotten fish dumpster fire my room is. One thing I got to say, which was unexpected. The 122 stairs to my “hotel” are a great warm up to a day of climbing. My ass looks great. I climbed that 122 steps like 5 times today.

P.s Fuck this hotel, my room is totally infested with ants. I am going to have to cleanse all my gear and bags as I leave here and Travel to Cambodia.

“when in doubt read the reviews and don’t get caught up in a shitty tourist trap, like a fucking dumbass” – Me