10-24-19 - Epic lightening and rain storm
/Day 130. Leanne & Kyle joint blog.
Despite a rough night’s sleep, Leanne pops up for her scheduled Sunrise Yoga at 6:10 am. Upon opening the cottage door, she is greeted with two monkeys on the patio staring at her. Apparently, they were waiting for a still half asleep Leanne to leave the door ajar so they could burst in a have their way with the mini-bar. Leanne stumbles past the waiting monkeys and makes her way to the designated yoga spot. After the Nepal yogi no-showed at sunrise, no one else volunteered to accompany her this time and knows better than to drag “exotic crayon color” Kyle, so she heads to the beach alone. The bright and chipper “I don’t need no sleep when it comes to yoga” group consists of Leanne, the instructor and a local Thai guy. The instructor asks Leanne has she ever done yoga before and she replies affirmatively. Leanne braces herself as now she expects this teacher is going to go for some Twister-like pretzel moves she will look pretty silly even attempting.
This yoga session was as chill as the town, but Leanne is taking every pose very seriously, nonetheless. However; every pose she attempts results in the Thai teacher breaking out in laughter. Leanne can’t tell if this reaction is “land of smiles” normal Thai happy laugh or “Leanne you look extremely ridiculous” laugh. The laughing yoga instructors gives Leanne the “no really, it’s not you, it’s me” look. It ends up as a win-win situation in the end as Leanne is relaxed to ultimate zen on the beach and the instructor is starting her day absolutely giddy.
After breakfast and nap, Kyle and Leanne head to the pool where we swim in an Olympic sized pool that has all of five other people in it. Justin & Corey, undeterred by their near death viewpoint hike, head to another resort organized spelunking hike to the bat cave followed by paddle boarding. We have given the kids free reign today to sleep, lounge, read, study, explore or exercise. On days like this, while we feel a little guilty not accomplishing anything huge, we need this break as we are still recovering from the last month and we have some tougher travel ahead.
Kyle and Leanne head to “town” for round two of the $17 massage and to pick up laundry. Afterwards, walking back down the town’s alley, the bar-restaurant at the end has an open bench table facing the beach and ocean. We are about 45 minutes from sunset so we decide the open seats are an omen from above meant to redirect our course. We settle in and order Pina Coladas. The bench next to us features a man approximately our age eating soup and drinking a beer by himself. We can’t have that so we engage him in conversation.
Turns out that Kenny was from Denver, Colorado. He is a big-time rock climber who came to Railay Beach because it is known as one of the top 10 rock climbing sites in the world. He has been here three days to we ask him how the rock climbing is to which he responds, “I don’t know, I haven’t rock climbed yet.” Kyle gives him the one eyebrow up, one eyebrow down quizzical look. He explains that he is here alone but he lined up a climbing partner online to climb here in Railay. He says the climbing partner left his climbing harness at the airport so he hasn’t been able to climb. The harness was supposed to be delivered to the guys hotel today but it didn’t come and he’s not sure if it will arrive tomorrow.
Kyle now has the both eyebrows raised, puzzled look. “How did he leave his harness in the airport?” Kyle asks. Was the guying trying to climb some of the airport signs during his layover? Shouldn’t the harness be packed in his bag? It’s not like airport security says take out your laptop and climbing harness and put it in a separate tray. Kenny (aka now may be forever known as the Non-Climbing Rock Climber) tries to explain but is becomes apparent to Kyle that Kenny can’t quite figure out how it happened either.
“Why doesn’t your climbing partner just rent a harness at the rock climbing shop?” Kyle asks next. It seems like a pretty straight forward solution. Kenny mumbles an answer that we can’t quite make out.
“Enough on the harness, time to try a new angle,” Kyle is thinking. “We’re going out with a guide for USD $30 tomorrow, why don’t you just get a guide to be your partner until the harness shows up?”
“I’m philosophically opposed to paying someone to rock climb with me,” Kenny responds.
Wait, wait, wait, let me see if I follow this logic tree. Kenny flew like 16,000 miles, halfway across the world, to rock-climb at the one of the best spots in the world, and instead he is sitting by himself eating soup, watching everyone else rock climb while he is NOT rock-climbing because he won’t pay $30 for a guide???
Kyle cough-snorts his Pina Colada all over the place and his eyebrows now reach the top of his forehead in complete befuddlement. Kenny attempts to explain his rationale but now he, himself seems unsure why he is sitting here alone eating soup and getting grilled by a fellow American tourist with a math major who specialized in logic. He has already paid his bill and politely excuses himself.
Leanne gives Kyle a look that says maybe you questioned him a little too hard. Kyle responds, “every time he answered, one plus one definitely did not equal two.”
Sun has set and as the last rays of light vanquish over the horizon, the heavens open up to a now all-too familiar downpour floods the beach below. Our seat is perfectly protected from the rain so we can stay an observe the impending storm’s arrival. Lightening splits the black sky in two reaching from the heavens to the water temporarily lighting up the entire ocean as far as we can see.
With the rainstorm, the bench vacated by Kenny doesn’t remain empty for long and is occupied by Doug and Andrea, a married couple from Baltimore. We immediately bond with the supercool couple and Kyle is relieved that the couple does not rock climb and doesn’t have any stories with obviously flawed logic. They have three grown children and love the story of our crazy travel trip. Our conversation meanders through life, Trump, China, kids and travel destinations for a couple hours as neither of us are eager to venture out into the rain. Corey, Justin & Ashlynn arrive to meet us for dinner as the prospect of food outweighed the prospect of getting wet.
The lightening, thunder and rainstorm lasts a good 3 hours and an unknown number of Pina Coladas. We get some great shots on video of the lit-up sky and pounding rain and end up making it home safely.
