Cyclones and bad decisions

It turns out that the rain that forced me indoors the other day is from this cyclone that has been coming through the area. I fortunately did not get the storm in its full strength but only the aftermath of its wake after it passed through nearby Burma, and apparently reports are saying there are already 15,000 dead....yikes. On Railay we just got a lot of wind and a ton of rain. The rain carried on for a solid 2 days ranging from mild drizzle to outright downpour.

I was gettting a bit of cabin fever stuck inside my bungalow or under the roof of the Viewpoint's Restaurant so I decided to make a day of it and went tramping along the beaches in the rain. I had them all to myself as the people from the restaurants lining the shoreline laughed at me, though I did get some of the local kids to come out and juggle a soccer ball with me, they had the day off from selling beer to tourist on the beach apparently.

When the rain did let up and the sun creeped back out I met up with Lauren and Dana and we went and layed out on Phranang Beach (south of Railay). After about 3 minutes we were bored of just laying there so we went and climbed up this cliff to the left side of the beach. Above us the limestone cliffs appeared like a melted candle and below were the waves gently crashing against the cliff we were on. Let's jump!! Brilliant idea. We were only 20 or so feet up and the water looked harmless. So on 3 we went. The water unfortunately was 4-5 feet deep and our landing was on jagged limestone rock, needless to say it wasn't a soft landing. We're all okay, just got a few cuts and scraps here and there, but lesson learned. Don't jump off cliffs without checking water depth first.