The climbing in rai ley from a long-tail boat. Can't beat climbing right on the beach.










Our latest passion...the MARKETS! Good food for extremely cheap, 75 cents for more food than I can stomach.















Isn't Jij artsy! A picture of the street in Krabi with cars zooming by.














The view from our porch in Rai Ley!





Sunset in Krabi...see you in Cambodia!

Sayonara Beaches

We've had a relaxing time at the beach, but now we're headed back to Bangkok (another longhaul, overnight number).

Next Stop: Cambodia, to the temples of Angkor.

We hear overland travel in Cambodia is "adventurous." Be sure to check back in next week to see how it all turns out...

Thanks for reading and take care til next time!

WHO DEY!

3-0 baby!

When sunset puts a halt to our taxing daytime activities, we spend a whopping $3 to fill our bellies with fabulous flavors and wander around to join in on the nightly goings-on. Muay Thai, traditional Thai boxing, occurs nightly at 10pm. So we watch, well sometimes I have to turn my head, as the fiesty, flexible, fellas kick the tar out of each other. (Charming, isn't it!). Every night brings several fireshows where the well trained twirlers spin chains with weighted ends or sticks, the ends soaked in gas and set alight, creating all different patterns. It's the latest craze to learn this art. Many people practice twirling their chains on the beach, others are getting lesson in local shops. We try to avoid buckets (mini plastic buckets filled with potent concoctions such as whiskey, red bull and coke) at all costs...and generally just enjoy living it island style!!

For those visually asthetic folks, I apologize for the layout of my posts with pictures. I don't have the knack yet!...till next time.

It took half of a day for us to get our bearings and start living island style. Days now ripple in and out like the tide, each one running into the next with little to differentiate one from the next. When living it island style, the most pressing questions become should we climb or go to the beach first?, curry or soup?, fish or chicken?. Our days have been comprised of beach time in the morning and as the shade hits Ton Sai Wall at noon, we meander there for some climbing. The views are spectacular from the climbs...sometimes I have to be reminded to keep my eyes on the rock!

My view of paradise quickly shattered as I disembarqued the boat and made my way through the crowd of greeters, "where you stay tonight?," "cheap room for you," into the streets packed with trinket stalls, internet cafes, massage rooms ("massage for you"), pizza shops, burger stands, English pubs, and a travel service on every corner. We found a modest room in a guesthouse to call home with the idea to sleep cheap and eat well! And well we did eat. For those Thai food lovers out there, if you have never tried panang or massaman curries, I highly recommend them.

The effects of the tsunami are still quite evident. I experienced a sense of sadness being here to begin, imagining what it might have been like. I see foundations of what were once buildings and wonder whose shop or house each piece of debris might have come from. The tides wash up more debris each day. hotels and guesthouses are half salvaged and open, the other half in shambles. Sounds of saws and hammers abound from sun up to sun down. It has been interesting to speak with a few locals to hear their experiences. A woman we met while climbing was on her way to the beach, stopped in a shop to use the toilet and when she came out there was water everywhere. She ran to her second story brick apartment which still wasn't high enough to escape the water so she climbed to the roof. She says the island is a completely different shape now. Her husband, who had lived in Ko Phi Phi for 15 years went looking for her and couldn't figure out where he was or where their apartment was. They say the government is harnessing the money from relief funds to rebuild the island into a ritzy resort town rather than doleing the money out to the people. As a result, the people are left to do the work themselves, hence the hammering day in and day out. Rebuilding their paradise.

As the end of our 1.5 hour boat ride from Phuket neared, so did the island paradise of Ko Phi Phi. I couldn't stop snapping photos, stunned by the limestone formations sprouting from the turquoise waters. The sand so white, trees of bold green textured with groves of palm trees, the water shades of turquoise I thought only possible in mini-golf courses.


Long-tailed boats, the island transport, romantically lulled by the tides. Top that off with a blue sky adorned from time to time with a puffy white cloud and a big golden sun. It's as if I've been transported into the scenery of one of those postcards you see and wonder if that place really exists.

Welcome to paradise....

From one Paradise to another...

We'd been living on an island for a week, blissfully doing absolutely nothing (except some sweet climbing, eating massive amounts of anything curried, and avoiding Thai whiskey buckets at all cost). Ko Phi Phi was beginning to feel like home. We had built a good community of friends and neighbors and established stomping grounds that, with time, would have developed into old haunts. It was not an easy decision to leave, but we had to. Otherwise, I'm afraid we might have stayed far longer than either of us intended...

We reluctantly boarded the boat, questioning our decision til the last mooring was un-moored. And we'd done it... We had just left the most perfect place on earth.

...But on to the next one; that's what we do. A traveler is no traveler if he dilly-dally's in a single port. Next stop: Hat Rai Leh, or (english-ized), Railay Beach. Home, we were told, to some of the best climbing anywhere.

Rai Leh is a peninsula that juts into the Andaman Sea just west of the port town of Krabi. As our longtail boat surfed into the eastern bay of Rai Leh, it was immediately apparent why climber's flock here: rock, and lots of it, reaching up and out of the sea like thumbs giving a welcoming and gigantic thumbs up. I felt my forearms quiver, giddy with anticipation. Once we landed, we played the accomodation game (finding a place to sleep has become a sport for Claire and I) and came out victorious, with a lovely aircon/hotwater bungalow nested high above the coastline with dramatic views of the aforementioned limestone fingers from our spacious and well-lit porch.

With a place to stay squared away, we were off to explore our new home. Straight to the rock, at the southern end of the beach, to get some beta on the vertical adventures ahead. Our closer explorations revealed that the rock was extremely overhanging, and that the climbing would be challenging, at least. Sweet. We decided to check out ritzy West Railay, dubbed the "sunset side" for fairly obvious reasons. A concrete-paved path leads the way from East (the more budget-friendly side where we had decided to stay) to West. The view from the westside is no less dramatic than from ours: whitesand beach gaurded by limestone karst, the quintissential picture of the Southern Thailand beach. We mosied (sp?) northward up the beach, stepping over intricate circular patterns composed of teeny balls of sand (which I astutely noted are the by-product of a sand crab's mealtime activity.) We then made our our way over a jungled headland to Ton Sai Beach, home to yet more climbing. After a quick bite at a beachside eatery (glass noodle salad that set my mouth ablaze), we decided to take the inland path back to our bungalow, making a giant loop of our excursion. This decision made for some interesting travel...

I suppose we'd become accustomed to the manicured, brick-laden paths of Phi Phi, but what we thought would be a quick jaunt turned into our first jungle trekking adventure. The path was little more than a foot trail, barely distinguishable from the overgrown undergrowth of the jungle floor. And above... monkeys? There's no worse feeling than hiking in monkey country. Steep ascent up the hill, panting all the while. Then, the treacherous descent. I would have liked a sled. The long and short of it is we made it back to our side, scored some curry and rice, and took it back to the bungalow to accompany the view. Life is good.

We awoke this morning to the pitter patter, and at times downright roar, of rain. No climbing today. So the decision was easy: boat back to the mainland, where internet is cheap, and up date the blog because it's been awhile... So here I am, in an internet cafe in Krabi, dry and happy to be writing this. I hope you're all doing well. We sure are.

How about them Bengals?

Greetings from Southern Thailand. Claire and I are working on the next round of posts, but its hard to pry ourselves away from the beach.
Just wanted to thank all of you for checking our blog. (Special thanks for all of you who have posted comments.) We do appreciate it.
Keep checking back for the latest on our travels... kop kun krap

Jij and I riding in a tuk-tuk!
















Pre-departure at the San Francisco airport

Look at that SMILE. Jij below the BTS (public train) sign in Bangkok
Our lovely bungalow paradise in Karon Beach.
Look at those waves.

Bengals vs. Vikings

I am in Phuket on Karon Beach. Yesterday was beautiful, today is rainy and in a few days two football giants will collide:

The undefeated Bengals vs. the winless Vikings.

My pick (and you should probably put money on this one) is the Bengals, in a close one, 34-10.

Rudi Johnson will blast through two fat guys named Williams, Chad Johnson will burn Smoot like Grant burns anything he cooks (gatorade easy mac), Carson Palmer will pick apart the Vikes secondary like I pick apart a chicken wing, and Bengals first-round pick David Pollack will wrap his much-maligned wee arms around Daunte Culpepper, causing one of dozens of fumbles by the stone-handed QB.
When the VIkes fall behind early, Daunte will try the only thing that's ever worked for him- deep ball to MOSS. But, Oops, Randy's in Oakland (scoring mad points for Jij's fantasy team against the Chiefs flag footbal D).

Grant, you're on. (Though I'm already wearing the Diesel shants.)

When Jij last posted, we were about to board a VIP bus to Phuket. If a VIP bus has cracks in the window, broken seats, and a crazy driver swigging unknown beverages from mini glass bottles (Jij promises it was a red bullesque drink, I have my qualms!!) then that's just what we did. Our VIP service included no real seats for Jij and I so we were stuck sitting in the very front of the bus, next to the driver!!! Jij has some major skills in zen as he was able to get some sleep while in the front. I just sat there, holding on tight, praying, creating my action plan of how I would save Jij and I from projecting through the massive bus window when we crashed!! Luckily a few hours into our drive, at our first stop, two guys offered to swap us seats. They were seated in the very back getting their knees rammed by the two broken seats in front of them and wanted to be up front so they could smoke! Theirs was a more appealing predicament than ours! The rest of the ride was great save the fact that the 13 hour ride took a mere 18 hours!

None-the-less, we learned some valuable lessons and arrived in the remarkable Phuket! It took a situation like that to light a fire under my @!$, not an angry fire so much as sparking my desire to join in on the game of negotiation. So when the tuk-tuk driver told our friends he would take them from Phuket Town to the beaches for 380 baht, I just laughed and moved on. The next driver quoted 200 baht. I said I knew how to get there by bus for 30 baht (obviously not wanting to take the bus). We agreed on a price of 100 baht. Once we arrived to the beach town of Katon the tuk-tuk driver took us to a resort that is in his circle of money. Our plan was to stay at a guest house for around 300-400 baht so my plan was to spend no more than 500 baht. The 1000 baht/night room was reduced to 800 baht (what a deal!). If we stay for 3 nights it would be 700 baht a night but since they like us, they will give us that rate for our 2 night stay. Ha! "400 baht a night is the most we can pay," I reply. After a good 5 minute haggle, we agreed on 500 baht a night. Afterwards Jij and I laughed at the reality that I was haggling over a mere $2.50!! Anyhow, we are staying at a fancy resort...more like a string of bungalows amidst beds of flowers, right across the street from the beach. We have a pool, internet access, satellite tv (that sealed the deal for Jij!), our own bathroom as advertised: "with an american throne", all the amenities. It's just right. I mustn't get used to such grandeur as I know raggedy guesthouses are in my future.

Today is a drizzly day, hence my time spent blogging! There is a surf competition going on at the neighboring beach of Kata that we may check out later assuming it wasn't cancelled due to rain. The world shuts down when it rains in these parts! Tomorrow, we are going to catch a boat to Ko Phi Phi, a nearby island. We will spend some time there climbing and then head to Krabi and Rai Lay(on the mainland) for more climbing. These names may ring a bell as this is the area that was affected by the tsunami last year. There are still a lot of relief efforts in these areas though where we are it is all mostly rebuilt. We have been playing the guessing game, I wonder if this is new, I wonder if this got hit, etc. We hope to become more educated as time goes on.

Thanks to all who have posted comments!! Still haven't mastered the knack of getting pictures uploaded onto this site...pictures to come!

I'm in internet cafe on Khoa San Road in Bangkok, killing time before Claire and I hop on a VIP bus to Phuket. Don't worry. The tsunami ended last year, shortly after it began. The beaches have been rebuilt and the good folks down there are hungry for tourist dollars, which is what Claire and I are made of...
Claire and I had a great day yesterday, mastering the public transport of Bangkok, which incidentally, may be the nicest I've experienced save the monorail at Kings Island. We also booked some bus rides in the coming weeks, which provided for some good exercise in the art of haggling. Best line: " So if it's 650 baht on VIP bus, 500 on minibus, how much to ride on the water buffalo?" Water buffalo material gets best price everytime.
We're planning on doing some climbing down south. We'll check back in once we get there...

One more thing:

Bengals 1-0
Vikes 0-1

A 16 hour plane ride behind us & a full night's sleep, Jij and I are feeling somewhat human in Bangkok! Strangely enough we enjoyed our first meal out at a Japenese restaurant with a French dinner to follow! We will undoubtedly immerse in the Thai culture soon enough.

Phrases such as "sa-wat-dee ka" and "korp kun ka", with a small head bow, are the extent to my current Thai speaking skills!! Jij questions my use of Lonely Planet's Thai Phrasebook as I attempt conversation at the markets!

I can't get enough of the markets...all those fruits and veg!! Jij chuckles (or groans) as I drag him past yet another stand selling just the same as the one before!

I've been pleasantly surprised that Bangkok is much cleaner, more organized, less crowded and not quite as "Americanized" as I had pictured. I will soon be ready to leave the "big city" for smaller, more quaint adventures.

For our time in the city, though, we have been introduced to the saving grace of menthol. Menthol nose inhalers to clear smog-filled nostrils and "prickly heat", a menthol powder to cool sweaty skin! I'll continue to enjoy such small pleasures and will write again when I have more interesting things to "blog" about! Until then..."lah gorn"

Hey everybody! Welcome to our blog. I like that word. Just wanted to let you all know that we've arrived safely in Bangkok and our adventures are already underway. You can check back here over the next 3 months to see what Claire and I are up to while on our trip: through Cambodia, up the coast of Vietnam, over to lovely Lao, back down to Thai beaches (near Phuket), then to Delhi (and maybe Nepal), quick flip around Paris, and, finally, a visit with Claire's family in England.

Sounds like a lot... here we go!