My favorite area by far was the Arab quarter, which was bustling without being overcrowded and had a neat mix of textile stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc., all frequented by locals. Even though we were only 2 hours away from breakfast, we tried some Muslim food (advertised as the best in the city), and indeed found it quite tasty. Little India was not quite as quaint, and I was traumatized by a lunch experience in which I think we were “taken” by our waiter and were served about 4 times as much food as we needed for about 4 times the price; couldn’t even make a dent and then had to go to the ATM to cover the bill. Nonetheless, the rest of the walk was enjoyable and interesting and by the end of the day I was back to raving about Singapore.
]]> Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=10229 0 1.2930556 103.8558333 What a trip it’s been though! Carl’s working on some superlatives, and so far I entirely agree with them. I’ve enjoyed seeing so many beautiful places, and specifically have enjoyed thinking about how different nature’s beauty is in different parts of the world. I’ve also come to appreciate more the value of short-term relationships; many of the people we’ve met I probably won’t see again, but I have really enjoyed our time together all the same.

So what’s next? To Boston for Angie Peluse’s wedding, then to Minneapolis for some time with Carl’s family, and then he drives west to start work! And I head south to begin establishing myself into Chicago. In some ways I can’t believe it’s time for that already; in others, school seems like it was an eon ago and so much has happened in between. I’ve enjoyed this time in part because I know there are good things to come after it, and I am starting to get excited for those next steps, as different as they will be. Onward!
]]> Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=10228 0 19.72972 -155.09 We arrived in Darwin, Australia intent on visiting world-famous Kakadu National Park and perhaps other surrounding parks. We hit an immediate hiccup in that it was a school holiday at the time and many Australians were on the road making a similar circuit as we were. As a result, our “play it by ear” plan ran into some availability issues that put us in Darwin itself for an extra day while we waited for a camper van to become available through Wicked Campers. Two days after arriving, however, we were packed into a –crazily-painted converted van packed with groceries and were on our way to the park.

We made good time (4 hours) and arrived just in time to check out some of the Aboriginal (“Traditional Owners”) rock paintings for sunset. True to in-town warnings, there were many people there, but the park was big enough for our experience not to be hampered by the presence of so many others. The artwork was very cool (ranging from 20-years old to thousands of years old), and the vistas were spectacular.

The next day began with a 9am cruise of the yellow river. Although it was pretty pricey ($55/person), it was very cool. Over the course of 2 hours we saw numerous crocs (from a safe distance and the security of a boat), and a lot of neat birds. It was also cool to cruise the floodplains, which are an interesting geological feature in and of themselves.

We spent the rest of the day touring a few of the other sites of the park, including another Aboriginal painting site, a lookout or two, and a long washboarded dirt road out to our camp area. We arrived there just as the sun was setting and booked it up a short hike to some croc-safe pools at the top of a mountain – gorgeous view, and for the small price of hiking back down nearly in the dark, we got a pretty secluded experience.

On the whole I would say Kakadu was very good, though I am infinitely glad we did it on our own power and not with a tour; otherwise, I think it would really have felt like a ton of driving for some good (but not really spectacular) photo points amongst many other tour groups.

Our next stop was Litchfield Park, another park in the area that’s less known world-wide but was supposed to be beautiful. We planned a climbing stop along the way and successfully made an afternoon at Robin Falls, a small turnoff with some beautiful falls and decent slab climbing (and only 1 or 2 other groups there, none of whom were on the wall). It was fun to do a different kind of climbing and a nice way to break up the drive from Kakadu to Litchfield.

The next day we entered Litchfield, which is most known for its many swimming holes. (Litchfield is more or less croc-safe because its water access is not from the ocean). We drove to several beautiful areas, but more or less made a bee line for our target camping area so we could have some down time in the afternoon.

We had planned to camp for the night at a less crowded pool accessible only by four wheel drive (which our little van supposedly had), but hesitated because it turned out the road involved a river crossing that looked fairly formidable, and our van had no snorkel. After carefully measuring our clearance against the .6 meters that the depth stick was registering, we decided to wait to see if others came by, and within minutes a new Nissan arrived and barreled right through it, then hollered from the other side that he would wait to make sure we made it. Note that there was another croc warning sign, which again seemed “unlikely”, but it was interesting to think about what exactly a contingency plan would entail if we got stuck. Carl put the car in gear and powered right through it though! It was very exciting.

The successful crossing led us then to a camping area with only one spot left (we grabbed it, and then shared with another car that came in a little later – we’re such nice people). We packed up our reading materials and hiked out to the local swimming hole, but found it plagued with flies and much colder than others we’d passed, so after a quick dip and courageous (because it was cold; this one was asserted croc free) swim to the falls, we headed back to camp for some bug repellent and dinner.

The drive out the next morning was also exciting because we couldn’t really get the car into 4WD (or we couldn’t be sure that it had worked) and we no longer had an escort for the crossing. We made it, though once on the other side the car wouldn’t go into 2-wheel drive for a while, making horrible grinding noises whenever we changed gears. Thankfully, it worked itself out though, and we proceeded on to our last Litchfield stop: “Lost City.” This place is basically a big boulder field, and we found a nice traverse that kept us busy for a few hours and left us worked and ready to just drive again at the end. We refreshed ourselves at yet another swimming hole on the way out (this one was sort of a terraced stream), and then headed for Darwin again.

Our last night there was rough in we had to return the van in the morning, but our flight was at 6am. So we slept in the parking lot, which I found nerve-wracking because it wasn’t in a great area of town. It worked though: no incidents, and our taxi showed up on schedule at 4:15 to pick us up. Next stop: the Great Barrier Reef!
]]> Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=10227 0 -12.4666667 130.8333333 Carl and I had a great time in Thailand – so much so that we increased our stay there by three days. He had been there for several weeks already so had the climbing scene all spec’d out for us. He met me at that airport (in a heroic journey that actually took more time than it took for me to get from my hotel in Bangkok to Krabi), and then we took the taxi/boat combination that he had arranged to get us back to Rai Lay beach. (No slippery treks through the downpour for me!). We spent the first afternoon climbing on a wall right behind the hotel we were staying at and then over the course of the next week and a half hit 4-5 other areas around the island, and it was great. The rock was solid, the climbs led to extraordinary beach overlooks, and if you were smart about the shade (and Carl had scouted this as well) it was possible to do all this without overheating. The areas usually didn’t have a lot of what I would call “easy” climbs, so my warm-up usually felt someone abbreviated, but it all worked out – no further injuries, and some great climbing.

The daily rhythm outside of climbing was quite chill. I picked up a copy of Harry Potter 7 in Bangkok, and Carl had first dibs on that because I was still finishing my review of the previous books. So we spent a lot of time reading, ate all our meal’s at Mom’s Kitchen (which was cheap, tasty and reliably safe), and wandered around the island a bit.

The one other adventure we had was renting a kayak and paddling to one of the neighboring islands. The goal was to find a hawker-free, quiet beach, and we thoroughly succeeded, finding a deserted stretch of good sand with a great view of other islands (and the storms that were circling but never really got us). I read, Carl napped, and then we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset from the water on our paddle back – good fun!

Having been wanting to climb with Carl in Thailand ever since I went there in 2000, these were a great 2 weeks. The world was calling, however, so we moved on to other adventures.

Thanks to the fare incentives of Singapore-based Tiger Airways, we had a 20-hour layover in Singapore on our way from Krabi to Darwin, in Australia. We thought we’d check the city out, and were quite glad we did, because it was very cool! Singapore is clean and modern, with a fantastic mix of ethnicities (felt like an Asia melting pot). We spent our one day there doing a walking tour of the city, hitting the Arab, Indian and Chinese quarters, with miscellaneous city architecture in between. (The only downside to the visit was that we came through on a Sunday and much of the city was shut down).

My favorite area by far was the Arab quarter, which was bustling without being overcrowded and had a neat mix of textile stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc., all frequented by locals. Even though we were only 2 hours away from breakfast, we tried some Muslim food (advertised as the best in the city), and indeed found it quite tasty. Little India was not quite as quaint, and I was traumatized by a lunch experience in which I think we were “taken” by our waiter and were served about 4 times as much food as we needed for about 4 times the price; couldn’t even make a dent and then had to go to the ATM to cover the bill. Nonetheless, the rest of the walk was enjoyable and interesting and by the end of the day I was back to raving about Singapore.
]]> Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=10226 0 8.0666667 98.9166667 As usual, it has been fantastic here. First of all, a truly comfortable bed to sleep in for the first time in months! And I’ve been taking definite advantage of that by sleeping many hours every night. Other than sleep, we have been doing the normal Hawaii things: a little golf, beach time, pool, croquet, grilling, reading, etc. It has been quite nice. I have also been attempting to catch up on computer-related activities while beginning some of the logistics of moving to a new city. What better place to do it?

The only thing not going as planned is Hurricane Flossie. She started rearing her ugly head yesterday as winds picked up dramatically. They continue today and should bring some rain with them before too long as the Hurricane passes close by the island this afternoon. We are hoping she passes today as planned so that tomorrow and Thursday morning we can enjoy a bit more beach time before boarding our plane back to the continental states.

In the meantime, I’ve been reflecting how incredible the last 3 months have been. I was fortunate enough to visit 7 countries while hanging out with great friends—and all safely. As part of this reflection, I’ve been contemplating some superlatives related to my memories of the trip. Here goes my list so far:

• Favorite city visited: Sydney, Australia
• Best wildlife encounter: Kangaroos in Grampians National Park, Australia
• Best Lodging: Cabin in Grampians National Park
• Most beautiful temple: Borobudur, Indonesia
• Best surfing: Bali, Indonesia
• Hottest city: Bangkok, Thailand
• Best Food: Thai food in Chiang Mai, Thailand, courtesy of none other than world-class Thai chef Sompon Nabnian
• Loudest city: Hanoi, Vietnam
• Best night of drinking: Rice Wine with village family near SaPa, Vietnam
• Most stunning scenery: Halong Bay, Vietnam
• Most painful experience: Mountain biking in Dalat, Vietnam
• Most interesting history: Hearing about Khmer Rouge from Cambodian local
• Most beautiful sunset: Railay Beach
• Best climbing: Railay, Thailand
• Cleanest city: Singapore, Singapore
• Best weather: Darwin, Australia

These are the first to come to mind. Perhaps I will update this blog in the future as I continue to reflect on what an awesome trip it was.

Incredible Hawaii Sunset

Incredible Hawaii Sunset

Flossie is coming

Instead, we spent our last few days indulging in other outside activities and enjoying the great weather. We golfed at the Cairns Country Club and climbed/bouldered on some really interesting, sharp volcanic-like rock on Trinity Beach near Cairns. We contemplated driving 250km south to Townsville for a few days of climbing, but opted out of it. In doing research for this though, it looks like there are literally thousands of climbing route options in Queensland that haven’t been fully explored or developed yet. Any climbers out there looking to put your mark on Australian climbing? Queensland may be your place . . .

So, an enjoyable, low-pace last few days in Cairns wrapped up our time not only in Australia, but also abroad. I think almost three months traveling was just what the doctor ordered to recover from school, as I am feeling ready to dig into some work! Crazy, but true.

Joc on Rip It Up, V1+

Bouldering in Trinity Beach

Outer Reef--Turtle Reef

Ok, with that out of my system, I can now explain how cool the Darwin area is. Darwin itself is an inviting little town that serves well its position as a jump-off point to local National Parks, Kakadu and Litchfield. We spent 2.5 days in Kakadu and 1.5 in Litchfield—both great places. We were warned that Kakadu is a huge park that requires long drives between notable sites and that in August it would be extremely busy because of local holidays. We found the first warning to be right on, but not so much the second. Because of the long drives, we opted to rent a campervan from Wicked Campers, drive at our own pace and stay where we like in lieu of paying for a tour from Darwin. In the end, we were extremely happy with our decision. We saw all the major attractions at Kakadu, including aboriginal paintings, amazing vistas, crocodiles, lots of cool birds, amazing forests and waterfalls with beautiful pools. Theses attractions were a fair bit away from each other and each beckoned for different amounts of time, so it was pleasant to have our own transportation and go at our own pace. Although I expected a Yosemite level of “busy”, including thousands of visitors at each site, we only found a few dozen each place we visited—not bad at all.

From Kakadu, we headed to Litchfield National Park. Along the way we stopped at Robin Falls and climbed for an afternoon. We jumped on half-a-dozen slab-like lead climbs on shoddy rock and had a blast! From there we drove into Litchfield where we found a lot more of the same that we found at Kakadu, except I think the waterfalls and pools were more magnificent (for starters you could swim in them without fear of crocs) and the attractions were much, much, much closer to one another, also convenient. Also, there is a part of the park called the Lost City that contains hundreds of sandstone boulders that makes for great bouldering (it was a lot of fun watching Joc send The Dusty Mutt Traverse, a V1 boulder problem we created).

Darwin and the local parks is a must-see for anyone going to Australia—great, unique scenery and culture.

Ugly brute

Florence Falls--from base

Joc on The Dusty Mutt Traverse, V1

It really is an amazing city. It is so rich with culture, commerce and history that it was well worth the visit. In our 19 hours in the city, we managed to see a large chunk of it, including the Arab quarters, Little India, Chinatown, the Central Business District (CBD) and the Government district. By the end of our day I was beyond tired from walking, but I am really happy to have seen the colorful neighborhoods, tried some various ethnic foods and somewhat experienced a truly world-class city.

I can clearly see why every Singaporean I’ve ever met is proud of their city state. It is an incredibly clean city with amazing public transportation. It has food from everywhere, business from everywhere and cultures from everywhere. Overall, an impressive place that I highly recommend checking out.

As far as Tiger Airways, they were pretty good as far as discount airlines go. They only charged us for excess baggage upon leaving Singapore, so we got away without paying extra on one-leg. The planes also had enough space and the personnel were friendly.

Hindu temple in Singapore

So, our planned five days of "hard" climbing turned into six days of "hard" climbing. We actually did climb pretty hard considering neither of us have been climbing much over the last 5 years. We visited 7 walls in six days, climbing approximately 26 5.10s and 5.11s. It was a great time. I don't feel as strong as I once did, but I am inspired to start climbing more again.

Given that climbing was our focus, we also managed to do a few other activities during our off-days, including beach reading (yeah, we both devoured the newly released Harry Potter 7 while in Railay--bought it at the Bangkok airport), kayaking to an island that was probably 1 mile away from our beach (it was a beautiful day with brilliant green water and amazing clouds in the sky), soaking in amazing sunsets (by far the best of the trip) and eating (we ate almost every meal at Mom's Kitchen, a cheap place with great food and an entertaining 50-something, free-spirited Thai women to talk to).

For sure, Railay is a great place to climb/hang out and a great place worth spending 3 weeks.

Sunset in Railay Beach

View from Tyrolean Wall in Railay

Joc climbing A Man Can Tell 100 Lies (6a), Wee's Present Wall

Carl climbing The Sit Spins (6b+) , Dum's Kitchen Wall

View from top of Wee's Present Wall

Amazing sunset in Railay

The long house itself was pretty interesting. To some extent it replicated some of the other hill tribe tours we've done (akin to a human zoo). However, this group had a chief who seemed like the real deal. When long house tribe chiefs first become chief, they tour around to the various villages under their purview and at each point hear a different part of lore from the village elders and with that exchange receive a tattoo. By the end of the tour their entire upper body is covered, as was the current 73-year-old chief's. He seemed like a pretty extraordinary guy, though my attempts at communicating with him through our guide (who was still annoyed with us from our "pushiness" the previous day) were rebuffed. (Every time I would ask the guide to ask the chief something, the guide would answer for him, regardless of how much I clarified that I understood the precedent but was interested in hearing this chief's exact words (and watching his reactions, etc.)). I was mostly interested in hearing how he has seen his leadership responsibilities change over the course of the decades as his tribe went from head hunting (yup, like some of the Indonesian tribes, these practiced raids of their neighbors and staked the skulls of their enemies at the village entrance) to tour hosting (every day welcoming another group of farangs (foreigners, usually white people). He seemed genuinely pleased to have us there and excited to show us their ways. Most of the women seemed very angry all the time, though the guide insisted that they were happy, despite their dark faces.

The Hilton was also a nice break. We swam, lounged, played pool, played mafia and generally relaxed. I also discovered a minor travel crisis in which my flights from Kuching to KL and then to Bangkok were booked with 5 minutes of layover time. Oops. So I asked Kris and Seth whether I could jump on with the Canadians for the early shuttle to the airport. Instead, the whole group rallied to leave the resort early - I think it fit others' schedules, but no doubt it was also to make my life easier, and I greatly appreciated that. In the end, I was able to go on an earlier flight (purchased an entirely new ticket; nice, Air Asia), made my connection to Bangkok, and one hour after landing was checked into the ridiculously nice Novotel, where I spent only 10 hours (don't figure out the hourly rate), but got very clean and had an excellent night sleep.

Then, on to Krabi and my long lost boyfriend!]]> Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=10173 0 13.75 100.5166667 Douglas, and then caught a sizable boat out to the "outer reef", which is supposed to be one of the better (untouched) regions. Neither he nor I had ever done this before, so we went for the heavily shepherded "introductory dives", in which we went down with 1-2 other newbies and 1 instructor, never more than 12m deep. The instructor helped us with our boyancy and monitored our air levels, so we just had to deal with mobility, steady breathing, ear clearing and if necessary mask clearing. Quite manageable, and very cool. I had some very close encounters with a Malabar (?) cod - about 3-4 feet long and fairly big. He came within a foot of my face and stared at me, I think looking for food, because when I held up empty hands, he swooshed off. We also saw some very colorful coral, a pineapple sea cucumber (huge! and aptly named), the Nemo clownfish, and many other amazingly bright creatures that I didn't catch the name of. It was a pretty fantastic day though - a bit windy and therefore cold above deck, but otherwise ok, and the diving was really fantastic! We took an underwater camera down - hopefully some pictures will turn out.

We're still plotting what to do with our last two days Down Under - hopefully some climbing. And then it's off to home soil!
]]> Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=9924 0 -16.9166667 145.7666667 Darwin, Australia early tomorrow morning for Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, our last stop before departing this part of the world. I haven't checked in since I left Malaysia, and that's just a testament to how great the trip's been! It was fantastic to be reunited with Carl in Thailand. We had a great week climbing and relaxing there (actually extended the trip by a few days). Next was Singapore, which was terrific even though we only were there for 20 hours - what a cool city!!! And then into Darwin, where we rented a "wicked van" (spray painted with numerous irreverent sayings and pictures, $77AUS a day and outfitted to camp out of and sleep in). It served us well, as we cruised through Kakadu and another local park (Litchfield). All beautiful, all great, all fun. Back in the US on the 10th and back with my laptop - will do more pictures and blogging then if not sooner! Hope everyone's well - getting excited to catch up soon!]]> Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=9890 0 -12.4666667 130.8333333 So, instead I've waited ten days to write that I've spent all my time hanging out on the beach, climbing, reading and in general relaxing. As usual, I wish I had some pictures to post to show you how beautiful it is here, but I always seem to have a hard time getting my pictures online. However, Jocelyn is finishing her time in Malaysia today and will be joining me in Railay Beach tomorrow and I will be able to upload some pictures then (using her equipment).

For those interested in stunning scenery, the beaches here have amazing white sand, clear blueish-green waters and vistas that include limestone cliff islands that jut out of the clear blue water. It is incredible. Also, even though it is supposed to be "green season" (a.k.a rainy season), the weather has been phenomenal--no rain for 4 days in a row now, which leads to stunning orange/red/pink/purple sunsets from the beach.

For those interested in climbing, Railay has over 700 sport climbing routes on beautiful limestone cliffs, all within a 15-minute walk from where I am staying. It truly is an amazing climbing destination. Again, the lack of rain has made the climbing enjoyable.

The wildlife here is also quite impressive. The other day, after I finished a climb, I was untying my knot while talking to the guy who belayed me. At the same time a twig fell off a nearby tree and landed on my climbing knot. I wasn't paying much attention, but when I looked down I realized that said twig was in fact a 12" brown snake with a greenish head that was draped over my knot! I quickly grabbed him near the tail and flung him away. No harm, no foul. However, I found out later that there are a number of dangerous snakes here, including king cobras, pythons and vipers! I haven't seen any of those yet . . . but I have also seen very brave monkeys and a few freaky looking large spiders with green bodies (many of you know my love for spiders).

As usual in Thailand, the locals are very friendly. I was speaking with a woman the other day about the Tsunami in 2004 and found that she believed that Railay wasn’t as badly hit as Ko Phi Phi or Phuket because there is far less prostitution here than in those places. I thought about asking if she was a fan of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson (who announced similar views about why America was hit by terrorists on 9/11), but then I thought it was better to smile and look surprised rather than judge her outright for such misguided thinking.

Anyway, there is also a lot of “herb” here, as the locals call it, due to the westerner, tourist influence, which is highly unfortunate because the locals don’t actually need anything to lower their already low ambitions. Then again, this is a Western way of thinking . . . According to Buddhism, not being overly ambitious leads to a happier, more peaceful life. So who am I to judge lifestyles that have been thousands of years in the making? Still, smoking or selling too much pot can’t be great for the locals in the long-run. In fact, just last week two local, well-liked businessmen were separately arrested for bringing over 30 kilos of weed into Railay. It is too bad that the locals are paying the price for Westerners who want easy-to-get and cheap-to-buy “relaxation” while on holiday . . .

So, thus is my time in Railay to date. I could write more, as usual, but perhaps for another time.
]]> Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=884 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=9152 0 8.0666667 98.9166667 Updates since the last blog:

On Saturday we went to the market. While in some ways a typical Asian market, this one was particularly fun because we had a local guide, Min (a man), who's great. It was mostly a food market, though it also had some other stuff (junk), and Min led us in a lot of sampling. My favorites included some fried falafal-like things that were Indian, peanut pancakes (crepe with butter and peanuts), and fresh pineapple. I also found another new fruit (langan?) that I am allergic to. Other than that we saw a ton of fresh vegetables, many of them new to me, as well as some jellyfish and interesting forms of meat. All told we spent over an hour there and I greatly enjoyed it.

While waiting to move on to dinner, I also got to hear from Min more about Habitat in general; highlights included learning that they are not exclusively Christian in the sense if the recipients are Muslim, as Eddie and Katie are, they receive a Koran (instead of a bible) with the keys to the house. Interesting, and in my opinion appropriate. Later that night we also went out as a group for the first time - tons of fun. It's interesting hanging out with people of such different ages - makes for a neat dynamic.

Sunday morning began with a 7:30am pilates session (Andrea, one of the BCG Stanford grads, is an instructor back home and several of us were interested in trying her class, so we rented out the hotel conference room for an hour). It was ridiculously hard - so much so that I really couldn't do much of it and didn't even really get a workout because I spent most of the time in a failure state. Nonetheless, it was fun, and it was a great prequel to the next event: the spa. I got a 1-hour massage and then some stim on the left side of my neck to try to adjust the chronic sleep-induced ache that has returned.

That afternoon we went to the rainforest wold music festival, which was awesome. I had low expectations going into it, and it turned out to be very cool. The afternoon started out with 2 workshops; I chose feuding fiddles and an introduction to Afghani music, which I thought I was going to hate and ended up really liking. They had a drummer that was unbelievable (and drums that were unbelieveable). One was sort of a tom tom with a little iron plate in the middle that allowed the player to make about 15 different sounds, and he had incredibly fast hands.

We took a 2-hour break to eat some good ethnic food, and then that night there was a big concert with 11 bands from all over the world - local to kick it off, then Afghanistan, Poland, UK, Vietnam, Tuva (which I deduced and have since confirmed is near Mongolia), Kuala Lumpur, Italy, South America and Madegascar. Each group played for between 15 and 60 minutes each, and it was really interesting. The Vietnamese group had some crazy instruments including clapping their hands in front of pipes (like you can do on your mouth). (The woman actually started out by playing a song on her mouth (something we all knew so we could see it was working)). They also had some ... weird ones - hard to describe, but cool. The polish band ("Shannon") is also worth looking up - almost Dave Matthews like, but different (same same but different!). The fiddler was great though - had seen him in the afternoon workshop too. We left the concert at about 12:30 and then bussed back for an hour.

Monday we got started late because we were up late the night before, but still made good progress, and today we finished up our work on the house! Eric, our foreman, said we did well - were ahead of schedule (and hopefully made a house that won't fall down). We finished all the brickwork except for a tricky spot in what will be the ceiling of the bathroom, and plastered several of the walls (turns out plastering is my favorite task). We're in the process of assembling pictures, so I will have some soon, but suffice it to say that we build a house! Pretty cool.

Tonight we have our local farewell dinner with the affiliate and then tomorrow we leave for the country to visit a long house hill tribe for 2 days. Then Friday we depart! It's gone quite quickly (I seem to say that about every location) but has been a great time (also say that about every location). Again as usual though, I am really looking forward to the next stage too! ]]> Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=9087 0 1.55 110.3333333 The trip is going well. I really like the group - a great group of individuals with mix of laid back-ness and interesting-ness. We are making decent progress on the house too. The daily rhythm is something like this: leave the hotel at 8am, drive 45 minutes to the village, working by 9am. Break at 10:30 for 10-15 minutes, work until 12:30. Break for 30-60-minute lunch, work until 3ish, maybe another quick break, then finish at 4:30.

After a day or so of framing and dirt shoveling, we were ready to pour concrete. The first day of that was all manual mixing, which is very, very hard! On the way to the internet cafe tonight I passed a pile of sand beside a pile of gravel and it gave me the shivers. My back was nearly broken for the first day or so despite decent efforts to use my legs, but it seems to be recovering. We also found a great massage place nearby that's $15US per hour! Very therapeutic.

Today, thanks to a wonderful new invention (the cement mixer), our work didn't involve manual mixing - such a treat! We carted wheelbarrow-fulls of this to the site this morning and finished pouring the floor of the house. Then we formed human chains to move many bricks and started on the walls.

Aaron, one of the Irish lads and I also played soccer against the local kids at lunch today - that was a ton of fun, though in 90+ degree heat, it wiped me out for the afternoon. Hopefully we will repeat that, without the dehydration factor. Eddie, the husband in the couple we're building the house for, played on our team as did one of the young girls; the other 12 were against us, and when they come up to your hip height, it's quite a challenge not to send bodies flying!

Every night we congregate around 7 for a group dinner, then have free time (though by then most of us are eager to crawl into bed - long days!). It's a good rhythm - lots of fun! And now, off to dinner...]]> Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=885 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=8911 0 1.4166667 110.3333333 With two weeks completely to myself, I’ve been struggling with the decision of what to do. Visit Laos? More of Cambodia? Back to Northern Thailand? Viv’s family in Hong Kong? A bit of Malaysia? In the end, I decided to come to Southern Thailand for a few weeks of both rest and recreation. I’m now in Railey Beach, one of the top climbing meccas in the world. It is comprised of amazing overhung limestone jetting out of beautiful beach and surrounded by lush jungle. I chose to come here, to only one place, in large part to hopefully heal my back and then climb a bit while I wait for Joc to finish with her good karma acts in Malaysia (I’m hoping she is working hard enough to provide good karma for the both of us because I am being satisfyingly selfish and lazy).

Although this place is gorgeous, I had one of the worst days of the trip so far getting here . . . good story. I read in the guide book that the only way to get to these beaches is by long tail boat from the port city of Ao Nang. So, when I arrived in Krabi by plane I took a taxi to Ao Nang and stayed there for the night because a storm was coming in and the long boats were done for the night. The next morning I awoke to an amazing monsoon-type storm at 6am that must have had sustained 40mph winds (it was crazy for about 1 hour). By the time I loaded onto the boat the seas were pretty rough (and as a side note, the rain cover for one of my packs ripped while getting to the boat). About 3 minutes into the 20-minute boat ride a wave came up and over the front of the boat, completely soaking me and both my bags.

The boat then dropped me off at Railey Beach and refused to take me to the neighboring Ton Sai beach even though that was what I paid for. Then as it started raining (which really didn’t matter given my status) I headed to the nearest climbing shop to get the low down on the area. I ran into a kid who was staying at Ton Sai and told me that I didn’t have to wait till low tide to walk to Ton Sai, I could instead walk over a rough, bushwacking trail to get there earlier. I decided I would like to get to my bungalow to get all my stuff out of my bag and start drying as soon as possible, so I started walking. I got on a trail that was definitely not easy and could be described as “bushwacking” so I continued. I realized later that I was WAY, WAY off course! 1 hour later and a frighteningly close call with slipping on a cliff and almost tumbling into the sea (my hand and wrist are now all cut up from my “heroic” save of myself and bags), I found the real trail and ended up in Ton Sai. Only after hauling my 70lb bags for 1.5 hours did I find out that it is low season so they only have electricity in Ton Sai for a few hours a day. Despite what the website showed, I would not be getting an A/C bungalow with warm water . . . I thought this would make for a difficult time drying all my wet belongings. Turns out I was correct.

After two nights of effectively camping out in Ton Sai I put my heavy bags back on and trudged another 45 minutes back to Railey to a bit better bungalow with electricity all day. Now I am chilling for a few days, sleeping, reading and exploring the cliff faces. I climbed two days ago and my back wasn’t too happy about it, so I’m hoping that a few days off will set me up. In the meantime, I’m finding the best crags to visit and recovering a bit. Provided the sporadic, heavy rains cooperate, I think I’m in for a great time here over the next few weeks.

PS - I tried to upload some pictures today, but was thwarted again . . . I might have to wait till Australia to find a good connection, but I'm hoping not.

Large Lizard near Escher Wall in Railay

Large Lizard near Escher Wall in Railay

View from top of Gengis Bond (6b) on The Keep Wall

Although this place is gorgeous, I had one of the worst days of the trip so far getting here . . . good story. I read in the guide book that the only way to get to these beaches is by long tail boat from the port city of Ao Nang. So, when I arrived in Krabi by plane I took a taxi to Ao Nang and stayed there for the night because a storm was coming in and the long boats were done for the night. The next morning I awoke to an amazing monsoon-type storm at 6am that must have had sustained 40mph winds (it was crazy for about 1 hour). By the time I loaded onto the boat the seas were pretty rough (and as a side note, the rain cover for one of my packs ripped while getting to the boat). About 3 minutes into the 20-minute boat ride a wave came up and over the front of the boat, completely soaking me and both my bags.

The boat then dropped me off at Railey Beach and refused to take me to the neighboring Ton Sai beach even though that was what I paid for. Then as it started raining (which really didn’t matter given my status) I headed to the nearest climbing shop to get the low down on the area. I ran into a kid who was staying at Ton Sai and told me that I didn’t have to wait till low tide to walk to Ton Sai, I could instead walk over a rough, bushwacking trail to get there earlier. I decided I would like to get to my bungalow to get all my stuff out of my bag and start drying as soon as possible, so I started walking. I got on a trail that was definitely not easy and could be described as “bushwacking” so I continued. I realized later that I was WAY, WAY off course! 1 hour later and a frighteningly close call with slipping on a cliff and almost tumbling into the sea (my hand and wrist are now all cut up from my “heroic” save of myself and bags), I found the real trail and ended up in Ton Sai. Only after hauling my 70lb bags for 1.5 hours did I find out that it is low season so they only have electricity in Ton Sai for a few hours a day. Despite what the website showed, I would not be getting an A/C bungalow with warm water . . . I thought this would make for a difficult time drying all my wet belongings. Turns out I was correct.

After two nights of effectively camping out in Ton Sai I put my heavy bags back on and trudged another 45 minutes back to Railey to a bit better bungalow with electricity all day. Now I am chilling for a few days, sleeping, reading and exploring the cliff faces. I climbed two days ago and my back wasn’t too happy about it, so I’m hoping that a few days off will set me up. In the meantime, I’m finding the best crags to visit and recovering a bit. Provided the sporadic, heavy rains cooperate, I think I’m in for a great time here over the next few weeks.

PS - I tried to upload some pictures today, but was thwarted again . . . I might have to wait till Australia to find a good connection, but I'm hoping not.]]> Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=884 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=8758 0 8.0666667 98.9166667 Vietnam. It has been an amazing and educational 3 weeks. Joc and I ran into a chap from Australia the other day who followed a similar path to ours through Vietnam. We asked him what he thought about it and his answer was incredibly accurate and simple: There are a lot of things to like about Vietnam and a lot of things to not like. With that in mind, I thought I’d make a short list regarding my top likes and dislikes:

Likes
1. Scenery was absolutely amazing.
2. Interesting people/culture that have suffered through many years of hardships but are progressing nonetheless.
3. Ability to travel freely and affordably

Dislikes
1. Constantly circling, aggressive merchants
2. Hanoi (specifically the pushiness of people)
3. Excessive honking

This is a very short list, off the top-of-my-head. I’m sure in hindsight there will be many more things that can go in both of these columns.

One quick note on Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City): it was great. WAY better than Hanoi, and if I had the experience, I would have done the Vietnam traveling in reverse, starting in Saigon and ending in the north (This is one of the interesting things about Vietnam. You will inevitably do a lot of things wrong that will cost you time or money or both before “learning your lesson”. However, the chances are you will not encounter quite the same thing again so the lesson is a bit lost. Alas.) Anyway, Saigon is a bustling big city on the verge of becoming a true cosmopolitan city but it is missing the deceitfulness and constant noise (at least to the same degree as Hanoi). So, overall, I enjoyed it immensely more than Hanoi. It was a great way to leave the country, helping my entire Vietnam experience to sit incredibly well.
]]> Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=884 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=8756 0 10.75 106.6666667 Cambodian experience, I was especially interested in traveling throughout Cambodia. In fact, I almost skipped some of my time in Southern Thailand to travel more in Cambodia, but at the end of the day, I didn’t want to be on the move so much with my back as irritated as it has been . . . I guess it is for another trip. I hope to get some more pictures of the temples here because they were great!

PS – I’m not sure that Joc or Viv mentioned the interesting conversations we had with our Angkor Wat tour guide about the Khmer Rouge brutality experienced in her country in the late 70s. Suffice it to say, I am incredibly fortunate to have been born in the USA where I was never limited to one handful of rice each day, forced to marry a particular woman for breeding purposes or found my grandfather shot because he was trying to feed his family by fishing in a plentiful lake. The Khmer Rouge was an incredibly merciless regime that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the name of socialism and creating an enlightened society. Absolutely amazing what some people have had to live through. We are a blessed bunch.]]> Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=884 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=8755 0 13.3666667 103.85 First, Dalat. It was amazingly cool compared to the rest of the country. Where everywhere else we visited was in the 90s, Dalat was in the low 70s (or maybe even upper 60s). This was a welcomed change. The other cool thing about Dalat was the architecture. There were some cafes where we ate that if we looked out onto the street corner it would feel like a little French villa—overall, the landscape was beautiful. Although we weren’t able to climb, it was still worth the trip to this mountain town.

As far as my mountain bike injury, I’m not a young pup anymore. At least that is what my body keeps telling me. The cold I had turned out to be a 24 hour deal, which is better than I can say about my back . . . I stepped off my bike on a muddy downhill in order to avoid running into Joc and as soon as my foot hit the mud it slide while I was simultaneously trying to stop the momentum of my body from going down the hill. My back didn’t like this combination too much and it seized up immediately. The seizing really did some interesting things to my posture, including pulling my right hip forward and to the right of center of my central body line. For a few days if you looked at me, it looked like I had some serious scoliosis.

So, that was Dalat from my vantage point (although close, it wasn’t just the inside of a hotel room).]]> Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=884 http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?commentID=8754 0 11.9333333 108.4166667