Words of Wisdom

What follows is an extract of an email sent by Shane, in summary of our Krabi trip. He'd sat there, at dinner with Tony and Isobel, on the night of April the 1st 2007 kindly transcribing the evenings revelries. The concept of sitting there writing down, on his scroll, during a causal dinner meet was quite amusing for me...maybe this kind of thing is normal in america.

In the true form of any good quote, it's all completely out of context.



and so way way left and the rest of us were sad
rei left and the rest of us were sad
annalisa left and the rest of us were sad

and so, the only thing left for tony isobel and i to do, was drink.
that is, the only thing for tony and i to do, was watch isobel drink.
and so, over seven big changs(and saved for posterities sake) i give you the following -running- monologue courtesy of isobel at ya-yas on the evening of sunday 01 apr 2007 and so

"I hate it when anyone orders better than me." [upon Isobel being jealous of Tony's food]"

Any strained button means either the shirts too small or you're too fat." [random fashion comment]

"Your [Shane's fried rice served in a pineapple] pineapple thing didn't look like anything I'd be happy with."

"I'm on my sixth long bottle and I've got sober people to play with." [Isobel's lament that Tony and Shane weren't drinking]

"If it's distilled liquor it's got to be good for you."

"If the water's not pure before it's turned into alcohol it's certainly pure afterwards."

"All New Zealander's get a two year visa to England. And they go there and do good stuff." "After two years in England you just go home and die."

"I love the altitude. I've climbed Mt. Fuji sixteen times and I love it because it's like being pissed!"

"Jesus! You're [Shane] left handed too?!?" Referring to the fact there are also 'other' things 'wrong' with him...

"I need water in my glass... the beers coming -shit! How and I gonna walk over there?!? [to the bathroom]"

"I'll have one potato fried and salted -know what I mean? French fries! Yeah, that's it."

"God but that looks unhealthy!" [looking at a plate the waiter had in his hand]"I did so well getting back here [from the toilet].

"[Shane: "So they're married?"] "No, no, no... they're married."

"I went to boarding school -we were short of matches in the rain." [I think this was about looking for a lighter]"

"That's what I have for your hole." [anti-septic ointment for Shane's foot]

and here's an honorable mention from Tony:
"I only smoke in Bangkok when I'm pissed."

Some more photos of climbing in Krabi

Courtesy of Rei. Thank you Rei!

Me Climbing Wee's Present

Me climbing at the 1,2,3 wall...where I had been told that it was a really easy 5-, when it was actually a 6b. Bit of a nasty over hang for a start, but amazing juggy hand holds.

Annalisa

Rei and I

Tony and Isobel

Little Greg drank all the beer!

Shane

Humanality...the EPIC.

[i've been instructed to replace a certain word... i assume it deeply offended the person who asked me to do this... so just for you...]


On friday the 30th (my last day of actual climbing) i did some multi-pitching with some random guy called shane, who isobel met two nights before. we climbed something called 'humanality'.

Originally the climb is meant to be started by climbing 'tarzan' which is not even rock, but a large and very cool tree which seems to be growing tendrils. however, as we were making our way to start the climb we were stopped (very politely) by a guy called Bob, who tolds us how the tree was actually worshiped by the buddists and requested that we use the ladder instead. And, yes, there was a ladder. Apparently from the weddings which take place hanging from the rocks over Tonsai beach.

I led every pitch, and i led the hardest pitch thinking it was a 6a (it was actually a 6b+) i had to sit rest a lot on the crux but i eventually made it, which was cool. My efforts were even met by some cheering and applause by some people spectating from the comfort of the ground right by the bar. which was nice.

We took a rest after this pitch to take some photos, eat some rasins and drink some much needed water.



The Melting wall and Fire wall that we climbed the previous day. yes, it's called the fire wall for a reason. It was very hot. i had to lie down for an hour to recover from each climb.

View from the 3rd belay point of the long tail boats below us.

Veiw to the right of our little belay point.View of the the climb with the stalagtite that nearly conquered me.

The worst part, was on the pitch with a large stalagtite, because i had to transfer from the wall, backwards onto the stalagtite then back to the wall and i managed to climb too high, then i got sooo scared to leave the sanctuary of the stalagtite that it tooke me about half an hour to get back on to the wall again.

So on the second to last pitch i was physically and mentally exhausted from that, and so was soo tired that i sat on every bolt on the last part of the climb. but i had to keep going, because we had happened to borrow a 60m rope from the pair of climbers who had gone up before us (we were sharing the ropes...me and shane took up a 60m, and the other couple took a 60m too so that we could share the abseil). so they were waiting for me to finish, and the sun was creeping up on them (they had little shade to stand in, and i was still stuck half way up the last pitch...absolutely exhausted) eventually i finished...and i abseiled down to where the other couple were waiting. then, shane, abseiled to us from the belay point he was at (so that he wouldn't waste time climbing the last pitch). the other couple then abseiled down to the ground, and i made shane go first. while he was abseiling, i was having a chat to the next pair of climbers who had been following us. the guy who had led the pitch was belaying very close to where we were doing our abseil from. and his seconder didn't seem to be climbing...complaining that there was too much slack (shane told me later he was actually having a spliff)...but i could see the belayer, and his rope was tight...so i figured their rope was stuck mid way. anyway, the seconder couldnt be arsed to climb (they looked as though they had 2 half ropes) and despite the guy who was belaying from the top point, not being too confident with abseiling, the seconder insisted in crossing over to our abseil rope to get down. completely abandoning his buddy to sort out the mess. (what a dick head) anyway once the evil lazy seconder was off the abseil rope (which he didn't even bother telling me he was off) i offered to abseil down to have a look, which involved a sideways abseil (i was still knackered from the climb and had been roasting in the full glare of the sun due to waiting for ppl to get off the abseil. i managed to get to near their rope by clipping a safely into a nearby sling and then forcing my way across to another bolt further off to the left by kinda traversing then clipping another cow tail into the wall to keep myself on the right side. I could see that one of the ropes had been back clipped (but the other was fine) but i couldnt' reach the clip to sort it out, so i had to haul myself up (which was very hard because i was soo tired) using quick draws to get myself closer to the higher bolt. then i kept shaking the rope until i freed both ropes for the offending quickdraw...so the guy could haul the rope up to abseil.

anyway i finally got down, ran into the shade and lay down on the floor to recover from the heat. not before ordering a coconut shake, then promptly collapsing on the floor in a heap, after removing my shoes and harness. which caused a bit of confusion when they couldn't find me to give me the shake. Anyway, it made the Thai guides laugh.

Bangkok to Krabi

I went, rather late, to the JR ticket office to try and buy my ticket for the Narita Express. Only to discover there were no seats left on the first train. Which, was a little bit of an issue…as this was the train we needed to get to the airport in time…but I managed, with some very broken Japanese, to find out they still had standing tickets…so it wasn’t so bad.

So, and early start to get to the airport and we get to the check in desk at which point the lady behind the desk asks if I have a re-entry permit [in Japanese]. ?????? errrr no! ‘do I need one?... I thought I had a multiple entry visa…’ anyway, it turns out that I was meant to apply for a re-entry permit. So, there is a bit of flustering behind the desk and now another lady is helping our check-in lady and are muttering away in Japanese. They try to explain to me in Japanese what I can do. I look back blankly. And Rei argues for me and after lots of Japanese exchange the lady goes away to call someone about what to do. In the mean time Rei explains to me in English, that apparently I can get a re-entry permit in the airport at immigration, but it will take about an hour, so I have to go immediately.

I toodle off to departures then immigration, where there is *the* largest intertwining queue I have seen in my LIFE! It actually just looked like a mass of bodies. There was no discernable start, and it wasn’t obvious where anyone was going. So, I just walked in to the middle of the throng to try and find an ‘end’ to a queue. It seemed like there were only 3 immigration officers for a good 500 people. I’d been queuing for a good 20 mins, getting increasingly paranoid about not being able to make it for my flight if they were then going to hold me up for another hour to get the permit. Then I suddenly noticed people making a mad dash to the left…New Queue! There were people practically diving to the newly opened desk. I couldn’t help giggling out loud, mainly because I was making an effort to get there myself. Then, just as I’d settled in my new found so-closer-to-the-counter position, yet another two counters opened up, spurring another melee, which just made me smirk more. I couldn’t be bothered to push the little old grannies out of my way to get a few seconds closer to the counter so I just stayed put and watched. Anyway, after all that I finally get to the counter and try and explain to the immigration officer, what I was told at the check-in desk. Apparently it was all fine, well fine-ish…she just confiscated my alien registration card and said I had to reapply when I got back…so, it all turned out ok. Hazzah!

We get to Bangkok and proceed to find some lunch…some nice Thai food was what we were really looking for, which was just what we found, in the form of the airport cafeteria. Mmmmmm sweet chilli sauce! Yum. After being distracted by our stomachs we went to try and find a way into town, which was pretty easy…we just took a bus in, which dropped us near a market which Rei’s guide book said there were some guest houses near by, so we walked around to book in. After dumping our bags we went for a quick little stroll around town. There was a lot of practice and fire poi on sale and a stall selling fried insects: frogs legs, locusts, beetles and other goodies.

I wasn't brave enough to try any...sorry. but they looked very crunchy, if that helps.

The next day we got up fairly early, to go look at the Grand Palace. Where there was already a queue forming, on a very narrow pavement, to get in. We had to borrow shirts from the office, for being inappropriately dressed…

Anyway the temple in the palace grounds (Wat Phra Kaeo) was beautiful and gold….there was lots of gold. We even got to see the jade Buddha…the building housing it was actually a building site. They seemed to be undergoing some renovation.

After frolicking in the palace grounds we tried to walk over to a different temple...just behind the palace called Wat Pho, but as we were making our way a guy stopped us in the street and went on to tell us that today (sunday) was a national holiday and Wat Pho was shut until 12noon, unfortunately we had to get the 11am bus to the airport to get our internal flight, so we gave up and thought we'd just try and get a tuktuk to the sleeping buddha, fly past, take photos then get back to our guest house and get the bus.

This was a lot harder than we thought it would be. Firstly, because the guy who had stopped us was being overly helpful and trying to point out all the sights in Bangkok that we should see and wasn't about to let us on our way anytime soon. Secondly, when we tried getting a tuktuk to the sleeping buddha the drivers were all trying to take us to some 'Fashion House' so that they could cash in on some government fuel coupon. At least two drivers just point blank refused to take us just to the places we wanted to go. In the end we just ran out of time and managed to convince a driver to take us back to our guest house for more than it should have been. So, that was fun.

We got our bus in the end, and happened to run into a young Canadian man who happened to be taking the same flight to Krabi that we were. Not only that, he had come from Tokyo himself, but not on our flight. Think he was coming from Osaka where he was teaching English at a small high school in a little town about an hour from the city. So, we had a nice chat to him.

I managed to loose my shoes on the air asia flight to Krabi. It seems they absconded from one of the outside pockets in my bag…so only flip flops for me! Unfortunately, I only noticed that they were gone when we’d found a room in Railay beach.
Getting to Railay beach was quite a little adventure for me. First, we had to get a taxi to Ao Namam (can’t quite remember the name, but think that was it) then wait for enough people to turn up to justify moving a long-tail boat. The ride in was beautiful, the photos really don’t do it justice.