More photos

Here are more photos from our ongoig trip. We are about to move on to Lao Liang, an island in the far south of Thailand, for about 4 days, then we'll make our way northward from there. There have been a few milestones achieved already. So far, Holly has managed to climb some major routes, John has taught some of the local boys how to slackline, Samantha has fallen in love with the BBQ chicken from beach-side food vendor, Julianne has managed to keep the local guys at bay, and Jeff and I have both fought off... no, not the local guys like Julianne. Jeff and I have each fought off a nasty bug of some sort. Actually I am still trying to get rid of the tail end of mine, hence this blog post. Everyone is out climbing now at a new area, and I am nerding it on the computer! AAAHHHHHHH!

Thailand

Bangkok greeted us after midnight with warm, wet breezes. The excitement was tangible as headed out into the city, with our newly arrived member (and 24-hour comic relief), Mr. Jeffery 'Treadwell' Gabrush. The taxi took us to Koh San Road, where all backpackers go when they are 'fresh off the birds'. In the words of our French friend Jade, Koh San was "DI-SGUS-TING" (why does it sound so true and more descriptive when French people say that?). It was this filthy side street filled with garbage, beer bottles, and various intoxicated people laying in the gutters. What? This is Thailand? I felt like I was in the slums of Calcutta. Anyways, we found a little place to stay quickly, and stayed in for the night! Remarkably, the the next morning we found that the street was completely cleaned up into a nice little market. Perhaps the ghetto party slum was only a bad dream? Mothers, please erase the above imagery. We spent our afternoon in Thailand touring the Great Palace, a beautiful temple/courtyard of the old King of Thailand. The pictures speak for themselves. In the evening we caught our over night train down south to Surat Thani. The second class sleepers were great, and we all thoroughly enjoyed our train ride. We played cards, watched the countryside, and took in the smells out the open train windows. Think of old King, hanging his head out the window of the car. That was Matt. The next morning we took a bus, and a boat to reach our semi-permanent location of Railay/Tonsai Beach. We also met up with the lovely Miss Julianne Rooke. A fellow Saskatonian and climber extraordinaire, Julianne has been travelling in the area for a few weeks now. We're glad to have her join our group, although the poor thing is stuck sharing a room with Jeff. We'll see if his antics drive her completely mad. Railay is AMAZING! People travel here from around the world to climb the magnificent limestone cliffs that protrude from the clear, blue water. We are in a climbers paradise, and loving every pad Thai eating, coconut-shake drinking minute of it! But please, words do no justice. Just enjoy the pictures!

Hong Kong

Hong Kong was a bewildering place of foreign foods, smells, people, sights and pollution. We arrived into the city late on Saturday night at our hostel site, the Chung King Mansion. Anyone who knows of this place will now be cringing and may even shutter slightly to recollect this place. The Chung King Mansion is a huge fifteen-floor building with an array of shops, restaurants and hostels. It is completely chaotic, dirty and full of Caucasian, Indian and African people (but strangely, hardly any Asian people). To make a long story short, we only stayed one night here before heading down the street to the Mirador Mansion (much cleaner, quieter, and safer).

We spent our days checking out some great parks, beaches, and one rock climbing spot throughout Kowloon, Hong Kong, and Lantau Island. The parks were all very beautiful and tropical, which is such a contrast to the chaotic city streets. I will give massive bonus points to Hong Kong Park as it had an amazing walk-through aviary that blew my ornithological mind away. The climbing spot was good, but it actually took us a full day of searching for it with (more than) slightly vague directions to actually find it!

We had a great time in Hong Kong, but it's safe to say that we were all excited to get to Thailand!

The Year of the Rat begins

Lunar New Year, 'Sol-nal', as it's called in Korean, is a national holiday here. As such, we, along with 48,000,000 other people here, had a sweet 3 day holiday.

Holly and I headed up to Seoul for the holiday, and met up with a number of different people while we were there, including Ben and Jade (from Ulsan). We spent a lot of great time with them. We checked out the markets and visited the national art gallerey to see an amazing Van Gogh exhibit.

We also visited with my neighbour from La Ronge, Anne-Marie Kidd, who has lived in Seoul for over 2 years. We met up with her and went to nearby Suwon, where an ancient fortress still stands within the city.

Then we met up with Holly's 2nd cousin Colleen, and her husband Bruce. They had lived in a southern community of Korea and were in Seoul for a course prior to moving back to Nelson, BC. They were really great people and we look forward to seeing them again sometime down the road.

Next stop was Bukhansan National Park, where Holly and I hiked up a little mountain and had a view of northern Seoul (see the picture of apartments below). It was a crazy sight. I think there were probably more people living in the apartments within that photo than there are in lovely old Saskatchewan. That realization blew my hair back (not that that's difficult... there's less and less to blow back every day).

At the base of the park we found an outdoor bouldering wall and had a session on it, that was fun, but the highlight was seeing Spooky's (Holly's fat old cat) oriental cousin rooting through the compost nextdoor to the climbing wall. This raggedy old cat ran away with a slab of meat about a third his size after I took the picture. Cats in Horea, by the way, are not pets. Much to Holly's dissapointment, the cats are all quite wild, dirty, mean and unfriendly.

Anyway this is all I can write for now, as we are packing the apartment up to move out. By the way, we are done our contract officially, and preparing to meet John and Samantha (Holly's bro and his girlfriend) and one of our best friends, Jeff ( a beauty from La Ronge, you might know him as the rat, or you might know him as a groomsman in our wedding party, regardless, you likely know him, he knows everybody!) in HONG KONG!!!! Yeahhhh. Holly's been rocking to 'the final countdown' by Europe, every morning. We are so excited to see them, to see Hong Kong and Thailand, and eventually get home to Canada, that my hands shake with excitement writing this.

On that note Holly and I are off to see Ben and Jade. Not much time to visit our friends anymore... Later!