[The crew in Krabi] I haven't posted for a while so here is what I have done:Went to Krabi for 10 days and climbed. We met up with some Seattle friends, Hal (who lives in Singapore now), Frankie and Karin. A bunch of photos were taken. Here are a few which I was able to steel from Karin's site.
Frankies Wonderful Photos
Karin's Corageous Pics
We spent one day deep water soloing which was scary but fun. I was terrified to go any higher than Mike is going in the photo at the top of this post (that's me down below). No way man. But... by the end of the day, the falling wasn't so bad.
[Bubbs looking for Bubs] I can see how one could get into it. The main thing that I got out of it is that deep water solo doesn't necessarily strip away all the gear and make climbing pute and simple. You have to rent a boat. Then you have to take kayak to the edge of the cliff (it is next to impossible to climb out of the water, and besides...), once you get wet, you are wet and your hands are wet and everything is slippery. However, you get to play around on some cool lines and scare the crap out of yourself in relative safety.My sister met up with us down in Railay. She scuba dived for two days while I went climbing. Even though it is crowded, and even though there are more dreadlocks than sunburned bellies, and even though the rock is a bit greasy, and even though it costs four times as much as the Thailand that I live in, the climbing kicks serious butt and I had a good old time.
We flew back to Chiang Mai with my sister. My friend Tom from Seattle showed up the next day and we spent the next two weeks seeing things in Chiang Mai that I haven't done yet. We went to some Wats (temples), took a Thai cooking class, Char and Tom went up to the Elephant Nature Park (see previous post), we ate lots of good food, I learned more about Buddhism then I have up to this point, and I got to hang out with my sister and Tom. It was cool.
Besides that, I have been teaching a bunch to make money. Megan took off for Borneo for three weeks leaving me a bachelor so I have been forced to do bachelor things. Things like drink beer in bed, go caving with friends, create a proposal to install a Via Feratta up a waterfall to benefit a hill tribe (more later on that), get a Thai drivers license, put up a new 7b climb at the crag, avoid blogging, and clean the house and have it stay clean for a week (ok, so that is an anti-bachelor thing, but sometimes I can be a neat freak).
As the spring rolls on (and heats up- it is about 100 degrees outside as I write this... how cold is it in Seattle?)) we are looking at coming back to Seattle in late June. The plan now is to stay in Seattle through July and then come back to Thailand for another year.
So now I have to go pick up my motorcycle from the shop. I'm getting the oil changed, replacing the steering column bearing, getting a new front tire, replacing my choke cable, and hoping to get that annoying stalling thing fixed that causes my engine to die when I start up from a stop. It should cost about 30 dollars for the whole thing. I love Thailand!
Marshall
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