Thursday, January 29, 2009

Climbing, diving, drinking, chilling...

26.01.09

Happy Australia Day!
I'm all over my illness and welsh Ryan and I got out for a killer day at the crag today. We had a reasonably early breakfast then headed over to Thaiwand Wall at West Railay. What a blast! Bosched up a nice little 6a+ to warm up then did the mega classic, 35 metre long 'Equatorial' 6c on my 2nd shot. A never ending arete that my 70 metre rope only just gets you off by rope stretch alone that finishes in a cave with the most amazing view ever! Then we went through the massive cave system that runs through the entire wall to pop out at Phra Nang beach. We lazed on the beach watching tourist girls in bikini's, playing 'my wife' (great game, explanation pending haha) listening to tunes for a while then headed back to Escher World where I onsighted a great 25m route called 'The Best Route In Minnesotta' 6c, one of the best routes I have ever done, a fantastic, crazy arete on a crazy feature inside the entrance of a massive cave... amazing!
We headed back through the massive caves then abseiled out of them (with a group of 19 cute little 19yr old Canadian girls... fantastic sport haha) before walking home to Tonsai with a sunset swim at Railay beach on the way... perfect. With a few beers with the crew to round out the day it was a great way to celebrate Australia Day!


29.01.09

Fun in the sun... love it! I have been here for 3 weeks now and it feels like 3 days. Having the greatest time. Fantastic company, beatiful scenery, tropical beaches, great climbing, pretty girls, cheap beer... what more can you ask for???
No more illness for any of the crew any more so it's game on, time to get involved. Tuesday ended up being a lazy rest day followed by a fun evening (drinking straight Sangsum from the bottle and slacklining is always a winner haha). Yesterday we got down to the beach at a reasonable time and warmed up with a lap on 'Stalagasaurus' then headed to the shady part of Dum's Kitchen to do a bouldery little 6c called 'Jumping For Jugs' which was well friggin hard for the grade but I did it 2nd shot so I was happy with that.
Then I had to call it a day early to go see Jack & Steff off home to Sydney and Seong Jae off home to Korea... was sad to see them all leave, they have been great fun to have around these last few weeks.
At 2pm after seeing the guys off, myself, Kentucky Ryan and Welsh Ryan went out for a sunset snorkelling trip. Fuckin brilliant! We headed out on a cool big boat out past Koh Poda and Koh Chicken and did 3 different dives on different parts of the reefs out there. The 2nd dive was fantastic.. schools of Barracuda every where (scary big toothed buggers!), brilliant coral, amazing fish at every turn... just sensational. Then we went in to a secluded beach on the reef and watch the best sunset I have ever seen and had a bang up dinner on the beach at night. It was then back onto the big boat and back to a spot for one more dive, a night swim. We all climbed to the top deck, they turned off all the lights and we jumped from the top (5 metre) balcony of the ship into the dark and eery water. But it is FULL of bio-luminescent plankton! You more in the water and the plankton lights up around you like fireflies in the water... so cool. We banged on some goggles and swam around underwater in the dark and it is like swimming through a moving galaxy of stars underwater... simply amazing! All in all one of the best days ever.
Today Welsh Dave and I are chillin and having coffee at Pyramid Bar then we are off to Cat Wall for the afternoon to get some milage in on the rock. Keen as.


Alain high up on Thaiwand Wall with Railay West in the background


Kentucky Ryan chucking a backflip of the dive boat


Me and Ryan enjoying the reef


One of the billions of fish we saw


Sunset from our private dinner beach... stunning!

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