Hmmm....life is funny

No pictures for this one, and not that much time to write. I guess its been almost ten days since I last wrote here. Wow! The term I have been using is: Days pass like weeks and weeks pass like hours. Maybe the Doppler effect is at work here, twisting time around, compressing and expanding.

A quick Summary: Emily arrived. It was quicly obvious to the both of us that things were not right between us. It wouldn't be fair to use this blog to broadcast the personal parts of our relationship. Sufice it to say that although it would be so much easier to still be a couple while traveling, we both agree that its not possible. So we have spent the better part of the last week trying hard to navigate this new part of our lives. How do you stay good friends with the person that you just broke up with? Is it possible to travel together? It's been interesting and I think that we have done surprisingly well under the circumstances.

We stayed in Tonsai for that week, climbing and beaching during the day, hanging out with all of the amazing people that we have met here. Collectively we nicknamed it 'Summer Camp' because, well, it felt a lot like that. I have been hanging out with that same group of people for the last 3 weeks, and I am very grateful for that. But it had to end...it always does. So yesterday Vanessa left for Canada, Glen left for Sydney, Casey and Skyler were leaving for Montana, Jodi and Emily were going to head up to a National Park for a few days, Ruzi was staying put, and Maxine and I headed down to Ko Lipe. I plan on being here for a few days and then heading across the Malaysian border to do my Visa run before heading back to Tonsai to climb for another couple of weeks.

The trip down here was classically Thai. We got some sketchy directions from the guy whom we booked the travel through, but somehow still managed to get to the bus stop on time. Of course the driver just looked at our ticket, chuckled, then asked us to get on the bus. No affirmation that we were on the right bus, and no clear answer to our question, "Ko Lipe?" But, as always here, we got to the pier on time, caught the right ferry, and ended up on the right beach. But the island was full of people and there was really nowhere to stay. We ended up sleeping in a tent. Which wasn't really all that bad (except for the sore back in the morning and no sink to brush teeth), but now we have a bungalow and all is right in the world again.

And thats that...for now at least. Today is a relax and snorkel day, tomorrow a dive day, and then who knows. I have to be out of Thailand before the 24th because of my Visa, but thats about the only real constraint I have. Oh, and I only have so much money. I guess that does matter too...

Life in Thailand continued....

Well, I found a new place to stay. Same resort, The Andaman, but a nicer, larger place with fewer wildlife features. I like it.

The last few days have been a blur. I have been climbing a lot, hanging out on the beach a lot on my days off, and just enjoying the slow pace of life here. Well, I guess that's not quite right. Before I left I thought that it would be slow and langorous here, with whole days spent in a sun-drenched bliss-like state. That hasnt happened yet. I am actually very very busy! I have been climbing with three different sets of people and it is a little taxing to be juggling all the socializing. I know. Imagine that! But its true. It has been so truly wonderful for that to be the case. The Canadians I have been climbing with forbid me to take rest days that werent on their schedule. As did the Americans and the Germans. They are all such great people!



I have been climbing well for me here. I have been able to onsight 11a, and get 11b with only a little more work than that. I projected on a 12a a couple days ago and it worked the crap out of me! I have a long way to go before I can get a redpoint, but it seems do-able. As long as I take adequate rest. I have been climbing too hard I think and my forearms have tweaked a little. I will have to back off a bit if I am to continue here.

Yesterday was a rest day. I spent the whole morning reading 'Angle of Repose' by Wallace Stegner. A classic book about the West-I love it. In the afternoon I met the two Canadians and we (and a bunch of others) took off to a couple nearby islands to snorkel. The lighting was not so good, but there was a whole ton of sea creatures, including a barracuda, sea crete, and a reef shark. We had dinner at sunset on a remote island, then after it got dark went swimming in the ocean. It had all these phosphorescent little critters in it! Every time you disturbed the water it would light up all around you. It was like swirling your hands through the Milky Way! If you flicked the water with your hands you could send a 'fireball' of light from your fingertips. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I didn't want to get out of the water!

Then this morning I got up early and a few of us climbed Humanality (6b+). Its a 5-pitch sport climb right up off the beach and it was so fantastic. The climbing was mostly straightforward, but with a crazy stalactite move near the top. I felt so good because I didn't get super scared like normal with all the exposure (we were prehaps 150m off the beach). Most of these pictures are from this climb. I partnered with Jodi (Canadian), and because you need two ropes to rappell, we convinced Rusche (German) and her friend Mathew (French) to be a second party on the climb. It took about 3 hours for all 4 of us to finish, and when we were done we werent sure whether to eat breakfast or have a beer! We ate breakfast, but the beer was a close second!

After that I swam a bit, showered, then hung out on the beach waiting for Emily to arrive. She showed up after being in transit for about 40 hours. It was so good to see her again! SHe's definately tired and needs a couple days to acclimate and rest, as anyone would after coming halfway around the world into a completely opposite climate.

I'll write more in a couple days.

I wrote this a couple days ago:

Just one of those days,
When your life passes before your eyes,
Just one of those days,
When the past and the future collide,
Just one of those days.

The rat and I

"How did you sleep last night?" It was Vanessa, the Canadian woman that I had been climbing with the last couple of days.
"Terribly!" I replied with a chuckle. "I'm going to have to move out of that bungalow."
"Why?" The obvious question from Jodi, the other Canadian.
'The rat," I said quickly, "the rat won." They understood.

Three nights ago I woke up because I heard some rustling. There are a lot of noises in my bungalow and I thought it was just some random creature and promtply fell back asleep. The rustling returned. From its tone I could tell it was some kind of plastic bag. But there was something else. Still, it was late (or early) and I wanted to sleep more than I wanted to know what was going on. It wasn't happening right next to me and so I didn't care enough. But then it woke me up again and then I had to know. What the hell was going on?

I flicked on my headlamp and shone ites brilliant white-blue beam around the inside of the bungalow. Near the 'door' to the bathroom I saw my toilet paper laying on the floor. I had left it about 2 meters away from the door when I went to bed. I heard the rustling again and watch somewhat astounded as the string of paper was being pulled into a hole in the wall! WTF?! I got up and shone the light into the crack and staring back at me with beady yellow eyes and pale twitching whiskars was a rat. The rat. It looked at me and then began pulling on the TP again. It had convienently left the role outside of his hole and was unrolling it as he pulled. What a brilliant little creature. But wait, that's my TP and he cant have it. So I ripped off the last sheet, threw the role up high where he couldn't get it and went back to bed. I thought that would stop him.

The next night I was again awoken by more rummaging. This time I knew what was going on. I heard the rat tousling through my bag of chalk bricks. TP, I imagine, makes for a good nest. But what does it want with my chalk? Did he think he was going to redpoint a 5.14 climb with chalk? Undoubtedly the rat is a much better climber than I and would definately think using chalk was cheating. At 2AM I couldn't be bothered with trying to figure out what the deal was. I found my small Wilderness medicine review pamphlet and tossed it in the general direction. I heard scampering and felt like I had won the battle for the night. Ha!

About an hour later I woke up to a horendous smell. I grew up on a farm and know what small farms smell like. I even grew up in aroom that had a lot of mice in the walls and let me tell you that a dead one stinks for a long time. But I wasn't prepared for this! I tossed and turned and finally went back to sleep. But then it happened again. I thought it was my pillow molding in the humid environment for a bit. But that wasn't it either. I finally realized what was happening. That rat. The rat. Was peeing on me! Yes, you heard it. It pissed on me from the ceiling. No joke.

So I learned my lesson. Do not throw things at the rat. It will get mad. I felt like we had reached an understanding, the rat and I. I felt like I could still live there and we could have some kind of balance. Maybe I would leave it some TP everynight as an offering of peace. Maybe leave my garbage a little more accesible. But then I forgot about that when I work up to more scratching and rustling. I located the spot in the wall and banged on it with my shoe a couple times. A blissfull sleep.

After my peaceful night of sleep last night, I woke up and felt like showering. I usually shower in the evening, but had stayed up late playing cribbage with some friends. There's about 2 hours around dusk where its impossible to take your clothes off because of the numbers of mosies around. Anyways, I got up, went in to the bathroom and turned on the water. I looked around for my soap. Where was it? The bathroom is quite small and it was no where to be found. I started getting worried. I looked for another minute but I knew that hope was lost. The rat ate it. He clearly knew how to get me. Maybe he felt that the peeing episode was a little harsh and wanted to tone back. God help me if I had thrown somethig at him last night! I'm sure that he would have taken the soap, then peed on me! As it is I had to admit defeat. I cannot keep living with such a cunning animal-I am no match for it. I ate breakfast and started looking for a new place to stay.