Sweatin my booty off!

Well well, I completely forgot how hot it is here in Thailand! Im drippin sweat so much I could give a bottle a day to a thirsty child in Africa! Im having soooo much fun though, so it ok to be totally and absolutely sweating at all moments of day and night! I was in Bangkok for a couple of days it was cool, I was able to see a couple of sights that i did not last year but all i was really thinking was of the crazy rocks i was about to go and climb!! I went back to Ton Sai beach like I did last year and once again I fell more in love with the place!! I will probably have to say that at this point this is my favorite place in the world for chilling out and doing some type of activity at the same time!! I think I will be making a pilgramage to this place as many times as I can during my life, its just too good! The rocks have treated me well no bumps or bruises yet! I have done lead climbing the whole time, which means that I have climbed up the rock clipping into bolts with the rope trailing me instead of a rope already up so I can climb up easier and safer. I know mother that you do not want to read this but I love it tooooooo much! I really have excelled in my climbing and feel very comfortable getting upside down and being inverted!! Haha, anyway that is what I have been doing since I left Australia, I just came over to Phi Phi, which is an island off of Ton Sai beach. It's actually where the movie the Beach was fimed! Actually its kinda the impetus for me to really want to come to Thailand years ago when the film came out! I mean I always wanted to come and eat all this good Thai food and see elephants and see the Budhist culture but that was the thing that really had pushed me over the top! So for now I've just been hanging out at the beach for the last few days with Kevin, my travel bro. And we picked up a fellow traveler from England, she quite lovely and we hit it off right off the bat! All is well here in Paradise! We went cliff jumping yesterday and jumped off 30,45, and 65-70 foot cliffs!! Once again mom do not read this! But all is safe and sound! We also went snorkelling after that and saw all the damage that the Tsunami had done underwater! This island actually got pounded by it so it is very interesting to see the rebuilding process! The Thai's seem to be doing a good job at getting it back to normal, they have pictures everywhere hanging up in shops so you can see what happened and also pics of before shots so you can see what it was like before! Anyhoo, gonna stay here a bit more then back to Ton Sai for a couple more days of climbing and then off to Hanoi, Vietnam!!! So that should be great! I have a local contact, which makes it all the more exciting! All right folks till the next time! Pics are of Ton Sai climbing, Kevin my travel bro and monkeys that stole our stuff!

Full Tilt Boogie

Thats right folks, I said full tilt boogie!! I cannot believe the amount of fun i just had over the last few days. I started off by having the best time in Canberra where i first off hitchhiked over 600 kilometers in one day! From Melbourne to Canberra. The best part was that I received the rides from the least likely (demographically speaking) drivers. First, it was a woman who was driving with her ten year old daughter, that just never happens these days! Second, was a truck driver, which seems normal but here in Australia they just changed the insurance of the drivers so they get in huge trouble if they get caught with a passenger, so i was very lucky for that ride which ended up being the huge chunk of the day, for obvious reasons, one direction goin all the way! Lastly, I was dropped by the trucker at 9:00PM at the road to Canberra at a gas station. I got a water and was asking the attendant about the best place to stand for a ride and at that very second a woman was going to Canberra and needed someone to help her stay awake, I guess I look safe. Since i do not know any woman who would pick up a stranger in the middle of the night! So that was the beginning. I got there safe and sound. I was dropped off at my first couchsurfing gig, a very cool woman from Russia. Anna was amazing she went way out of her way and showed me the town, cooked me food and drove me to the airport. We had a blast together. I was supposed to switch up and stay with another fella from Canada who is going to University there but decided that it would be easier to stay with Anna. However, he really wanted to meet me and talk about Antarctica, so I agreed to have dinner with him and his "mates", who consisted of his roommates parents and there adult kids!!! WOW, total homecooking and a wonderful evening of conversation and good times. So then after dinner I went to a concert on campus to see Gomez, very cool band. Then the next day I left for Brisbane!
Next chapter, so I get into Brisbane and meet up with Maria from Antarctica (very good friend) then we drive our rental to Byron Bay for the 5 days of music and fun! We get there and I only have 3 of the 5 days so I go see a movie and scope out car camping spots while Maria is at the show. She has a blast and when I pick her up tells me all about the cool music and very cool people she meets in the show. Now since I have been hitching and I have a car of course I now pick up everyone I can. So there is a couple on the side of the road who are outside the festival. I pick them up and as we are talking we discuss the "where we are all from thing", I say Boulder and that I went to school there, the fella in the back say's "I went to Boulder a few years ago! And I studied..... Just then Maria blurts out "Electrical Engineering! So this couple is part of the group that she was hanging out with in the show!! How funny, so I ask where I need to take them. They tell me and we start driving towards there. As we drive I tell them our situation about car camping and just goin with the flow. Of course out of nowhere, Luke says, "stay with us, its cool we have a huge condo" HA, the universe is amazing in its many mysterious ways!! So we went from having to find car camping spots (mind you there are very few and the police are patrolling for car campers!!) to having a comfy roof over our head!! The best was that all the people that were staying there were awesome!! Funny thing also is that it rained cats and dogs the whole weekend and some!!! So talk about lucky! The shows were awesome. I really enjoyed Bo Diddly, Bonnie Raitt and Ozomatli. There were a bunch of aussie bands too and two of them that I really liked were the John Butler Trio, who plays in Boulder a lot so that will be cool to see him when I am home if he comes around there. The second that I really liked was Xavier Rudd, he plays the didjereedoo and steel guitar (at the same time) talk about talent!! Well that was my latest and greatest, I'm back in Sydney and leave today for Thailand! The second part of the world tour begins. So it will be interesting to go from a country where I can pretty much understand them to a country where I will be doing a lot of sign language!!! Oh well, all part of the journey. Well I miss everyone and think of all of you a lot!!! Till the next time! The pics are of me and Anna (couchsurfer), Canberra, and the show!