One-Two-Three Climb!

I have to do a little dance. Are you ready? Everybody get up, twirl around, and sing with me. I went rock climbing in Thailand! Wow. I've been wanting to do that for years ... and the euphoria of finally having done it is still making me twirl.

After meeting up with my friend Justin in Bangkok we caught a flight on Nok Air (the Ted of Thai Airways) for Krabi. We found a very Sandie-esque place to stay in Ao Nang (more on that in another blog) and then we went to Railay to go climbing. Neither of us had any gear, so after finding a place to rent gear we headed for the easy wall a short walk on the beach away. One-two-three wall. I led (yes - for you doubters reading I actually led) three 5's. Don't scoff - they use the French rating system here. So it was more like 5.8 and 5.9.

Then we ran into this Aussie bloke. He wanted to climb a 30 m 6a route that went into the cave. How could I say no? Well I didn't and up we went. So the little person climbing in the picture is me almost 30 meters up.

It was Justin's first time climbing in 7 months. He's a little sore - but did great. Neither of us is as good as the monkeys (ling in Thai) that I found climbing around a cave on the other side of the beach. Oh well ...