I'm on Ko Phangan. The Full Moon Party is tonight. The pre-Full Moon Party was last night. Hence, I slept a lot today. :-)
The beach is way smaller than I expected, but still lots of room to party. Anyway, don't feel like blogging much right now.
This morning I took a half-day Thai cooking class. It was good times and I learnt how to cook the different kinds of currys and other dishes. The class was in Ao Nang which is a town about 20 minutes by boat from Ton Sai beach. I'm going to spend the rest of the day here and check out the place, although it is not very big.
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to leave Ton Sai beach for the full moon party. A bunch of other people from the beach are coming along too, so it should be fun. It is definitely low season now. The weather is not as nice as before (more cloudy and rainy, but still not too bad) and we are down to around 15 people at the beach. With around eight of us leaving tomorrow it's going to get really quiet there.
I've been at Ton Sai Beach a few nights now and I really like it. I'm going to stay here until the end of the trip when I'll head to Kho Phanang for 2-3 nights to check out the full moon party. There are about 35 people staying here at the beach and every morning we all meet for breakfast. Then different groups of people split off to go kayaking, snorkeling and of course rock climbing. It's really great and everyone gets along very well. There are people from pretty much all over the world here: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Britain, Iceland, Holland, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Singapore, Malaysia --- funny enough I am the only Canadian. The whole place just has a really awesome vibe. After a day of climbing everyone meets again for dinner and then a few drinks at the beach side bar.
I've been climbing some pretty difficult routes. The easiest routes close to the beach are 5.10a/b. Everything else quickly gets more difficult. I've seen some really amazing rock climbing around here. Since there aren't many easy routes and most of the other climbers are really good I've been pushing myself and climbed a 5.10d today. Pretty big achievement and I feel great. I've also been learning how to lead climb which still makes me pretty nervous. :-)
Tomorrow we are going deep water soloing. Basically you get in a boat and pull up next to a cliff. Then you climb as high as you can or feel comfortable doing and then just fall back into the water. It should be fun.
Also, I should say that I totally jinxed the weather with the last blog post. It rained for almost three days straight afterwards! Today it is sunny again and luckily many of the climbing walls are protected by overhangs so you can climb even when it rains.
I'm at Ton Sai beach now. It's the hangout for rock climbers and a really awesome place. Very laid back and rustic. There are a lot of little bars along the beach that put pillows and blankets out at night. Some of these places are just built out of driftwood. Then you sit on the beach, have a drink, listen to some relaxing music, and reflect on the day of rock climbing. Pretty awesome. They only have power and Internet here in the evening when they throw on the generators. Other than that there is no power. I'm staying in a nice little bungalow set back from the beach for just $3 a night.
The rock climbing here is incredible. A lot of the routes are really hard, lots of 5.12, 5.13 and higher. I've been taking it pretty slow, but tomorrow is going to be the first full day of climbing. There are some easier routes along East Railay beach which is where I'm heading tomorrow. I did complete a 5.10a/b today, so that was a good start.
Because it's low season there aren't that many people here and a lot of them are very experienced climbers. That is good for getting advice, but at first I was worried about not finding anyone to climb with. Now I did end up meeting a few other average / novice climbers, so that is who I'm going climbing with tomorrow. The rock here is really interesting to climb with many overhangs and also stalagmites that you can use for climbing.
I'm leaving today to catch the ferry to Railay beach. Everyone (including Brandie at the office) says it's supposed to be awesome. I'm probably going to stay at nearby Ton Sai beach which is where most backpackers stay. It's also the main rock climbing area, so I think I will stick around for a few days to rock climb. I've attached a couple pictures from Phi Phi to this post.
Also, it rained for the first time last night. Other than that the weather has been awesome. In fact, it hasn't rained since my last blog post where I said it rains every night. It just did that for three days in Cambodia and then stopped again. Even if it does rain it only lasts for a few hours at most. Thailand is not as hot and humid as Vietnam and Cambodia, so it's much more pleasant. Basically, I'm just not sure why it's not more busy here. It seems they could extend the high season by a few weeks with no problem. Or maybe I'm just really lucky with the weather?
I'm in Thailand now, doing the tourist thing and relaxing at the beach. First two nights I stayed in Kata which is about 20km south of Patong on the Phuket peninsula. Patong is a big party town and Kata is supposed to be a little more quiet. Turns out in the low season Kata is really dead, so I didn't stay for very long. The beaches are beautiful there and were almost empty. I played volleyball with some locals the first night, because there barely were any other tourists around. Second night I met some Aussies and we went to Patong to check out the nightlife. It was really busy and loud (even during low season) and I'm glad I didn't stay there.
Now I'm on Ko Phi Phi island. It is a really nice place with just the right amount of people. I'm probably going to stay here for a few more nights. The island is beautiful with crystal clear water, pretty much exactly like I've seen it on pictures before.
Today is out last day in Cambodia and it couldn't have been a better end to the week. Tomorrow Elise is on a bus to Laos, Marc flies to Hong Kong and then home, and I'm flying to Phuket in Thailand.
This morning I got up earlier and went to the local crocodile farm and bought myself a sweet crocodile belt. Oh yeah! Sorry Tuckey, I wasn't sure if you wanted one but if I come by another crocodile farm I'll pick one up for you. :-)
Next I woke up Marc and Elise and we went on a sweet helicopter ride. That's correct, you can book helicopter rides to fly over the temples. I'd never been in a helicopter before so I persuaded the others to do it too. It was really awesome. We paid $75 for 8 minutes, but since the visibility today was really good the pilot decided to fly us around for twice as long. Still 16 minutes doesn't sound like much, but you get to see a lot and it feels like a long time. I would definitely do it again. And yes, Cambodia with a Russian military surplus helicopter is definitely the place to try out helicopter flying for the first time. I mean, what could be safer?
(Just kidding, it was a modern helicopter and run by a respectable company.)
After that we went to "Seeing Hands Massages". It is a massage parlor run by blind people to earn a living. I got completely tenderized by a little lady. :-)
So overall today was really awesome. The helicopter ride did it for me.
I've attached a few pictures from the past week to this post. Yesterday we trekked further away from town to Beng Malea. It is a temple totally overgrown by jungle and not restored. It was really cool to be all the way out there, very quiet and no other tourists.
When we first arrived in Cambodia we took a bus from the Mekong where the boat dropped us off to Phenom Phen. During the bus ride I noticed two things about Cambodia. The first was the number of pharmacies/clinics/dental centers that we passed on the way to Phenom Phen and in the city itself. In Vietnam the pharmacies were few and far between. In fact I only saw two pharmacies during our entire stay there and both were in Hanoi. Here in Cambodia there seems to be a pharmacy on every block. For example here in Siem Reap, if I step out of the hotel there is a pharmacy two houses to the left and another about 5 houses to the right at the street corner. There also seem to be about four different hospitals in Siem Reap. The children's hospital, the Angkor International hospital and two other ones. In Phnom Phen I also saw tons of dental clinics. The dental clinics in particular seemed very modern and up to Western standards. I have no idea why there are so many healthcare related institutions in Cambodia. Maybe the government sponsors it? Maybe it is foreign aid? Maybe people from other Asian countries come to Cambodia for cheap healthcare? Either way, it is very odd. I have no idea how all those pharmacies stay in business.
The other thing I noticed on the bus ride were a lot of billboards advertising "Golden Muscle Liqour" and "Special Muscle Wine". Golden Muscle Liqour billboards would show a Cambodian man holding his Golden Muscle Liqour glass and 5 attractive Cambodian women crowded around him. The Special Muscle Wine would show an attractive Cambodian women holding a wine glass. Anyway, it turns out I see these billboards all over the place. Last night I set out to find a place that serves this delicious golden liqour. They didn't have it at the touristy restaurant we were at, so I got our waiter to show me a local joint where they serve it. At the time it seemed like a good idea since today is our free day. It turns out that this is in fact the local drink of choice and is somewhat like wine although with 20% alcohol. The taste is really artificial, but a bottle was only $3 at the bar, probably less if you buy it in a store. The bottle is hilarious and it shows a really ripped bodybuilder with golden skin and a flat top haircut and a mustache. Classic. I might have to bring home a bottle. Anyway, so yaddy yaddy yadda we drank some last night and it was good times.
We just had dinner and I feel the urge to blog about my sweet dining experience, especially considering the restaurant has free Internet.
Anyway, tonight I managed to cross three things off my TODO list: crocodile, snake and kangaroo. I had a sweet Khmer BBQ platter with each of those meats and also chicken. They bring a little BBQ to your table and then you cook the meat yourself. There also were three different Khmer dipping sauces: chili, pepper and soy bean sauce.
Most excellent. I've always wanted to try these meats. The whole thing only cost $6 which is really steep by Cambodian standards, but I felt like splurging in my last week. :-)
Overall I liked crodocile the best, it's a little chewy but overall very tasty. It tastes maybe a little bit like chicken, but not really. Snake was good too, the texture reminded me of squid, but it was more chewy. I didn't really like the kangaroo, it was too chewy/leathery and it tasted a little bland.
Last week we visited a crocodile farm in Vietnam. They had around 4000 crocodiles at the farm. They were raised for the meat and the leather. Our guide kept telling us that BBQed crocodile is one of his favorite dishes. Now that I had it I can see where he is coming from. :-)
