and now for something a bit different...

Ok Angkor is pretty awesome but it all gets a bit same same. Yesterday howver I went to a different kind of site which was just simple and magic. About 40km north it is a little creek running through sand stone which has been carved with lots of bhuddist and hinda images. A perfect place to chill out, swim and escape the heat. And on the way in I noticed a lot of potential sandstone crags and some big boulders ...

I met up with Mark again last night and today we headed out to the Rolous group which after everything else was just a waste of time. So now just a bit bored waiting until I catch my flight back Bangkok tonight and then back to brissy. The is a bit of a dengue fever outbreak so I donated some blood at the childrens hospital here. I figure it will help me to sleep on the plane :)

Angkor

Wow. It's big.

On one hand you can't help but be impressed with the size and the effort that has gone into creating these temples. On the other hand there are so many and they are so big (as well as the usual Asian heat and peddlers and beggars etc) that it is almost like a bludgeon to your head. And I guess it is reasonably physical as well. I have no idea how far I've walked or how many stairs I've walked up but I feel pretty wrecked. I've seen about 30 temples, terraces, gates, bridges etc over the past two days and have a pretty good feel for the different styles and features.

My favourite, and probably most peoples favourite, is Ta Phrom which was chosen by the french conservationists to be left as it was found half consumed by jungle, with massive buttress roots and strangler figs growing through the stonework. It's been in the Tomb Raider movie so therefore it must be good. My suspicious is that after so many temples people take a morbid satisfaction in seeing one dying a slow death by strangulation at nature's hands.

Other highlights have been just chilling out chatting with various monks, beggars, peddlars and tourists. Some very interesting stories. And of course a very patient dragon fly!

The life of Pai ... and onto Angkor

Well we jumped into a minibus and headed up to Pai. I hadn't heard much about it but apparently it is known for Trekking and white water and elephant rides. The white water was brown and the elephants didn't have the same appeal for the others so we signed up for a trek with Mr Chart!

Now this deal advertised itself as 'No elephants! No whitewater! Just trekking!' and said you'd be living in the jungle and learning survival skills which sounded a bit more interesting that just walking around. If only it lived up to it.

It started out pretty good. The guides cut us all walking sticks which was a good omen for how hard it would be. The walking was easy enough and the pace was pretty slow. Every ten minutes or so we would all stop for a bit. Eventually after 2 hours we got to a nice enough waterfall where we stopped for about 2 hours to BBQ some chunks of pork.Then finally we moved on and walked slowly for another couple hours until we got to a dodgy jungle hut. We were expecting to make our own shelter but seeing as it was destined to rain we weren't too upset that our skills weren't put to the test. But then the guides made us bowls and cups and collected wood and started cooking and we were all bored sitting around doing sweet FA. We asked on several occasions if we could help or learn or try or anything but NO! All I wanted was to get my own little jungle knife and start hacking bamboo up into stuff. Dammit!

So out comes the book and the cards. If it wasn't for them we'd have gone crazy. There was two other guys Matt (Dredds) and Mike (John Lennon) who were also on the trek. After a fairly decent, but many hours overdue, dinner with plenty of rice whiskey to go around we slept pretty badly. Next day was slow. Real slow. I ended up in front of the lead guide for a lot of it just cause I was sick of stopping whenever he did. And every half hour or so we would have to stop for a few minutes and let the two other guides catch up. And every time we stopped for a break it would need to be for way too long. And then to top it off we finished walking early in the afternoon for night number two in a dirty Lisu village. A pretty ordinary village with lots of very mangy dogs. And the offer of pork for dinner which was green and stank - 'We can wash it!' No thanks!

More cards. More bad sleep. Another slow day. And then some fresh fruit and the trek is over.

So in celebration of such a great trek we found the Shisha bar and got wasted. I think we each spent 160 baht on drinks. Good times. Mark and Alex put on a bit of a show (ask me for details!).

Then back to Chiang Mai for one last bit of climbing action - Mark and Alex had healed up a bit. Then on a spur of the moment thing I decided to waste a bit of money on a flight to Cambodia and spend a few days at Angkor. So an over night bus to Bangkok then straight onto a plane (and by straight I mean waiting around in an airport forever), then straight onto a bike to the temples (and by straight I mean wasting time filling out ooodles of paper work to get into Cambodia).

So far so good, the temples are seemingly endless and cover huge areas of land with massive moats. It is crazy to think that all that remains is just the stone temples and to think about the vast wooden city that surrounded it all. It's huge!

Crazy horses, Drugs, Boxing and Elephants

Wow it seemed like a quiet two days but in hindsight we saw a lot.

We got a lift out to Crazy Horse buttress and the climbing there is great. I could easily waste a few weeks here (my list of places to waste a few weeks is growing quicker than I have weeks to spend). This crag is just so ... lazy? Maybe it should be called Lazy horse buttress. The walk in is about 15m. The climbing is dense and quite varied in style. It isn't busy at all and the climbing guide company here has done an awesome job not only setting routes but making tracks, steps, belay platforms, and shelters from the rain complete with a nice little bed for naps in the afternoon. And to cap it off a hot lunch is delivered to the crag! And then back in Chiang Mai at after the sun has set you can keep going with a hard trash session back at the bouldering wall just to help you sleep :)

And the next day that little voice that has been saying for over a week 'You're feeling a bit better today, no need for doctor!' has finally been overcome and I went to the hospital. The experience was pretty smooth but a little disconcerting when you're sitting in the hospital waiting room and someone is walking around selling lottery tickets. Well it seems I have bronchitis and now three sets of drugs to kill it. (4 if you count the unknown rum like stuff I'm drinking as I type).

So after a chilled out arvo reading, tonight we bicycled across town to check out the Maui Thai Boxing. To my surprise I actually quite enjoyed it. Got me thinking a lot about gambling and betting (I am also reading a book called 'Breaking Vegas' which might also have something to do with it).

After that we headed home and had just locked up the bikes when a baby elephant gets led down the alley way! The things you see...

The damage!

The damage!

Well today didnt go to plan! A picture tells a thousand words.

We looked into getting the bus to Crazy Horse buttress with the local climbing guides but it cost 200 baht each. So we decided to get there ourselves, hired two scooters for 250 baht total and set off into the interesting traffic with what seemed like decent enough directions. Well after an hour or so we decided we probably weren't in the right place but it was a pleasant enough ride.

Then a random guy left left in ront of Mark and Alex's bike and they T-bones him. Luckily they had slowed down a fair bit and the almost stopped and then sort of fell over. I was following and saw it all. A couple thai people saw it and so after a couple minutes an ambulance turned up who wanted to take them to hospital. After a bit of discussion they just cleaned them both up a bit and we were back on our lost way!

Not to be discouraged we kept riding with a few extra vague (and wrong) directions from the nice medics. Eventually we stopped at a posh looking golf course in the middle of nowhere and figured out where we were. So then we back tracked, got a bit lost again coming back into Chiang Mai, and ended up at the Wat right in middle of the old city. And then just to top it off as I was chaining my bike up I burnt my ankle on the muffler. So that the last straw and we headed back home, to the waiting aloe vera gell, chemist shop and some good cheap food.

Tommorow we are getting the bus!

Chiang Mai

Well as much fun as the noise and clutter and scams of Bangkok are, we got a train up to Chiang Mai. Got to the train station at 8pm, boarded at 10pm left the station maybe around 11:30pm had several random stops for a few hours along the way in the middle of nowhere and eventually found ourselves in Chiang Mai at 3pm the next day! We are definitely gonna fly out of here when we leave but it could be a while, this place is pretty nice and relaxed.

I have consumed several books now: The intruder, Count Zero (same guy as Neuromancer - loved it!), Memnock the Devil (Anne Rice - Loved it!) and now a much meatier non-fiction on comparative religion. I could easily lose a month just reading - there are so many great books in the 2nd hand shops that I'd love to read.

The night markets here are pretty cool and I picked myself up a Go board. I've been intrigued by this game for ages but never had much opportunity to play. I had grabbed a nice little wooden travel version of Connect 4 (or Bingo as they call it) about a week ago which has been a nice little diversion. But unfortunately the gazillion little stones of Go will have to wait until I am home before I get to have my fun with them.

The climbing here also looks promising but is around 45min drive away. So tomorrow, weather permitting, we'll hire a couple motorbikes, try not to die on the roads (nowhere near as bad as Vietnam though) and hit up Crazy Horse buttress. It's been a while since I've climbed properly between the rain and being sick and weak so fingers crossed it won't rain and I'll be close to 100% percent tomorrow.