A long overdue update

Hello, Hello!

Things are going well here in the land of Thai! I had a great, awesome, amazing time with Kenny here. After a day of sightseeing in Bangkok by a personal guide, my buddy from college Travis Guy (which was crazy that we met up here because we couldn't manage to do to it back home when we were only one state away), we boarded a night train down to the south and made it to Tonsai beach where the backpacker climbers hangout.

It was a rough start with both of us getting quite sick but after nursing illness for a few days we managed some good climbing and beach fun, though became a bit paranoid of the food and some of the beach water (made filthy by the loud longtail boats). The beaches were beautiful with the limestone cliffs in the backdrop. Our illness and the scorching hot weather limited the time we spent climbing but we realized the stalactites and stalagmites were just as appealing gazing up at them from the sand and water as they were when hanging from them praying they wouldn't break while supporting your entire body. Thankfully, though we're both big and buffed... we definitely weren't the biggest and buffest out there so if they could hold the other folks we felt pretty comfortable of their ability to hold us.

For a change of scenery we headed back north to Kanchanaburi which is just west of Bangkok and home to the famed Bridge Over the River Kwai. It was a nice small town which welcomed us with a hearty selection of real ice cream treats! We had long been desiring it! From this town we rented a motorbike (lots of fun to ride, though hard on the bum) and rode to Erawan National Park which has a beautiful 7 tiered waterfall and is a really fun scramble to the top, (despite a hard slip and fall where I landed on my head I think and cracked my elbow open, but managed to keep my camera and bag from getting wet!) and you can swim and cool off at just about all 7 of the tiers. We checked out the bridge which was pretty cool and ate some ice cream.

We finished off Kenny's vacation with canal ride through Bangkok and a Thai massage (the best of the 3 I've had) and a sad final farewell. It was great having him here though!