Stray cats and "pud" thai

Our time on Tonsai beach has been a blast. In short the beach is mildly rocky and full of shells. The restaurants and bars are lined up one after another and keep the music going until two in the morning, if your willing to party that long. We however have not. For the last week or so we have shrugged off our ability to sleep in for six o'clock starts. In short we have been fairly diligent with our climbing. So far we have been all around Tonsai, over to Raighley, and to Pah Nang. The trip hasn't been all climbing however, the Thailand two step has caught us all so far. The stomach bug however doesn't seem to last longer than a day and then you are up and running again.Overall on the health front we have stayed fit. Preston has a couple flappers, I ended up with some blisters on my feet, and Terry and Jacy have avoided everything that could have befallen them.

The grade of climbing here is all fairly strong, although some routs seem to be sandbagged a bit. Don't get me wrong there are climbs here that we would have to train a year for to get up. None the less we hover around the 10 to low 12 range. (Terry and Jacy seem to have the 11's around here dialed, while Preston and I keep to the hard 10's)

Today we just negotiated our next week of accommodations. For now we are staying on a little hill side resort and are paying 700 Boht a night. Even with our rooms it is fairly easy to live here for under 1000 Boht a day which roughly translates over to 33 dollars a day. Some times we go over due to a late night session at one of the many beach side bars but for the most part we have kept our livers stress free.

I will have pictures for you all soon. I've waited so long to put some up because I wanted to put up some of the best one's once we took them. I can say now that we have some keepers. On the bad side of picture taking Terry's camera took a 30 foot fall and is now in the shape of a hard taco shell.

Today, because it is cloudy and might rain, we took a trip to a lagoon that is on top of a mountain, curiously though we hear its level changes with the tides. When we were there is was at about half tide and was full of mud. On our way in we saw two Spanish girls covered head to toe in mud, their smiles were the only thing even close to being clean.Seeing the two smiles brings up another point, people smile here. They smile constantly! Even the waiters, who have been working a 12 hour shift still have smiles when they come around to ask your order. When I read about Thailand I herd it called the land of smiles but it was only after I have been here that I can see it. It is incredibly refreshing to see after walking down the city streets in America where everyone clears their face of any kind of emotion lest they draw attention. Here any kind of cultural misunderstanding is usually swept away with a grin and the words, say that "one more time?".