Don't be Krabi; there's plenty to eat!

We overnighted in Krabi, Thailand on our way between the Andaman coast of Thailand and Vietnam. It's a port city without too much to offer travelers aside from cheap accomodation (we stayed at the "city hotel" which was a very good value), and a good airport. However, we arrived off the longtail boat (astoundingly loud narrow wooden motorboats, which have much more bark than bite (they're slow!)) hungry, so we struck out to find a place to eat. As we walked along the waterfront, we found an excellent option!

Think medium sized parking lot (by American standards) with about 100 hot dog stand carts lined up in three rows. Between and outside these rows are many, many folding tables and cheap plastic chairs. Here, they're not selling hot dogs. Oh no. Some stands just sell one item, such as Tiffany's favorite dessert, fresh mango with sweet sticky rice. Other stands, only slightly larger, offer a full Thai menu that's bigger than the Red Robin's menu! Most dishes are under $1, unless you order giant prawns or something else really unusual.

As we walked around, we heard a now familiar sound ... Thunk - squish - Thunk -squish - Thunk - squish ... in rapid sucession.~> read more

  This is the sound of green papaya salad (which has no leafy greens). The green papaya itself is similar to cucumber cut in long strings, but it's mixed with fish sauce (better than it sounds, it's used for salty flavor), a few dried shrimp, chilies, lime juice, palm sugar, crushed peanuts, tomatoes, and a longer, zestier version of the green bean called "snake bean" in english. It's all mixed up in the proper order with a careful touch in a large sort of mortar and pestle, the pestle made of wood and the mortar (which is the bowl) made of clay, like a flower pot with a gently rounded shape. As the salad is mixed, a spoon is used to pull up the wet mixture from the bottom (creating the squish sound) and the pestle is then Thunk-ed back down.

We gravitated toward this sound (we love the salad), and saw that the woman making the salads (and sounds) was as well-worn as her mortar and pestle. I asked her for a som tam (green papaya salad) using the thai words, perhaps with miserable pronunciation. She knew what I wanted. I pointed to the large jar of chilies, held up three fingers. The seasoned salad-maker raised an eyebrow. This is one of the spiciest thai dishes, but most farang (westerners) would be challenged by just 1 of these "mouse dropping chilies" which have a fire as big as they are small. She could see I knew what I was ordering, and tossed them in. She gave them 10 solid mashes as I was watching, which caused me to rethink my choice of "3" chilies, since we had mashed them far more gently in our cooking class! I also pointed to the dime-sized dry shrimp, and made a small pinch with my hand to show her I just wanted a little (too many = too fishy for me). Beyond these instructions, I let her work her magic with the recipe and touch of the pestle.

We were directed to take some flimsy seats at a flimsy table on the sidewalk. A few minutes later, my som tam was delivered. I took a bite. Western food doesn't often combine amazing freshness (as in a salad straight from the farmer's market) with fiery hot spice, but it's become one of my favorite things. Three chilies pounded hard produced devlish heat, but I loved it! This was the best som tam I've had yet, and we've had it everywhere we've been from Bangkok south. Only one thing could pair with this explosive salad, and that's an ice cold beer.

Fearing the worst, we asked if beer was available. Of course! What tiny 1-entree food stand on the sidewalk wouldn't have it? Furthermore, it came in 650ml bottles (nearly two cans worth) and was some of the coldest beer we've had in Asia. It's hard to get really cold beer over here, since refrigerator space is at a premium, if the establishment even has one. How they can get frost on the outside of the bottle at a sidewalk place is beyond me; perhaps dry ice is the secret. In any case, we didn't have just one beer to cool down those chilies, and when we were finished, we wandered back to our hotel room more than satisfied with our culinary experience on the street.

Aquamarine seas and Climbing the walls that rise from them

As I described, we spent a couple of days on Ko Phi Phi. Especially with the Passport debacle, we would have enjoyed a couple more, but I wanted to make another stop before our flight to Vietnam. That place: Railay. Legendary among rock climbers for incredibly overhanging routes with the sea just beneath, like this:



And as you can see from the aerial photo at the top, the beach doesn't suck either. Well, the one on the left doesn't, though the one on the right kind of does. The beach in the foreground of the photo is only reachable by~> read more

 boat from the others, or serious bush-whacking. In fact, though Railay is connected to mainland Thailand, it feels more like an island than even Ko Phi-Phi, because it is less developed and there are still no roads running there, everything must come in by boat (including you!)

I set aside a full day to go climbing. It would have been fun to hang around for a week or two climbing most days, but that's not really part of our larger plan. I still had great fun with the time I had. It's critical to have a partner for climbing who is similar to your ability level, and of course be able to find where to climb! I think Tiffany would be good at it, but she just tried the first time in New Zealand, and an organized trip for a day was the same price as the route guidebook, and I also needed to rent all the equipment, so going with the group was a no-brainer. In the end, I found a couple of partners through the group with similar ability, and climbed with them.

Honestly, I think the really amazing climbs require a top condition climber, which I'm unfortunately not right now. It's not just a matter of being in shape; it's being in climbing shape. However, the climbs that I did were a lot of fun, and comparable to some of the better sport climbing I've done back in the states.

It's important for your hands to stick to the rock when climbing, so you don't fall off! If your hands get sweaty, they get slippery. However, there is a handy solution: gymnast's chalk. Considering the temperature was probably in the 90s with nearly 100% humidity, I really had my doubts about the ability of any chalk to keep my grippers dry. As I watched our small Thai guide scurry up the route first like a gecko, sweat poured down my chest and back, despite having no shirt on at all. I wasn't hopeful. When the guide zipped back down, he was ... BONE dry. I still have no idea how it is possible. The thai guides are better climbers than me, to be sure. But they just don't have a problem with physical exertion in this heat. I think they could run a mile and still might not break a sweat.

As I continued to drip on the dirt, the thai guide gave a norwegian guy who was totally new to climbing a 1-minute crash course in belaying, which could also be known as holding the climber's life in your hands. The climber was to be me, so fearing I would put the crash in "crash course" I slowly taught him how to belay again, and explained the words I would use to indicate my needs to him. Then, I hopped on the wall and gave it a shot. Even my first climb was a great one, with interesting challenges, and the wily norwegian got me back to the ground safe as can be (it's a great heritage ;).

Miraculously, even as sweat poured off of my body, the chalk still worked, and I was able to climb just as well as I could in any temperature. This experience was a wonderful reminder of some of the pursuits I enjoy at home, from within the adventure of travel. I look forward to getting back into climbing a little bit at home, though if my equipment ever gets as rusty as what I used in Railay, I'm selling it for scrap metal!

Ko Phi Phi

Finding that Phuket was a little more packed with buildings and commerce than the beach destination we pictured, we moved on to Ko Phi-Phi, one of Thailand's famous islands but more popular with young backpackers than big resorts as of yet. The Island is an amazing piece of geology, with a long north-south spine of limestone rising 500-1000 feet high, runing parallel to a very similar spine half a mile away. In between, A thin isthmus of sand provides the horizontal part, making an H, and the isthmus also provides the flat ground upon which the island's facilities are built, which mainly consist of one or two level guest houses and relatively cheap hotels.

There are beaches on each side of the isthmus, offering few waves thanks to the shelter of the big spines, but beautiful water and white sand. There is a market on the island offering cheap meals for any and all, but everything must be brought to the island by boat. The island was devastated by the December 2004 tsunami, and perhaps due to the difficulty of removing trash and wreckage by boat, and bringing new building materials by boat, it is still not fully recovered. However, it is relatively quiet this time of year and was a great place to relax for a couple of days.

Unfortunately, most of my first day was spent going back to Phuket. I'd left my passport as a guarantee for a motorcycle I'd rented, and the lady forgot to return it to me, though I also forgot to ask. So I rode 2.5 hours by ferry one way, a little over an hour by motorbike from the pier to the hotel and back, waited another hour, then another 2.5 hours on the ferry. Needless to say, I was ready to jump in the water when I returned in the afternoon!

A few more photos from this beautiful island area are here:

http://bitjug.com/gallery/PhuketKrabi

Dusky Dawn

We heard rave reviews about this activity. Well, our guidebook mentioned rave
reviews, and we talked to some people who had talked to some other people. Hmm. This is often the way the reviews come in, and sometimes there is disappointment. But this time, there was NO disappointment!

Possibly the highlight of our trip to New Zealand was the "Dolphin Encounter" in Kaikoura, New Zealand. Here, on the north end of the east side of the south island (got that?), there is a very deep canyon system in the ocean, and it is very unique that in Kaikoura this canyon system comes very close to the shore of the land. Because of the deep water, a large amount of plankton and other marine life comes up nearer the surface than it normally would, which in turn brings the animals that feed on this marine life up.

This means that whales and dolphins in particular are easily spotted here, and in fact kaikoura is a world famous whale-watching destination. However, we had heard about a little more intimate experience, swimming "with" the dolphins.~> read more (with photos)

  We were very fortunate to have great weather for our swim day, which is by no means guaranteed.

The day of our swim, we were requested to show up to Dolphin Encounter headquarters at 5:30 am. This building is right along the waterfront, but at 5:30 it was totally dark (just like the sky!), but we saw a mass of people huddled outside the building. Soon, the building opened up and we checked in. We were then sized up for masks, snorkels, fins, and thick 2-piece wetsuits for the cold water (comparable to the oregon coast). Then, we watched a video explaining that we might not see anything, where to find the life vests on the boat we hadn't yet laid eyes on, and that when we are in the water we should squeak madly into our snorkels and possibly dive down into the cold cold water. Quite mistifying, really.

We were bussed to the boat and climbed on. As we steamed on to where the dolphins were presumably located, the sunrise behind the land to the back of the boat took on amazing fiery proportions (see photo). The weather was calm, and we knew it was going to be a good day one way or another.



The Dolphin Encounter people have a specific process figured out. First, the "swimmers" (that's us) get suited up in our wetsuits, fins, masks, and snorkels. Then, the captain finds a pod of 300-500 dolphins, which are easy to see once you're there from the fins on the surface, but I don't know how they find the pod in the first place. Once tight groups of fins are seen totally surrounding the boat, the captain rings the buzzer, which reminds me of this horn blast they used in swim competitions I was in as a kid after they phased out the cap gun. Very loud, sharp sound, and also meant to signal that you should dive into the water! Picture two benches the whole width of a large boat, each level packed with snorkeled and finned swimmers diving into the water!!

However, we were advised to dive smoothly and quietly (good luck with all that gear), so that we didn't scare the dolphins away. Once in the water, all we could see was beautiful blue-green sea, in a pristine color I've only seen in New Zealand. We had bright sunlight making the water glow that day. All we could see was this blue; the water was around 1500 feet deep! So imagine just having jumped in very cold water, looking around frantically, a little bit scared, not knowing what to expect, and ... ZOOM! A grey blur whizzes by you. What was that? A dusky dolphin of course. And you see more, more and more! In fact, they are more often swimming in groups of 2 or 3 than alone, just mere inches between one dolphin's fin and the body of the next.

It's difficult to describe the feeling of seeing animals who can swim with such amazing grace glide by just a few feet in front of your face. Awe is certainly a big part of the emotion. But there's also a bit of desperation, as these amazing marine mammals are just zooming past you, and you'd sure like to have a moment with them. We were taught in our video briefing to sing through our snorkel, which seemed completely ridiculous at the time, but once we were in the water, everyone was doing it! This is intended to get the dolphins' attention, they are very inquisitive creatures. It is also possible to dive down to entertain them. They are surprisingly unafraid, unlike wild mammals on the land.

So, your goal is to make some wild noises or move around to get the dolphins' attention. Inevitably, the first several zip right by, but even the first time we were in the water both Tiffany and I were able to catch the attention of a few dolphins. If you catch a dolphin's attention, he or she will swim around you in a circle, so we would try to swim in a circle ourselves to follow them. It takes all a human swimmer's ability just to keep up with a dolphin's slowest pace. As it swims around you, the dolphin will keep its eye on you, and if you follow it, you can gaze right into its eye. This eye contact is a very personal experience that truly feels like eye contact with a very intelligent being that is interested in you, and even seems to know something about you. Their eyes are deep, unlike a fish. You just feel their playfulness and intelligence during this experience.

After the pod moved, we were loaded back onto the benches on the back of the boat twice more, and again dumped into the water with the buzzer once the boat had found the dolphins again. In the last session, Tiffany had a very touching experience where she was not only able to get a dolphin's attention, but as she swam, the dolphin mirrored her movements. This feeling is just so different from the interaction we have had with any other animals in the world. We certainly wish the dolphins the best, and we will think carefully about dolphins in the future. They are a very special part of our world!

There are a few more photos for your viewing pleasure, including one of a dusky dolphin jumping, as they certainly seem to enjoy doing!:

http://bitjug.com/gallery/KaikouraDolphins