Our Big Year Off!

PHOTOS Nepal PICTURES !!!

2008-12-09T02:34:00.000-08:00

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

All is well!

2008-11-28T21:54:00.001-08:00

For those of you who have seen the news about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Bombay), we're currently in India but very safe and hanging out in Hampi. We're off in the Indian boonies climbing beautiful boulders every day. We can't fly into Bangkok, currently, and just delayed our flight due to the unrest going on there. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to Krabi one last time, and if not, hopefully it will have resolved itself since our eventual flight home is from Bangkok! The airport is currently occupied, barricaded, and the demonstrators have even taken a police chief hostage (or so I've heard) until the PM of Thailand steps down...

Le 27 novembre 2008: On va bien.

2008-11-27T01:54:00.000-08:00

Alors voici quelques nouvelles avant que tout le monde s'inquiete. Nous sommes a Hampi depuis un peu plus de deux semaines. Il n'y a pas grand chose ici, un petit village dans le desert, pas trop de monde, a l'ecart des grandes villes, des attractions touristiques et des dangers. Mais on s'y est pris les pieds. Tout ce qu'il y a autour c'est beaucoup, beaucoup de rochers :) Notre petit paradis d'escalade en Inde. On devait aller se promener dans la region de Kerala dans le sud de l'Inde, mais la verite c'est qu'on etait vraiment epuises de voyager. On a donc decider de rester ici jusqu'a la fin. Fini les longs voyages d'autobus et de trains, les temples, les musees, les grandes villes, la pollution, les arnaqueurs, la fatigue, le stress, etc. On en pouvait plus, toute une annee c'est tres long!!!

Ici a Hampi, c'est vraiment relax. On fait de l'escalade de rocher le matin, on prend une longue pose pour le lunch (c'est trop chaud l'apres-midi), on grimpe encore un peu en fin de journee, puis on se couche tot apres souper. On s'est fait un bon groupe d'amis. On passe nos temps libres a jaser, jouer aux echecs ou aux cartes. Deux nouveaux amis, Ryan et Simon de Vancouvert, retournent aussi en Thailande en meme temps que nous. On a nos billets de train et d'avion de reserve pour dans deux jours, mais on ne sait pas trop ce qui va arriver. Il y a eu des attaques terroristes hier a Mumbai (notre vol est Bangalore-Mumbai-Bangkok) et l'aeroport de Bangkok est presentement ferme a cause de protestations. On va donc se tenir au courant des nouvelles par internet. Appeler la compagnie aerienne pour savoir ce qui arrive avec les vols annules. Mais entre-temps je tenais a ecrire juste pour vous dire qu'on va bien, on est a Hampi a l'abri des dangers et on va probablement rester ici jusqu'a ce que la situation se regle... eh oui, peut-etre encore plus longtemps que prevu!

P.S: Je vous reviens dans mon prochain blog avec les details de nos deux semaines passees dans le nord de l'inde...

Nepal

2008-10-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

Nepal, the land of ups and downs, highs and lows. It's figurative and literal... To get here, we flew into Kolkata, India, and spent roughly 36 hours on trains and buses to cross to Chitwan National Park. That was definitely a low, and I must say a bad way to train for trekking at 5,000+ meteres! It was relatively unmentionable and went smoothly, even at the border. By the way, show up at dusk and the Nepal border patrol will process you double quick because as soon as it's dark they're working by candle light!

Upon arrival in Chitwan, we quickly found a room and headed for the river where we were close to miss the "elephant bathing." It really consists of the elephant riders taking the elephants into the river where they do bathe, but the real attraction is they'll let you get on top of the elephant where it repetitively bathes YOU with a trunk full of water. We have excellent pictures...

We stayed there two nights, saw some local dancing, did an elephant safari where we saw a wild rhino and it's baby, and walked a few kilometers out to the Elephant Breeding Camp which wasn't as impressive (slightly depressing with the chained legs) as we'd hoped. It was really an elephant extravaganza, and when it was done we caught a bus to Kathmandu.

Busing in Nepal sounds casual, as it should be, but it's actually what I would consider more dangerous than the most extreme sport. The Lonely Planet mentions the dangers, and the author saw something like 4 fatal bus crashes/rolls off cliffs in a trivially short amount of time. I thought something along the lines of "it's another westerner scared and blowing something out of proportion." Well, I was wrong. Our bus from Chitwan to Kathmandu was supposed to last a mere five hours. On the way I saw the remains of 4 major bus accidents, and there was one whose remains I didn't see. Two of the buses had a head-on collision and were left in one of the lanes in the road. They were passing on a windy mountain road (they're all windy mountain roads). Two of the buses had gone over the edge, probably killing or maiming everyone in the bus since the roof was obviously collapsed flat! The 5th bus had just gone over the edge and so the remains were impossible to see. At the site of the last one, we encountered a major delay whent he locals decided to stage a demonstration. Dasain, the largest Hindu festival of the year was fast approaching and the local people (about 50,000) had been severely affected by a flood. As a result, they were blocking the road so that they could hopefully receive relief funds from the government so that they could afford to celebrate the festival (which means buying a goat and slaughtering it for dinner). The delay was over 8 hours, and the result was us rolling into Kathmandu around midnight, but at least we were alive!

Kathmandu was completely deserted, it was really bizarre. A few vendors on the way home, essentially no taxi drivers, and ALL the shops had the steel doors rooled down making the city into a rather claustrophobic maze. We quickly realized that essentially all of the hotels were closed and locked as well! Uh oh.... Luckily, after a few streets we found one down a back alley that had a courtyard-ish thing out front and had a security guard awake manning the gate. He opened it up, and woke up the guy the guy who ran the guest house and luckily, we weren't sleeping in the street!

The next two days were spent preparing for our trip up into the Himalayas. We needed airline tickets to Lukla, down jackets, thermal underwear, information, permits, and more. We wandered Kathmandu, which was mildly amusing at first, but quickly became a traveler's hell. Everyone in the street asking you to buy something from a ride in a rickshaw, to musical instruments, to tigerbalm, and more. And if you say no to their first offer, then half the time it's quickly followed by a much quieter, huskier, question, "smoke?" or "marijuana?" The whole time, no matter where you are, it's hard to walk 10 meters there are so many cars and motor bikes all blocking the road (there are no sidewalks to speak of) and they're all honking. It was like Vietnam but there were more touts and obscenely worse air quality. One minute in the street and you're coughing. I think that this trip has probably shortened my lifespan by a few years. Sometimes I think smoking is healthier than travel...

However, we managed to land enough knock off brand clothing and equipment to reasonably get us up the mountains (Nath has a new "North Face" down jacket for around $40), and we headed to the airport for our flight to Lukla.

The domestic airport in Kathmandu is a thing of nightmares. Most places we've been can be described as organized chaos. The airport is just plain chaos. As soon as we walked in the door I realized that we were in trouble. Many airlines, even more lines, and none of them moving. Our flight was for 9:20am and our hotel recommended we show up around 8, which we did. However, the sheer number of people already there and the massive piles of expedition and group trekking gear was daunting, almost reaching to the door. I resigned myself to doing my best and we started talking strategy. It was obvious we were at a disadvantage because we were without a guide (a sign of things to come). The guides just walk behind the counter and talk to the airline representatives, get their clients on the next flight out even if they aren't booked on it. Somehow we managed to wander our way up to the front of the line, probably since we were some of the only people there who weren't with a group in the entire airport. All the other people in line were westerners patiently waiting for their guide to get them on the next flight, while we stood at the front of the line completely and utterly ignored for over two hours. There was one other independent trekker who was in the same situation who had been there before us. However, I had a trick up my sleeve. I had just finished reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, the day before and I put the principles to practice! After a few tries, the guys behind the counter started to warm up to me and eventually we made it on a flight over two hours after our scheduled departure but ahead of the other independent trekker who had been trying since the day before! Thanks Dale Carnegie! :)

I'd heard stories about the Lukla airport from accounts in mountaineering books, but I'd forgotten til I saw it looming in the window ahead. Our little prop plane was flying right into the hillside! The pilots only get one try, since the runway is angled up the hill with a small cliff at the back. Awesome. I watched as the plane flew in, touched down, and stopped insanely quickly as a result of the hill. I was glad to have a good pilot.

We hopped off the plane, packed our bags, and headed out. It was already afternoon, and we hadn't had lunch, so we stopped for food and drink at a few tea houses on our way to Phakding (2610m).

The next morning, we woke to beautiful blue skies, and for Nathalie's birthday (Oct 7th) we got to see our first views of a beautiful snow capped peak in the distance! For Nathalie's birthday, we had one of our most gruelling days ahead of us. It wouldn't have been bad a few months ago, but too much travel and not enough exercise had us both relatively out of shape. We shouldered our packs and started slogging up the hill to Namche Bazaar located farther up the valley at 3440m. I had a headache by the end of the day, and Nathalie was exhausted. We had made it to over 10,000', and as usual I was feeling it. After much searching due to lodges being full (this would be a trend to come) we found ourselves in quite a nice little place with great food. We settled in for the next two nights to do the recommended acclimitization.

We shopped a little, I rented a down jacket for about 65 cents a day and we both bought some crazy hats for the cold awaiting us above. While I was shopping for the jacket, we heard that one of the Yeti Airlines planes (the company we flew with) had crashed killing all passengers. The runway is dangerous... Having bought a Time Magazine in Kathmandu that had many pages devoted to our financial worries, I had a rather funny experience of sitting in a satellite internet cafe in Namche Bazaar selling off stock. The internet usage was expensive, but when we got back to "civilization" I was very glad to have made that decision!

The next day we hiked up to Tengboche at 3860m. We missed the last restaurant and had to do the last two hours of uphill with no food or water, unfortunately. It went pretty quickly though, and we ended up with hours to spare lounging around looking at an almost 360 degree view of beautiful mountains including Ama Dablam and our first peak of a sliver of the summit of Everest. We found a room easily (because of some bizarre political thing going on banning porters in Tengboche) and visited the monastary.

In the morning, we attempted to see the monks performing their morning prayer/chant, but they started late and we ended up leaving without seeing it. We were slowly working our way up in elevation, and this was the first place that it was truly cold. I pulled out the down jacket I'd rented that morning.

Once we hit the trail, it was more uphill. We were detouring a little off the beated path to check out a valley to the east of the main valley. The side excursion was off to the Island Peak Base Camp. Island Peak is a 6200m peak that is many, many, many people's introduction to mountaineering. We ran into endless numbers of tourists who were doing this peak. It consists of hiking for about 1000+' uphill, then there's about 200m of snow/ice and only about 80m is technical (60 degree now/ice) which every single "climber" we met just jugged up on fixed ropes. Needless to say, it didn't appeal. Especially when the permit cost around $350+ for a team and a guide was required! Mountaineering sure has changed... Anyways, the real appeal was extra acclimatization at elevation since the base camp was over 5000m and the views were unbelievable. On the way we stayed the night in Dingboche (4410m) and then hiked up to Chukhung (4730m) for another night. By this time we were really getting up there in elevation. I had trouble sleeping in Dingboche and kept waking up with the feeling of suffocating, but the day to Chukhung was pretty easy and I felt pretty good after that. Our day hike out to Island Peak gave us wonderful views of a new valley that included the truly vast south face of Lhotse, and a new perspective on Ama Dablam. There were also innumerable other beautiful mountains, and a nice glacial lake. Our day topped out around 5100m, close to 16,000'! When we turned around, we headed back down to Dingboche for another night to get back on the main trail to Everest Base Camp (EBC).

The next day we followed a sherpa porter for a group across a mountain shoulder to meet up with the main trail and made it to Lobuche (4910m, over 15,000'). Lobuche was a nightmare. We showed up early, but all the lodges were "full." This means that they didn't want us as customers because we were hiking without a guide. It was really bizarre. As far as I could tell, they made more money off of us, but still sometimes we couldn't even get rooms even if we showed up before people had checked out! We went to all the lodges and only one would let us sleep in the dining room with the Sherpas. It was crazy! The lodge was empty! As we waited throughout the day (you really don't hike far some days due to the elevation) sherpas would come in the door, dump obscene quantities of bags on the floor, and then tourists would show up 3 hours later and happily take their packs to their rooms. We were pretty annoyed. There were other things that got us pretty worked up too, but I can skip it here... In the end, we woke up around 4am with the Sherpas and set off up the hill to Gorak Shep.

Now, I don't know how many of you have spent much time in the mountains, but hiking at 4:30am around 5000m in the middle of October is rather cold. On the plus side, watching the sunrise on Nuptse and other mountains made it quite worth it and even enjoyable. We showed up in Gorak Shep (5140m) around 6:15 and got a room and dropped our packs. We were so happy to leave Lobuche we hadn't had breakfast so we headed into the dining room and splurged on some breakfast AND tea. By this time, resources were so difficult to get up the hill, that all food and drink were starting to be ridiculously expensive. We had both taken out as much money as we could from the ATM before we flew, but we quickly realized that we were running low and would have to conserve... It's a bummer when you often can't get some hot tea when it's cold enough to freeze your water bottles outside and you can't feel your hands.

After a (too quick) breakfast, we were out the door a little after 7am to make our push for Kala Pattar (5545m, or over 18,000'). Many people told us you had to be up there by 8am or there would be clouds in the way. We made good time until the last few hundred meters. Unfortunately, we didn't drink or bring enough water and we became dehydrated. I felt it worst, getting a headache and feeling completely exhausted as the altitude sickness struck. By the time we headed down, Nath was feeling it as well. What was wonderful were the views. The clouds stayed far away, and we managed to get spectacular views of the mountains with a 360 degree view of our surroundings!

After heading down, we pounded around 4 liters of water between us. Shortly after, we felt great again. We had another cold night before heading back up to higher elevations, this time a day hike to Everest Base Camp (EBC). We had heard that it was a hard hike of up to 7 hours round trip, but it ended up taking a mere 4 hours round trip with an hour in the base camp itself. Unfortunately, it was rather uneventful. All but one of the teams had failed due to "deep snow" (what did they expect?) and were gone leaving the sherpas to clean up after them and break down camp. We snapped some pictures, saw a good view of Nupste from closer, and then headed back.

After our last night in Gorak Shep, we started downhill to Dzonglha (4830m) with amazing views of Arakam Tse. We arrived before any other travellers, but of course the two lodges wouldn't give us a room since we were independent. We had to (not) sleep in the dorm with 20 other noisy people. As usual, when there was a down side, something good came of it. We met Dan, a fellow independent traveller and we decided to hike through Cho La Pass together. Cho La is an alternate way back down, turning the trek into a loop which are always better... We had also heard that it was a big day to get through the pass but the views would be spectacular. Setting off early again, armed with a Snickers and some cheese for lunch, we started slogging up the hill. The pass topped out at 5330m and did have amazing views of Gokyo Valley on the other side. Unfortunately, we had to drop down to 4700m over a very long distance. We at our Snickers at the to of the pass and headed out. Many hours later, we finally reached the next town. The plan was to keep going, but Nath was tired and we made plans to meet Dan in the next village, Gokyo, in the morning.

We left Dragnag early to cross a glacier and meet up with Dan. Crossing the glacier was actually a little scary, with a rock hopping section that was quite risky with packs on. I was very glad to have trekking poles, and I can't even imagine how the porters do it... They're amazing. When we met up with Dan in the next guesthouse in Gokyo, we found him sitting with another independent traveller we'd met earlier in our hiking, Doug. The weather was bad, and instead of hiking we ended up eating great food and playing cards most of the day. At the end of the day, when the clouds parted a little, we headed up Gokyo Ri, Ri means viewpoint, a small hill/mountain next to the town. We crushed the hike up to 5360m in barely over an hour, saw some of Cho Oyu (an 8,000m) peak, and took some more good pictures. We have way to many pictures of our trek. We flew down the hill for some dinner, and did the round trip in about the time a lot of people take to go up the hill!

Nath wasn't feeling too well, so Dan Doug and I were planning on trying to hike a roughly 5600m peak the next day. However, despite having reserved the room for two nights the lady kicked us out of the guesthouse because a group was coming! Not only that, but when I went next door to see if they had rooms (it was 8am) the lady followed me and told them NOT to give us rooms! It was almost unbelievable how horrible some of those people were to independent trekkers, and we all had the same experience. We were so over it at that point, that we changed plans and got a late start on Renjo La Pass, a day even bigger than Gokyo Ri. We packed up and were hiking after 9am. Renjo La topped out at 5340m and this time not only were the views better, but there was a group of Isralis who shared fresh coffee and we had a little dance party using an iPod and speakers! Also, since Dan was carrying a guitar, there was some playing and singing. The way down out of Renjo was tame, but long, and we were hiking with headlamps by the end. We could have stopped earlier, but just wanted to get down. But again, a bad experience at the guesthouse lead to us doing another pass which was even better, and we got to have a fun party at the top! Highs and lows...

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. We saw another monestary, stayed one last night in Namche Bazaar where we left Doug, and had a long day with Dan back to Lukla where we stayed the night for our flight back to Kathmandu. Again, flying was funny. We managed to get a ticket for the next morning since we stayed at a guesthouse where one of the owners had a family member working for the airlines. At the airport, our ticket had no time on it and we literally had to shove our way through the line to get on our plane. They have no idea who is on what flight...

The last thing I wanted to do in Nepal was river rafting. Apparently they have some of the best rafting in the world, and one of the rivers, the Bhote Khosi is continuous grade 3-4+ for hours of amazing fun! I won't say too much about this, but we went with one of the "professional" companies recommended in the Lonely Planet, and they took us on a completely different river which was an hour and a half of easy grade 2-3 rapids. I was done with Nepal. We got out as quick as possible. It wasn't as bad as Vietnam, but almost without exception the business owners were terrible people. It definitely partially ruined my experience in the country. By this time I was starting to be pretty eager to go home... but off to India!

Le 30 septembre 2008: Nepal

2008-10-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

Et oui, nous voici au Nepal. On avait besoin de ce changement, le sud-est de l'Asie ca commencait a se ressembler pas mal. Ici la culture et la nourriture c'est un melange entre les Tibetains (Boudhistes) et les Indiens (Hindous). Le cote bizarre c'est qu'il y a toujours une bouteille de ketchup (style Heinz) sur la table!?!! Les paysages, surtout dans les Himalayas, sont incroyables. De facon generale, je n'arrive pas encore a dire si j'aime ou si je n'aime pas ce pays. A premiere vue les gens sont tres gentils... jusqu'a ce qu'il vous fassent un coup dans le dos dans les endroits touristiques. Je vous donne quelques exemples plus bas. On a passe la majorite de notre temps en randonnee. Ca a ete ma premiere vraie experience en haute montagne. Marcher et dormir en haute altitude (on a passe une semaine a plus de 4500m ou l'oxygene est reduit de pres de moitie!) , c'est un tout autre mode de vie. Voici un recit un peu plus detaille de nos journees.

PARC NATIONAL DE CHITWAN. Comme on a pris l'avion de Bangkok a Kolkata (en Indes), on avait un long trajet (taxi+train+bus+marche a travers les douanes+bus = 36h non-stop!) pour se rendre au Nepal. On a donc decider de couper la route en s'arretant au parc national de Chitwan en route vers Katmandu. On etait bien fatigues, mais on a ete recompense par une baignade dans la riviere avec les elephants, vous en jugerez par les photos, elle belle partie de plaisir! On y a aussi fait un safari a dos d'elephant, on a ete chanceux et on a vu des rhinoceros dans leur milieu naturel, mais c'est tout, rien d'autre.

KATHMANDU. On reprend l'autobus. Cette fois-ci un autobus pour touristes, car les autobus locaux font peur. Il y a vraiment beaucoup d'accidents. On est parti a 9h le matin. On devait arriver en debut d'apres-midi. Mais la route etait bloquee par des gens du Nepal qui manifestaient pour obtenir de l'argent pour le festival de Dasain... Y'a toutes sortes de choses qui arrivent pendant un voyage, faut apprendre a etre patients. On est donc restes pris pendant 8h de temps, assis dans un autobus qui n'avance pas. On est finalement arrives passe 10h du soir a Kathmandu. Par chance on y a trouve une chambre ou passer la nuit. On a fait notre magasinage (permis, maps, batons de marche, manteau chaud, etc.) et achete notre billet d'avion pour Lukla. Deux jours plus tard on part pour les Himalayas!

PARC NATIONAL DE SAGARMATHAN. Se rendre dans la region du Mont-Everest ce n'est pas aussi facile qu'on peut le croire. D'abord on avait un billet d'avion pour 9h. Mais la date et l'heure ne veut rien dire ici dans cet aeroport ou tout est bordelique. C'est plutot le principe premier arrive premier servi, sauf qu'il n'y a pas d'ordre. Les guides, les groupes, les expeditions, tout le monde passait devant nous. Encore une fois, on a du s'armer de patience et user de nos sourires pour finalement monter a bord d'un avion vers 11h30. L'avion est tres petit, tres bruyant (pas chance ils nous ont donnes de petit bout de ouate pour mettre dans nos oreilles) et tres effrayant. La piste d'atterrissage a Lukla est encore bien pire: tres courte et se termine avec un mur de brique! Tout a bien ete pour nous. Mais deux jours plus tard, soit le jour de ma fete, le meme avion s'est ecrase et tous les passagers sont morts... Pendant 16 jours, on a marche. La majorite des gens emploient un guide et un porteur, mais nos on a decide de le faire par nous memes avec nos sacs-a-dos. Nos journees typiques se commencaient tres tot, au leve du soleil, vers 5-6h du matin. Le bon cote c'est qu'on pouvait y prendre de belles photos! Apres dejeuner, on marche pour environ 2h avant de s'arreter pour une pause "the" (moi je ne bois pas de cafe, et le the au Nepal est tres bon!) puis un autre 2h de marche, un arret pour l'heure du lunch et parfois un autre 2h de marche. L'apres-midi on se repose, s'habitue a notre nouvelle altitude et vers 7h30-8h apres souper on tombe de fatigue. Le menu typique c'est le "Dal Bhat". C'est a dire du riz blanc, de la soupe aux lentilles et des legumes (principalement des patates). C'est un peu fade, certains sont meilleurs que d'autres, mais c'est a volonte et les lentilles sont une bonne source de proteines puisque la viande se fait rare des les hautes montagnes. J'vous dis pas combien d'omelettes on a mange!

Jour 1: Le jour du vol vers Lukla (2840m, oxygene=73%). 1h de marche vers Chheplung ou on y a mange notre premier Dal Bhat. Puis 1h30 jusqu'a Thado Koshigan/Ghat pour une pause-the et un 2h de plus jusqu'a Phakding (2610m) ou on y passe notre premiere nuit.

Jour 2: C'est ma fete!!! Au reveil, je regarde par la fenetre de notre chambre et j'y apercois notre premiere vu sur hautes montagnes. Un sommet enneige de la chaine de montagne Konde (~6000m). Quel beau cadeau. Josh m'a aussi offert de belles boucles d'oreilles qu'il a achete en Nouvelle-Zelande et a traine en cachette depuis. Je les adores car elle vont parfaitement avec ma bague que Marie-Claire m'a offert a ma graduation de doctorat :) Et la journee commence. 2h de marche jusqu'a Bengkar (2630m), une pause-the, 1h de marche jusqu'a Monjo ou on a du attendre "en ligne" pour obtenir un deuxieme permis (encore une fois tous les guides et groupes passaient devant nous), lunch, et 3h de marche jusqu'a Nambhe Bazaar. Ouf, toute une journee difficile. On est pas en forme, le sac a dos semble de plus en plus lourd et mes jambes sont tellement fatiguees... non mais j'ai 32 ans aujourd'hui!!! J'ai vraiment cru que je n'y arriverais pas, que je ne me rendrais pas jusqu'au mont Everest. Finalement a Nambhe on a trouve une jolie chambre et on a mange un bon steak de yak (ou peut-etre yach en francais?) pour mon souper de fete!

Jour 3: Une journee de repos a Namche (3440m, oxygene=64%) pour s'habituer a l'altitude. On s'est achete des tuques chaudes et comiques! On a vu des images de l'avion qui s'est ecrase aux nouvelles...

Jour 4: 2h30 jusqu'a Phunki Tenga (3250m) ou on a manque le dernier restaurant. On doit continuer 2h de plus jusqu'a Tengboche (3860m). Par chance on file mieux et la forme revient tranquillement. En apres-midi on a visite le centre ecologique, le monastere et discute avec un moine bien divertissant.

Jour 5: 2h30 jusqu'a Syomare (4010m, oxygene=60%) ou nous avons du attendre 1h30 pour notre lunch (evidemement un groupe est passe avant nous). 2h de plus vers Dingboche (4410m). Ma premiere vue d'Ama Dablam, ma montagne preferee depuis que je l'ai vu en photo lors d'une presentation de 'mountaineering' l'an dernier a San Diego. C'est une montagne tres difficile a grimper ou il faut avoir de grandes connaissances des techniques d'escalades de roche et de glace (comparativement au Mont-Everest ou s'est que de la marche jusqu'au sommet). L'an dernier, 9 personnes sont mortes sur Ama Dablam a cause d'avalanches...

Jour 6: Une petite journee, 2h jusqu'a Chukkhung (4730m, oxygene=57%). Avec de belles vues des monts Tabuche (6367m) et Cholatse (6335m). On a passe l'apres-midi a discuter avec des gens qui allaient grimper le sommet "Island" les jours suivants. C'etait tres interessant d'apprendre plus sur la haut montagne (mountaineering).

Jour 7: 4h30 de marcher allez-retour vers le camp de base du mont Island. Apres un Dal Bhat, on fait notre sac et on repart vers Dingboche. Je marchais tres lentement, mon estomac ne filait pas trop bien...

Jour 8: 2h vers Duglas (4620m). J'etais encore malade et je n'avais pas tres bien dormi. Josh a du m'aider en prenant du poids de mon sac a dos. Lentement mais surement, apres un autre 2h de marche, tortue Nathalie s'est rendu jusqu'a Lobuche (4910m). Tout ce que je voulais c'est dormir afin de filer mieux, mais on a pas reussi a avoir une chambre. On a dormir dans la salle a manger avec les proteurs. Durant mon sommeil, j'ai reve a ma famille. Un bien drole de reve: Mes parents et ma soeur etaient venus pour me rejoindre a Lobuche. Ils ont pris l'avion, puis mon pere a conduit son gros camion a travers les sentiers jusqu'a Lobuche (aucune idee comment c'est possible, mais c'est ca les reves!). Ma soeur devait venir marcher avec nous le lendemain pour aller voir le Mont-Everest. Mais avec tout l'excitement on a pas penser au probleme de l'altitude. Comme ils avaient conduits, en une seule journee ils avaient passe du niveau de la mer a pres de 5000m. D'urgence je les envois m'attendre a Namche Bazaar... (Il y a des gens qui meurent a chaque annee car ils marchent trop vite et ne prennent pas d'arrets pour s'habituer a l'altitude.)

Jour 9: A 4h du matin on doit se lever car le restaurant ouvre. On decide de faire notre sac et de partir directement pour prendre notre dejeuner au prochain village et esperer trouver une chambre comme on arrivera les premiers! 2h jusqu'a Gorak Shep (5140m, oxygene=53%). Ye on a une chambre. Mais il fait froid ici, on commence a etre pas mal haut. Apres dejeuner on decide de faire l'aller-retour vers Kala Pattar (5545m, oxygene < 50% !!!). Les vues au sommet sont grandioses. On peut voir Ama Dablam, Nuptse (7861m), Pumo Ri (7165m) et bien entendu le fameux mont Everest (8850m). Beaucoup, beaucoup de belles photos. Ca me rend moins triste maintenant qu'on ait perdu les photos de la Nouvelle-Zelande!

Jour 10: Apres une bonne nuit de sommeil et un gros dejeuner nous nous dirigeons vers le camp de base du Mont-Everest. Je n'arrive pas a croire que je suis ici. La plus haute expedition du monde commence ici, je me suis rendu au plus haut point possible (le camp de base, 5364m, oxygene ~ 51%). Malheureusement les 4 groupes qui ont tente une ascension ont echoue a cause de grands vents et il y a que des tentes vides. J'aurais bien aime avoir la chance de discuter avec certain d'entre-eux. Sans sac-a-dos et habitues a l'altitude, on a fait la randonne en 2h aller plus 2h retour. Mais on est reste 1h au camp de base, a observer et a prendre des photos. Je suis vraiment fascinee et curieuse par ces hautes montagnes.

Jour 11: Encore une fois nous devons se lever a 4h30 du matin pour la course contre les groupes. En fait, les groupes arrivent bien apres-nous, mais ils envoient tot le matin leur porteur avec tous leurs bagages pour reserver leur chambres. Il y a peu de voyageurs independants ici et on nous fait la vie dure. Les autres qu'on a rencontre comme nous, tous detestent ces groupes de touristes qui ne peuvent pas transporter eux-memes leur sac-a-dos, qui prennent toute la place, qui ne font pas attention a l'environnement, qui ne traitent pas leur eau, qui exploitent et ne se soucient pas de la sante de leur pauvre porteur, etc. Une grande question d'ethique ici, le touriste a apporte beaucoup d'argent dans la region et les habitants ont un meilleur niveau de vie (par exemple, ils ont des vetements chauds et des souliers de course). Mais d'un autre cote, les touristes ne pensent qu'a eux, ne font pas attention aux gens locaux et detruisent leur precieux evironnement... Bref, on part a 5h du matin, on arrive a Lobuche a 6h30 ou on arrete pour prendre notre dejeuner avant de continuer la route pour arriver a Dzonglha (4830m) vers 9h. Deja la, pas de chambre pour nous. On doit payer cher pour avoir une place dans un dortoir ou je n'ai pas reussi a dormir de la nuit. La randonnee etait tres belle par contre, avec vue sur les vallees, lac et le mont Arakam Tse (6423m).

Jour 12: Encore une fois on se leve a 5h du matin et on commence la journee a 6h apres le dejeuner. Dan, un nouvel ami, se joint a nous. La journee va etre difficile, on doit traverser un glacier et c'est donc plus prudent d'etre en petit groupe. Ca nous a pris 3h15 pour se rendre au somment et traverser Chola Pass (5330m). Apres une pause lunch (i.e. barre de chocolat!) on repart. Pendant 2h45 on descent un sentier vraiment abrupte. Dan est plutot drole. Il vient du milieu des Etats-Unis, il a vraiment apporte le minimum dans son petit sac-a-dos et il traine avec lui une guitare pour pratiquer ses chansons country!!! Arrives a Dragnag (4700m) je suis trop fatiguee pour continuer avec Dan et on a la chance d'avoir une chambre disponible pour nous. Josh et moi restons donc ici pour la nuit.

Jour 13: Debout a 5h30 on part a 6h, la nouvelle routine quoi, notre seule chance d'avoir une chambre. En 2h nous traversons le glacier Nguzumba et on arrive a Gokyo ou d'autres voyageurs independants nous avaient recommender d'aller au refuge Cho Oyo View ou la dame est apparemment tres gentille. Quelle joie, en arrivant la-bas, on y retrouve Dan et Doug, un autre ami rencontre a Gorak Shep. Le temps qu'on arrive pour dejeuner et les deux autres avaient tout juste eu le temps de faire connaissance. Quelle belle coincidence qu'on se retrouve au meme edroit. Surtout que la journee est nuageuse, on est tous tres fatigues et on en profite pour jouer aux cartes et se reposer. Qu'il fait bon etre au chaud et d'avoir des amis! Quand la temperature s'eclaircie en fin d'apres-midi, on se dirige tous vers Gokyo Ri (1h30, 5360m) d'ou on de tres belles vues, entre-autres du mon Cho Oyo (8188m). Le lendemain, Josh et moi prevoyons prendre une journee separee. Josh ira grimper un mont de fou avec les gars, et moi je vais me reposer, faire une randonnee autour des lacs en apres-midi et attendre les gars pour souper.

Jour 14: Un coup de couteau dans le dos. Bien les beaux plans tombent a l'eau quand au dejeuner, la 'gentille' dame decide de nous jeter en dehors de notre chambre. Apparemment elle a un 'groupe' qui arrive, son frere dit-elle. Quelle deception. On avait entendu tellement de bien de ce refuge, on prevoyais y passer quelques jours et voila que c'est la meme histoire que partout ailleurs. Josh trouve deux chambres dans le refuge d'a cote, mais la dame de notre refuge va leur dire de ne pas nous donner les chambres (probablement parce qu'il veut quand meme qu'on mange a son refuge pour qu'elle puisse faire plus d'argent meme si elle n'a plus de chambre pour nous). Frustres, on change les plans. On fait nos bagages, trouve un autre endroit ou manger et on part les 4 ensembles a 9h. Le bon cote s'est qu'il fait bon de se sentir comme un petit groupe maintenant! 3h de marche abrupte vers le sommet de Renjo Pass (5360m). J'etais fatiguee, pas de journee de repos pour moi et pas de journee sans Josh, c'est comme ca a chaque fois, on finit vraiment par etre toujours ensemble, hihi. Trainant de la patte en arriere, en arrivant vers le sommet, j'entends un son de guitare! Un groupe d'Israeliens arrivant de l'autre cote etaient aussi au sommet et chantaient des chansons avec Dan. Ils nous ont demande de participer avec eux a un "twist-party". Ca nous a pris du temps a comprendre jusqu'a ce qu'ils sortent leur IPOD de leur sac-a-dos et fassent jouer de vielles chansons americaines. Danser le twist ou l'oxygene est a pres de 50%, j'vous dis que ca n'a pas ete long qu'on etait essouffles, mais quel beau moment de bonheur avec les paysages magnifiques tout autour :) Comme on en peut plus du probleme avec les refuges, du froid et qu'on a vu tout ce qu'on voulait voir, on marche aussi loin et aussi bas qu'on peut. Faut dire que ca fait maintenant 11 jours que Josh et moi n'avons pas pris de douche, mon nouveau record! 2h de plus et on est a Langden (4400m) ou on arrete pour manger un tres bon Sherpa-Stew. Puis un autre 2h de marche pour finalement arriver a la noirceur (vivement les lampes de poches!) a Thame (3820m) vers 18h30. Enfin sortis des sentiers battus, ici c'est beaucoup plus tranquille et on trouve un charmant petit refuge ou on habite pratiquement dans la maison avec la famille.

Jour 15: Aujourd'hui on prend ca vraiment relax, surtout apres la journee de fou d'hier. Toujours avec Dan et Doug on va visiter le monastere de Thame, soit le plus ancier heritage culturel des Sherpas datant de 1667. Les Sherpas sont les habitants de la region du mont-Everest. Un 3h de marche en apres-midi et on est de retour a Namche Bazaar ou on s'est regale encore une fois d'un bon steak de yak!

Jour 16: C'est le dernier jour, apres les aurevoirs on repart tous chacun de notre cote. Josh et moi nous nous rendons jusqu'a Lukla apres un long 6h de marche. La chance nous souris, on trouve un charmant refuge trois des membres de la famille travaillent pour les trois differentes compagnies aeriennes. Donc pas de probleme, ils utilisent leurs contacts pour nous denicher un billet d'avion pour le lendemain matin. L'un des garcons vient meme avec nous a l'aeroport, pas besoin de se battre cette fois.

JAZZMANDU: De retour a Kathmandu, on y passe une couple de jours. On a besoin de se reposer, de bien manger et de ne pas trop marcher! Par chance je tombe sur un depliant de Jazz mandu, ye, c'est le festival de jazz a Kathmandu cette semaine. Folle de joie, moi qui m'ennuie tellement du festival de jazz de Montreal, on s'achete deux billets. C'est dans le parc d'un gros hotel, y'a fallu prendre un taxi, mais qu'il faisait bon de s'asseoir dans le gazon pendant des heures et d'ecouter des bands life du Nepal, mais aussi d'autres pays. Je me suis achetee 2 CDs, j'ai hate de revenir a la maison pour les ecouter :)

BHOTE KOSI: Notre derniere aventure au Nepal. On s'inscrit pour un 2 jours de rafting sur la riviere Bhote Kosi, reconnue pour ses rapides de niveau 3, 4, et 5! On a ete jumele a un bon groupe, on s'est fait de nouveaux amis, on a bien mange, on a passe du temps au soleil et sur l'eau, l'equipement et le staff etaient super, un deux jours tres relaxant... sauf qu'ils nous ont mentis et qu'on est pas alle sur la Bhote Kosi, mais a la place ils nous ont emmene sur une toute petite riviere avec de tous petits rapides de niveau 2 et 3. Ca resume pas mal notre experience au Nepal.

Le 25 aout 2008: Laos

2008-10-27T05:13:00.000-07:00

Et bien malheureusement, j'avais mis 2-3 heures a ecrire un texte sur le Laos, mais probleme d'informatique je l'ai perdu :( La Laos ca a ete toute une experience de vie plus qu'un voyage, je m'etais vraiment forcee a essayer de vous transmette les emotions vecues a travers mon texte. Ca a ete 3 semaines tres riche et intense en emotions. Depuis, je n'ai pas eu le temps ni le coeur de reecrire le recit, a part l'introduction que voici. On va publier les photos et je vous raconterai les details en personne...

"Oh le beau Laos. Wow, mon nouveau pays prefere. Peut-etre parce que les gens y sont tres tres gentils, ou parce que les paysages y sont magnifiques, ou parce que c'est moins developpe, ou parce qu'on y a passe plus de temps aux memes endroits, ou parce qu'on s'y est plus investi en benevolat et autre, ou parce qu'on revenait du Vietnam!??!!! Dans tous les cas, c'etait toute une belle experience de vie :) Parfait du debut a la fin. Comme accueil, des petites filles debout dans la boite d'un camion qui passait dans la rue nous ont non seulement salue, mais elles nous ont aussi envoye des becs! Ca n'aurait pas pu etre mieux. Et comme depart, dans le 'traversier' vers la Thailande (par traversier, imaginez plutot une chaloupe de bois a moteur traversant une riviere comme le Richelieu) j'etais assise a cote d'une grand-mere du Laos qui avait tres peur. Elle m'a serree tres fort dans ses bras et m'a tenu la main tout le long de la traversee en faisant ses prieres. Arrives de l'autre cote je crois qu'elle m'a remerciee ou beni, je ne suis pas trop certaine car elle parlait Laos, mais je pouvais dire que ca venait du fond du coeur. Je n'aurais pas pu imaginer mieux comme aurevoir. Ce pays me manque deja. J'y retournerais demain matin, aux exacts memes endroits..."

PHOTOS Thailand and Laos PICTURES!!!

2008-09-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

We have two more folders up and ready. One contains Laos pictures, and the other has the pictures from our two times through N. Thailand before and after Vietnam/Laos. For once, we're all up to date on the blog!

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

Voici les photos du Laos et de la Thailande. Le Laos c'etait merveilleux, mais j'ai malheureusement perdu mon texte :( La Thailande, bien c'est comme la maison, il n'y a pas tellement a dire. On y a bien mange, suivi la deuxieme semaine de cours de massage, fait un peu d'escalade, alles au cinema et on s'est surtout prepare pour notre voyage au Nepal donc le recit et les photos s'en viennent bientot!

Thailand - Chiang Mai Part 2!

2008-09-29T06:52:00.001-07:00

Upon our departure from Laos, we promptly headed toward Chiang Rai (not to be confused with Chiang Mai). It's located in the N. East closer to Laos. We planned on taking trips and going trekking while in the area, but unfortunately on the 2nd night of our trekking in Laos I severly pulled a muscle in my neck maybe while sleeping. I woke up in so much pain I couldn't lift my head without using my hands. Once I was standing it was alright, provided I didn't turn my neck, but the bus rides to the border and to Chiang Rai did their damage. I rested for a few days while we explored the town and visited an amazing muesum on the hill tribe people of Thailand. The markets were great places to find food, and we visited them often trying to get a fill of the wonderful food we'd been missing for so long!

On our last day, my neck was feeling a little better so we rented a motorbike and headed off to a local Akha (a hill tribe) village who uses elephants for work and allows tourists to come see the elephants. Most tourists are rather run of the mill and take a tour. That means the people know when they are coming and have organized elephant rides, etc. However, we just showed up and started wandering the dirt roads in search of an apparently elusive pachyderm. After a few turn arounds, we saw a big grey butt strolling up the road with someone on his back. My experience with elephants rather small (that means zero), I didn't know if you could ride a motor bike past one on a small dirt road. I parked, locked it and we set off on foot. We hiked and hiked, but unfortunately a creature with 4 legs 3 meters tall is much faster than two bipeds under 2 meters tall. After about 15 minutes, we passed some villagers who were taking a break from working in the fields. When they saw us giving up and turning around, they got excited knowing we were looking for an elephant and pointed us in the right direction. The rider of the elephant had taken it straight up a hill and off into the forest and so off we went in pirsuit. The trail was great, since the tracks were fresh and the 45 degree angle hill had huge circular steps where the elephants feet has sunk into the mud! Chase as we might, we were going woefully slow compared to the elephant and had to catch a bus on to Chiang Mai that night so we finally had to turn around and head home. Nath was disappointed. She was like a bloodhound on the trail for a while. It was a fun little mini-adventure/challenge.

The bus brought us back to Chiang Mai, and we had called ahead to Malak our guesthouse of three weeks during our previous trip. We were home. Once in Chiang Mai, we hit the Indian Embassy and dropped off our paperwork for our visas and that weekend hit Crazy Horse Buttress for another day of climbing before continuing our massage training. As the week rolled around we resumed our routine from our previous stay of waking at 7am to go to class, take notes, and practice practice practice. We stayed til 5pm every day (class ended at 3) to practice and pester the staff with question after question. At the end of the week we received our final certificate for having completed the entire massage material, Levels 1 and 2! Yeah!

Our last few days in Chiang Mai were spent preparing for our trip to India. Buying, selling, storing, mailing, blogging, uploading pictures, etc. Now I'm sitting in Bangkok with less than a day left before we ship off to India and attempt to train and bus straight to Kathmandu for two days. It'll be crazy! Typically we try to avoid Bangkok (and have figured out a good system for doing this) but this time I had to stop to get pages added to my passport! Since March 2006 I've filled every "visa" page of my passport already!

Life is good!

PHOTOS Vietnam PICTURES!!!

2008-09-28T02:03:00.000-07:00

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

Malgre des gens pas gentils, quand meme beaucoup de photos!

PHOTOS Cambodia PICTURES!!!

2008-09-27T02:52:00.000-07:00

We have the Cambodia photos up!

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

Beaucoup, beaucoup de photos des temples d'Angkor (Cambodge). Apres tout, c'est la 7e merveille du monde... et on avait une toute nouvelle camera!!!

Laos

2008-09-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

Laos was such a relief after Vietnam. Did I mention the bus even stopped honking as soon as we crossed the border into Laos? What a symbolic gesture... Nath and I relaxed and decompressed in Ventiene, trying to remember what it was like not to have to stress every waking moment. We found some great restaurants, and did a little walking and sightseeing. We didn't do anything spectacular in Ventiene besides appreciate how laid back this capital city in SE Asia was! The people were wonderful. The tuk tuk drivers even smiled and waved to us as we walked by instead of harassing us. I've realized that you can learn a lot about how your experience in a country will be based on the tuk tuk and taxi drivers. In Laos you have to go find them sometimes!

After a few days of relaxing in Ventiene, we headed north up toward Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng has two things that I was looking forward to, climbing and tubing. What is tubing you ask? Well, it's something that would NEVER exist in the west for starters... too much liability! You rent a large inner tube and catch a ride up the river that splits town. From there, you hop on and almost immediately you're being accosted by the locals working at the first of about 10 bars along the way. They toss you ropes to pull you in, you drink, hang out, and once you've gotten up the courage you start to play on the enormous rope swings and ziplines that they've constructed that send you flying off into the river. Some are almost 10m tall! The longest zipline is probably almost 50m long and you really get going! The drunker the person, the tighter they try to hold on when it hit's it's finish and they go flipping off into the river below. Often with skin slapping hilarity! One of the bars had a mud volleyball court, that was so slopping wet with water that you couldn't take a single step without flopping on your face. To make matters worse, people had worn down half meter deep pits of muddy water in the center. The pictures would have been hilarious, but with our luck with cameras we kept it in it's water proof bag. There was too much mud being thrown and splashing going on to risk it.

By the end of our first day of "tubing" Nath had done one of the swings and the long zip line a few times (she liked the zip line because she finished closer to the water). I saw some local kids pulling back flips off the swings, so of course I had to try. By the end of the day I was flying off the big swings, flipping in style. I even figured out how to do it off the zip line for a nice finish. We had a blast, and I really appreciated being able to play around like that without the government step in an say, "you can't do that."

Day two found us climbing on a nice little limestone cliff in the mountains east of town. It was small, but fun. There are many other developed cliffs in the area, but they were all either wet from the rainy season or the bottom was submerged in water. We ended up going there twice, and Nath managed to redpoint the hardest route on the cliff, a beautiful 7a+ with nice pockets and technical face climbing! Yeah! Laos seems like it would be a fun place to spend a week climbing during the dry season when the rest of the crags were climbable. The locals were practically drooling at the thought of dry weather so they could get out on the good routes! The local guides were very nice, and we got the contact information of one of them if anyone ever wants to go climb there. The crag we went to was hard to reach, so we just caught a ride with Green Discovery, the company he worked for, for about $2 each.

Since our opportunities for volunteering in Yangshuo, China, had dried up at the consulate, we were looking for something else that we could do. It luckily turned out that there was a Spanish dentist with Dentist Without Boundaries climbing at the same crag while we were there. I asked him later if we could come with him and help and he said yes!

What a great experience. We jumped in the truck with them one morning and headed off down the bumpy road to a small village 30 minutes away. When we arrived, we set up in the local "hospital" a building so small that most of the work was done outside in a semi-enclosed hallway. Nath and I helped where we could, which included washing the typically very bloody tools, holding flashlights, helping to work the air compressor which drove the drill, irrigating the mouth while they drilled, and my personal favorite was holding that little blue light gun over the tooth while a filling hardened. The dentists said that once a tooth hurt, they pretty much had to pull it, and since most people were going there for tooth ache there was a designated tooth bottle! It was quite the day!

The next day, I went with the dentists for more of the same but Nath decided to stay at the guesthouse and help out the lady who ran it. The people who ran it were wonderful people and so it was fun for her to help. The woman had a newborn baby, her husband was in the hospital with malaria, and their other employee was in the hospital with Dengue Fever! Bad luck! Nath had fun watching the baby and doing whatever else she could do to help. Ite, who had Dengue seemed to be doing fine and was actually back to work by the time we left while still battling the sickness. It's not nearly as bad as the western doctors will have you believe...

One morning we woke up ready for the day and walked outside. Nath went to put on her Keen sandals and started freaking out. I asked her what was wrong and she said something was in her sandal. I looked down, and I could tell something was in there but I didn't know what. I turned the sandal toe up and smacked it on the ground and out falls this HUGE toad! I laughed for the rest of the day. Nath didn't.

After one more day of tubing where I perfected my backflip and Nath tried one of the tallest swings, we were off north to Luang Prabang. We hopped on the bus and for the next roughly 7 hours wound our way high into the mountains for views of some of the most picturesque landscape of the trip. I loved that bus ride, even if it was slow and and the road so bad I couldn't read.

Luang Prabang was a strange little town. It nestled right where the Mekong and another river joined, and was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, it was so "touristy" that we didn't like it, and unlike Ventiene the restaurants just weren't good. Instead we ended up eating at the night market trying everything from BBQ fish, to the spring rolls, to wonderful fresh desserts. Another night we did a Lao style BBQ with some friends we met in Laos and it was just amazing. The large bottles of beer at the restaurant went for 7500 kip, which is roughly $0.80! Life was good.

Luang Prabang also had good volunteer opportunities at Big Brother Mouse. I went there twice, and Nath once. The other day she was taking a cooking class. Big Brother Mouse is a wonderful little organization started by an American who lives in Laos. It is a non-profit devoted solely to literacy and teaching English. Any traveller who speaks English can show up between 9-11:30am every day and there will be local teenagers eager to learn and practice their English. You can help them with pronunciation, vocabulary, or if they speak enough English some people were teaching science! I worked with someone for a while translating "Johnny's Got His Gun" (at least I think that was the title). He would have me explain the passages, due to the amount of metaphor and symbolism, and he would check the translation into Lao. It was a great place to spend a few hours!

We spent one day visiting a local waterfall. It was quite pretty, although the trail to the top had leeches. Of course Nath got a leech and I didn't. That's always how it goes, it seems. When we got to the top, we found you could walk along the top of the waterfall, and there were a few trees which stuck out over the lip with "Do Not Enter" signs. Of course we ignored them and took pictures. I mean, really, what else were we supposed to do?

When it came time to head off, we jumped a series of buses, tuk-tuks, and a minibus to reach Muang Sing. We wanted to go trekking in the area and read it might be good up there in far northern Laos. We found a small company and shelled out around 1.5 million kip for a two person 3 day tour. Later that day, we found out that the 2nd guy we talked to at the company didn't actually work there and had collected our payment under false pretenses. I laughed for the rest of the day since I thought it might turn out OK. The owner of the business hunted the guy down and he was there the next morning to give us our money back. It was a learning experience (they all are). Anyways, in the end we headed off into the mountains that morning for a three day trip with the right guy.

The trekking was awesome. I think that it is really difficult to find that ideal trekking experience, but for about a day I think we found it. We hiked out to and stayed for a day in a small remote village up in the hills/mountains that lives off of rice and other crops and produces small crafts such as brooms from local plants, etc. It was amazing to watch them work, everything from a young teenage girl carrying about 35 liters of water up a hill, to her (presumably) father making the brooms which would eventually sell for less than $1. They had the most basic tools for their work sometimes, like a large wooden rice pounder on a fulcrum that they worked by foot (it's in the pictures). It would very slowly work the husk off of the rice, a little bit at a time, and they started working it before 5am to beat the heat. We stayed the night in one of the homes, and watched them live and cook for a day. Absolutely fascinating.

In the morning before we left, we visited the local school. We watched for a while, then Nath wanted to teach them the alphabet song, which we did! It was really funny. The absolutely loved to say the letter "w" and laughed every time. After we taught them, they all asked us to pronounce and say the words on their t-shirts, which were half in English. Everything from American Eagle, to US military themes. It was a good day.

The rest of the trekking was a little sub-optimal walking through more developed areas, sometimes on roads, which we didn't expect since the "correct" guy at the trekking guide company had mislead us a little, but that first day made up for it and overall we really enjoyed ourselves.

Our last day in Muang Sing luckily coincided with a festival. We got back to town early, and were promptly invited to eat with a bunch of the people who were related to our guesthouse in some way. We sat around talking to them for a few hours while the kitchen kept bringing us some of the most mouth watering meat dishes I've eaten in a long time. One of them is called Lab or Lap depending on how they spell it and it's just minced meat, spices, and herbs. It's amazing, eaten with sticky rice. After Laos, Nath and I are both huge fans of sticky rice, and I've realized that it can be eaten with more than mango! The locals take some, ball it up in their hands, grab some of the meat dish and pop it in their mouth. It's a fun way to eat together, and we had it down by the time we left Laos.

When it was time to go, we caught a bus to Thailand. This time we finally encountered one of the landslides recent enough to stop the road. It was a huge landslide and a massive bulldozer was working on clearing the way. It looked like it had been working for a while, and it still delayed us by about 30+ minutes, but it was fun to watch it work while we hid in the shade. We stayed one last night in Laos, and crossed into N. Thailand in the morning by boat across the Mekong.

PHOTOS Singapore/Malaysia PICTURES!!!

2008-09-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

We have the Singapore/Malaysia photos up!

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

Un peu c'est mieux que rien. Voici LA seule et unique photo de Singapour ainsi que 25 photos de Malaysie...

Le 3 aout 2008 - Vietnam

2008-08-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

Oh la, la, que dire du Vietnam. C'etait un pays ou j'avais hate d'aller, mais c'est malheureusement le pays qu'on a le moins aime du voyage. Il y a d'incroyables beautes naturelles, ils ont les montagnes et les plages, les champs de riz et les dames aux chapeaux coniques, etc. Mais les gens sont tellement pas gentils avec nous, nous mentent la plupart du temps et partout c'est la pollution de l'aire et le bruit etroudissant des claxons des motos, autos et autobus. C'est juste un endroit tellement stressant ou il est impossible de relaxer. Meme sur les belles plages, on y entend les claxons et la circulations des routes derrieres. Je suis habituee a marchander, surtout depuis que je suis allee au Maroc il y a quelques annees, mais quand on s'entend sur un prix et qu'apres coup ils essaient de charger plus, ca je n'accepte pas. La bouffe m'a decue, j'crois que les restos Vietnamien a Montreal sont meilleurs. Je n'ai meme pas reussi a suivre un vrai cours de cuisine. Les gens sont racistes au point de ne pas nous laisser entrer dans certain restaurants, bars, etc. Les seules personnes qui sont gentilles, ce sont les adolescents, mais ils n'ont pas le droit de nous parler. Par example, dans un musee, je discutais avec des etudiants qui voulaient ameliorer leur anglais et la securite les ont expulses du musee. Le musee etait rien de plus que de la propagande contre les americains, donc pas moyen d'apprendre sur leur histoire. Bref, les habitants ont eu la vie dure pendant les differentes guerres et avec leur gouvernement communiste. Aujourd'hui ils n'ont pas oublie, ils n'aiment pas les touristes et ne pense qu'a faire le plus d'argent possible au moment present, sans penser au futur. La plupart des voyageurs qu'on a rencontre se sentaient comme nous, on doit toujours etre sur nos gardes, on ne peut faire confiance a personne, ce qui est stressant, c'est cher comparativement aux autres pays autours, et les gens ne nous donnent pas du tout envie de revenir. Non seulement ils essaient toujours de nous avoir d'une facon ou d'une autre, mais pire, ils adoptent souvent une attitude agressive. On a vu de beaux paysages, mais on est content d'etre sorti du pays, a plusieurs reprises on a pense quitter le pays d'avance, mais l'escalade a reussi a nous y garder pour un peu plus de 2 semaines. Mais bon, j'vous epargne les details des problemes et voici le recit des quelques beaux moments qu'on a vecu au Vietnam... ainsi que la stressante sorti du pays!

On est arrive a Ho Chi Ming City (HCMC/Saigon) dans le sud. A l'aeroport on a rencontre un groupe d'americains et un groupe de Canadienne. On a passe 2-3 jours ensemble. Les 4 americains etaient tellement typiques. Habitent a Los Angeles, ont plein d'argent, que 2 semaines de vacances, decident d'aller faire un tour du sud-est de l'Asie, soit 5 pays en 2 semaines, d'une capitale a l'autre, et le peu de temps qu'ils ne passent pas dans les aeroports, ils le passent a manger des hamburgers, boire de la biere et se souler dans les bars!!! Mais ils nous ont fait bien rire. Les 3 canadiennes etaient classiques aussi, viennent de Calgary et etaient en voyage entre leur etudes. Je m'entendais bien avec Laara qui etait plutot comme nous. Ca fait toujours du bien de rencontrer d'autres voyageurs qui vivent les memes bonheurs et problemes que nous. A part les musees qu'on aurait pu eviter, on est aller 2 jours dans la region de la riviere Mekong. La on a vu les champs de riz, visite une fabrique de bonbons au coconut, fait un tour de bateau sur la riviere, passe le marche sur l'eau, etc. Bref, il faisait bon d'etre sorti de la ville, mais ca n'en valait pas le detour vers le sud du pays.

Pour couper le long trajet d'autobus, on est arrete a Nha Trang 2 jours ou on a fait de la plongee. C'etait bien, pas cher pour plonger, mais plutot de la vase que des coraux, donc rien de spectaculaire. Puis on est arrive a Hoi An, une charmante petite ville qui a garde son ancienne architecture. On a visite d'interessants edifices, vu un spectacle de danse/chant traditionnel, on s'est repose et on a bien mange. Y'a les restos d'influence francaise qui sont bons, et on a finalement trouve une bonne place locale ou les rouleaux de printemps, les wontons frits et les nouilles au porc etaient delicieux. On y est retourne 3 fois de suite, enfin des Vietnamiens content de nous voir!! On a pris un cours de cuisine, c'etait une belle journee, mais on a malheureusment pas appris beaucoup. Hoi An est aussi reconnu pour ses tailleurs. Les rues sont remplies de boutiques. Ce qui etait suppose etre un reve (se faire faire une robe ou une chemise sur mesure pour pas cher) c'est transforme en stress, ils ont fait des erreurs dans les mesures, nous ont charges plus que le prix entendus, les vendeuses etaient de plus en plus impatientes, decidement le moins d'interactions possibles avec les gens ici, le mieux c'est.

Apres Hoi An, on planifiait aller visiter le nord de Vietnam qu'on croyait qu'on aimerait mieux. Mais c'est le temps des pluies et il y avait un ouragant. Dans les montagnes, les touristes etaient evacues par helicopteres et les compagnies continuaient de vendre des tickets malgre que le train etait ferme. On a pense quitter le pays pour aller au Laos plus tot. Mais Josh etait en contact avec un americain qui habite a l'ile Cat Ba et qui a une compagnie d'escalade. L'ouragan est termine a cet endroit et la temperature c'est replacee. On est tellement tanne du pays qu'on decide de s'y rendre avec le moins d'arret possible. On prend donc un premier bus de 8am a 1pm pour se rendre a Hue ou on a laisse nos bagages a la gare et visite la ville ancienne en quelques heures avant de reprendre un autobus de nuit de 5pm a 7am. Par chance ils ont les meilleurs autobus de nuit avec des couchettes, j'comprends pas pourquoi y'a pas ca dans d'autres pays! On a entendu tellement d'histoire d'horreur a propos de Hanoi qu'on decide de ne pas y rester. Les autres voyageurs n'ont pas aime cette ville, apparemment pire que HCMC/Saigon et ou les gens sont apparemment mechants avec les touristes. On passe donc une couple d'heures a acheter notre billet et a marcher vers l'autre station d'autobus. On a prefere marcher 3-4 km avec nos sac a dos plutot que de risquer de prendre un taxi qui ne nous amenerait pas au bon endroit, nous chargerait beaucoup plus qu'entendu ou essayerait de nous voler. Une fois a l'arret d'autobus, c'etait assez d'interactions pour nous avec les gens de cette ville qui essayaient tous de nous faire monter dans le mauvais autobus. Par chance Eric, le gars de Cat Ba, nous avait recommende une compagnie pour se rendre sans probleme. Donc apres deux autres bus, un bateau et un autre bus, on est arrive a Cat Ba vers 6h du soir, environ 36h de voyagement!

Mais qu'il faisait bon d'etre sur une ile plus relax et d'interagir avec des "non-vietnamiens"! A notre arrivee a Cat Ba, on passe pas Slopony, la compagnie d'escalade d'Eric, ou une de ses employee, Jessica, nous accueille chaleureusement. On lui a pose tout plein de questions et elle nous a beaucoup aidee. Jessica est asiatique, mais me semble beaucoup trop gentille, aimable et souriante pour etre vietnamienne. Curieuse, je lui demande d'ou elle vient. Lorsqu'elle nous repond qu'elle est Malaysienne, Josh et moi on se regarde et on ne peut s'empecher de partir a rire. Decidement les gens de la Malaysie sont les meilleurs gens qu'on a rencontre pendant ce voyage :) Et juste pour vous dire comment la vie peut etre difficile au Vietnam, Jessica qui est merveilleuse, parle malaysien, anglais, vietnamien et chinois, ainsi que Eric qui a une compagnie ici, se voient refuse la location d'un appartement puisqu'ils ne sont pas vietnamien et doivent vivre a l'hotel. Jessica qui est asiatique, ce fait souvent regarder de travers et les locaux lui demandent sans cesse d'un air meprisant: "mais qu'est-ce que tu fais?" lorsqu'elle parle ou est en compagnie "d'etrangers''. Enfin, on a eu une super semaine a Cat Ba ou on a fait de l'escalade, sur l'ile, sur une plage, et sur l'eau (Deep Water Soloing), et ou on s'est fait de nouveaux amis avec qui on partageait de copieux repas le soir. "Hoang Y" etait mon restaurant prefere, des vietnamiens gentils et souriants, des fruits mers super bons et des prix resonnables. Mais meme la, j'ai commende un milkshake a la mangue et j'ai vu le serveur boire directement dans la pinte de lait et manger des bouchees de ma mangue avant de les mettre dans le blender!!! C'est tellemnet decourageant des fois, ils se fouent tellement de nous, qu'il n'y a juste rien a dire... On a aussi eu droit a un party vietnamien sur une plage privee ou ils ont cuit une chevre sur le BBQ pour la fete de la fiancee d'Eric qui est vietnamienne. Eric est tres gentil et a invite tous les grimpeurs. Mais apres une semaine, on avait grimpe la plupart des voies et la temperature commencait a se gacher. Il y a un ouragant presentement en Chine qui pourrait s'en venir par ici. On ne va donc pas a Sapa puisqu'on est pas trop certain de la situation dans les montagnes et qu'on a pas envie d'aller dans un endroit touristiques ou ils en ont qu'a l'argent des touristes.

On decide donc d'aller a Ninh Binh, une ville au sud de Hanoi, qui est moins touristique et ou on peut y faire de l'escalade. Chris et Jess, un couple d'ami americains qui vivent et travaillent en Coree du Sud, viennent avec nous. Bien que les gens sont supposes etre plus gentils puisque la ville est moins touristiques, ils sont aussi plus racistes. Y'a pas de restaurant ou on est invite, on doit manger a l'hotel, et meme la ils essaient d'augmenter les prix sur notre facture. On fait de l'escalade une journee, c'etait tres beau, des rochers juste au dessus des plantations de riz. On observait les dames qui travaillent dans les champs, et elles nous observaient a leur tour se demandant pourquoi on grimpe, ils ne voient pas souvent de personne faire de l'escalade ici. C'est tellement triste, y'a un potentiel incroyable pour l'escalade dans ce pays, mais a cause du gouvernement, c'est impossible de le developper. Eric est tres courageux, il doit payer pour installer les voies d'escalade, payer le gouverment pour "louer" les rochers et le gouvernement augmente les prix sans raison et peut decider de lui couper son permit sans pre-avis. Mais par chance Eric etait la pour nous permettre une belle semaine passee a l'ile Cat Ba au Vietnam. Le lendemain a Ninh Binh, Chris et Jess repartent. Josh et moi allons visiter Tam Cac, trois grottes au dessus de l'eau qu'on visite dans une petite chaloupe. C'etait tres beau et relaxant, a part que sur le bateau ils essaient de nous vendrent toutes sortes de breuvages et souvenirs. Le soir meme on prend un autobus pour traverser vers le Laos. On a encore quelques jours sur notre visa, mais on en peut plus de ce pays...

Notre derniere et pire nuit au Vietnam! Il n'y a qu'un endroit ou on peut facilement traverser les douanes entre le Vietnam et le Laos. C'est plus au sud, environ a la hauteur de Hue. Bien qu'on est dans le nord du Vietnam et qu'on veut aller dans le nord du Laos, on doit passer par le sud. Pres de 24h, les gens disent et encore une fois les histoires d'horreurs sont incroyables. Tous ces touristes qui ont du payer beaucoup plus cher une fois rendu au milieu de nulle part sous la menace que l'autobus va continuer en les droppant la sinon. Avoir a payer aux douanes pour recevoir l'etampe qui nous laisse sortir du pays. Les compagnies qui disent continuer au Laos, mais qui en fait s'arrete aux douanes et vous laisse la. etc. Comme on est pas a Hanoi et qu'on est dans une plus petite ville, on a pas d'options de differentes compagnies. Les seuls a organiser un autobus sont notre hotel. On prend la chance. C'est epeurant, on paye, on a pas de billets, pas de nom de compagnie, mais evidemment ils nous disent de ne pas s'en faire que tout va bien aller. On se prepare pour le pire. On passe par le guichet automatique pour retirer le maximum d'argent qu'on peut. On acheter de la bouffe et de l'eau pour survire 24h en cas qu'on soit pris seuls au milieu de nulle part. On prend nos objets importants avec nous, on est completement stresse, mais y'a rien de plus qu'on peut faire, on part pour l'aventure... L'autobus devait arrete a notre hotel, mais il n'y est pas. Ils nous embarquent sur deux taxi-mobillette avec tous nos bagages. Ca commence mal, la plus dangereuse ballade en moto de ma vie. On a toujours pas de billets, on ne sait meme pas ou on s'en va. Environ 1 km plus loin l'autobus nous attendait. On embarque, c'est bonde, mais pas trop. Toute la nuit on fait des arrets (ces autobus transportent toutes sortes de marchandises pour faire plus d'argent) a chaque fois on se reveille et on jette un coup d'oeil a nos sacs dans la soute, ca arrivent que les bagages "disparaissent". On arrive a dormir sur une oreille. Je fais des cauchemars que tout va mal, mais je me reveille et par chance tout va bien! Aux petites heures du matin on est arrive aux douanes sans soucis. Ils ne nous reste qu'a traverser. Encore une fois ca va bien. Ils ont charge qu'un dollar a tout le monde pour l'etampe, on a facilement obtenus notre visa pour la Laos et le bus etait la. On a reembarque et tout s'est relativement bien passe. Vers la fin les gens dans l'autobus commencaient a nous sourire. Surtout les dames, puisque les arrets pipi etaient au bord de la route, elles allaient toutes ensemble dans un petit sentier alors que les hommes restaient sur le bord de la route, moi sans trop de gene je suivait les dames et ca les faisaient sourire que je fasse pipi avec elles dans les champs! La route au Laos etait tres longue, le bus a surchauffe et ils ont du arreter l'air climatise, mais les paysages et villages qu'on traversaient me redonnaient le sourire. A ma grande surprise, apres 18h on etait arrive a Vientiane au Laos. On est VRAIMENT contents d'etre sorti du pays. Ca fait qu'une journee qu'on est au Laos, on adore ca ici et je decompresse deja. Me faire mentir tout le temps et devoir etre toujours sur mes gardes a eu un plus gros impact sur moi que je le croyais. Pour moi le Maroc bien que plus difficile a ete mieux que le Vietnam parce qu'on moins les gens y sont 'honnete' d'une certaine facon. Je sais que l'Inde sera difficile, j'espere juste que ca sera plus comme le Maroc que comme le Vietnam...

Vietnam: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

2008-08-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

What to say? We should have gone to Vietnam first. It's like eating dessert before dinner, but dinner turns out to be terrible. There were a few good moments, but overall Nath and I were both desperate to get out of the country and left early. The countryside can be absolutely beautiful in places, but the huge majority of people in Vietnam we interacted with were just plain terrible. They lied, cheated, and we were actively told we couldn't enter restaurants because we were white (there were quite a few occurrences along this line). At one museum, some of the few nice locals we met were kicked out by government security for talking to us. We had cigarettes flicked at us, cars and motor bikes swerve at us, and taxi drivers yell at us because we only wanted to pay the agreed amount. The museums were full of anti-American propaganda to the point where I learned nothing and I just laughed at them (as did many other tourists). For the record, we've been traveling for over seven and a half months now, most of that in various South East Asian countries and we've encountered nothing even close to what we've found in Vietnam. Most other travelers we met agreed with our opinion. I would never recommend anyone to travel to Vietnam, unless they wanted to go climbing in Ha Long Bay... there's a very nice American running a climbing company so you don't have to deal with the Vietnamese much. From here on out, I'll try to focus on the positive in this post. I just wanted to make it clear it wasn't all fun and games in Vietnam.

We flew into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in southern Vietnam, met some Canadians and Americans along the way, and wandered the streets looking for dinner. We played with a few of the kids in the street who weren't being forced by their parents to sell us stuff. Me and some of the other guys tried some dried squid jerky from a street vendor. We ate our first Pho Bo in Vietnam (a classic soup dish), and tried the only local Communist wine in the country which I can safely say is NOT wine and was undrinkable sludge (no exaggeration).

The next day, Nath and I went for a walk. I've never been anywhere with more motor bikes. It was absolute chaos. It's hard to even explain, and they all honk, all the time. The rules of the road are completely ignored, people driving when a light is red, turning into lanes without looking first, and even driving on the wrong side of the road! To cross the road was a leap of faith as you step out into a phlanax of 400 motor bike whizzing by, and you can't hestitate or stop because they might hit you. You just have to walk. It was all amuzing at first, until after a few hours the honking becomes unbearably annoying. I didn't realize how annoying it was, until we found a park and walked around it for about 10 minutes. When we headed back to the street I realized just how overwhelming the constant noise was. On the plus side, we found some amazingly good street vendors selling fresh spring rolls, fresh squeezed sugar cane with sweetened condensed milk, and the white pork buns found all over SE Asia. Near the end of the day, we visited the stupidest museum I've ever been to (this is the one the locals were kicked out of for talking to us), and then we headed back to our guest house.

We spent two days on a Mekong River tour. There were some cool parts, like seeing floating markets where people literally live on, and do business from, their boats. We wandered down the small back canals in local row boats, and saw many people living off the river in various ways. There was more that we saw, but nothing spectacular.

After this, we happily left Saigon and headed north to Nha Trang on a sleeper bus. The sleeper buses were great! They literally had bunk beds filling the entire bus! They were so comfortable, it was awesome! I don't know why this hasn't caught on in many other countries. There were many long bus rides between bigger or popular cities in Vietnam, which is 1600km long, and you could do essentially all of them overnight while sleeping! The travel was much more pleasant, and we could avoid the cost of paying for a hotel!

Nha Trang is a coastal beach town with scuba diving opportunities. The scuba was the cheapest I've seen it anywhere in the world, at about $50 for two boat dives. The diving was almost bad relative to the places we've been, and we had medium to poor visibility relative to what it can be (up to 30m) so we just dove one day. We spent some time on the beach and then caught another sleeper bus to Hoi An.

Hoi An is known for two things, the food and the tailors. We stayed there for a few days, during which we ate wonderful food and took a cooking class. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good cooking class, and we didn't learn much in the way of Vietnamese classic dishes. Hoi An specialties included "white rose," a shrimp dumpling shaped like a rose, wontons with meat, which were mouth watering with the sweet and sour sauce, a fried noodle dish which was delicious, and a unique crepe. The food in Hoi An was definitely the best we had in the country and it lived up to its reputation. We biked to the beach one day, which was a beautiful white sand beach, and Nath talked me into getting some clothes at the tailors (she bought two silk dresses) since it was pretty damn cheap.

After Hoi An, we took another sleeper bus which stopped at two cool places on the way to Hanoi, Marble Mountain and some unknown beach. Marble Mountain had an enormous cave/temple carved into it which we explored, and the beach was long and very picturesque with very few people.

By this time, we had experienced a big city (Saigon) and enough Vietnamese (lack of) hospitality and we planned to go straight to Cat Ba island in Ha Long Bay. Our time in Hanoi was spent walking to and waiting for a bus. With the level of sheer harassment and lying we experienced from people working for bus companies, I'm glad we bypassed Hanoi almost completely. After over 30 hours of bus - bus - bus - boat - bus we arrived happily on Cat Ba Island and walked into Slopony Adventures for some good old American hospitality!

Actually, the person behind the desk, was Asian, but spoke excellent English. Jessica was extremely patient and helpful while we literally assaulted her with logistics questions. We asked everything from where to stay and eat, to how do we actually get on the rock when it's out in the bay. She smiled, laughed, and was quite refreshing to talk to. I really felt there was something "off" about the interaction. She was just too damn friendly and helpful. Finally, in the end Nath must have felt the same way because she asked her where she was from. "Malaysia," was her reply! Nath and I both started laughing because we were both thinking, "THAT'S why she's so nice!" Remember from our blog that we found Malaysian's were the most friendly of any people we've met on our travels. After checking out a few hotels for prices, we found the one that Jessica recommended was definitely the best since there wasn't mold actively growing on the walls...

The next day found us Deep Water Soloing (DWS). There weren't many DWS trips since there aren't a lot of climbers passing through and hiring a boat was expensive. It just turned out that the tides were good, and there were 4 other climbers already going out so if we went with them it would bring the cost per person down even more. We met Eric, the super friendly co-owner of Slopony Adventures from the US, and he set us up with a guide and a chartered boat in the morning. We headed off to see the wonders of Ha Long Bay!!!

Ha Long Bay is an amazing place. It consists of roughly 3000 limestone "karst" islands roughly vertically from the water. Many of them have that beautiful overhung white to orange limestone with tufas, stalagtites, and pockets making the area a mostly unexplored climber's paradise. We headed over two hours out into the bay in our ancient boat which had engine troubles and travelled roughly walking speed through the beautiful scenery. Not only is the scenery amazing (there's a push for Ha Long Bay to be on the 7 natural wonders of the world) but seeing the floating fishing villages nestled among the islands is really special.

Eventually, we found our way to one of the established climbing walls and pulled out the kayak and "basket boat." Victor, our Vietnamese guide showed us the routes and paddled the basket boat with skill getting us onto the rock with at least dry hands. You stand up off the basket boat or kayak to get on the rock, both to keep your hands hopefully somewhat dry and because the ocean has worn the bottom of the karst formations away so that they are wickedly steep (overhung) and horribly sharp. Once on the rock, the boatman's job is to get out of the way as quick as possible so that you don't land on the boat if you slip off. From there, it's up to you to climb as high as you can/want before falling/jumping off.

We went to three walls throughout the day, and did some very high-quality routes. I hadn't lost too much strength since Chiang Mai (we hadn't climbed on rock since before our massage class) and managed to onsight a possibly soft 7a+ which had an amusing sit start off of the front of the basket boat for added challenge. The 7c was too much though, and spit me off almost instantly after trying the first move. The 2nd wall we went to was very steep, with huge pockets and cracks running about 15m up the wall. The climbing was very high quality to that height, and then we jumped off before the rock quality became worse. We all enjoyed the last all the most, it had the most routes and most variety, and there was even room for at least one new route! Yes, that's right, I have my first documented first ascent!!! I onsighted it (first try) and since it is my first documented FA I decided to call it, "First time's a charm," and rated it around mid 5.11. It's already seen at least two repeats, and it's apparently good quality rock. One person told me it was the best route they did all day! We all climbed until we were exhausted. I was cramping up, and we all had too much sun exposure so we were happy when we started to head back.

That night, we had a unique experience. On the way back to Cat Ba, Victor told us there was a change of plans and that we were going to be dropped off at Tiger Beach, an island 30 minutes from "home." At first we were wary about what was going on, but soon found out that Eric would be joining us and we were invited to a "goat party." It was a birthday party was for Eric's fiancee, who is Vietnamese, and her family and friends slaughtered a goat. We had BBQ goat, vegetables, rice wine, beer, and even goat's blood "pudding." Quite the fun experience! All the climbers were invited to the party so we ended up with people to talk to since we don't speak Vietnamese. Around 10-11pm we all jumped on another boat and headed back to Cat Ba.

The next two days saw us renting a motorbike and climbing at Ninh Binh with two Americans Kris and Jess who live and teach English in Korea. Ninh Binh is a crag located on Cat Ba, so access is easier than hiring a boat. However, since a typhoon had just crossed (and recrossed) the area prior to our arrival, we had to wade through a swamp to get there. Even trying to get to certain parts of the crag involved a tyrolean traverse over water that was tricky to keep the gear out of the water. The climbing was great, and Nath and I were both climbing strong. She was leading pretty well as long as it wasn't too overhung or reachy, and I mananged to onsight up to 7a and redpoint a wickedly overhung 7b+ endurance fest in two tries.

It rained the next day, which luckily coincided with our need for a rest day and we wandered around Cat Ba a little. The day after was more good weather so we took a boat out to Tiger Beach again, where Eric takes groups of backpackers out top roping, and Nath and I did some wonderful routes. Nath managed to redpoint a 7a on her second try and was climbing very well, and I somehow managed to onsight a pair of amazing 7b routes, both of which were seeping water but were still of amazing quality. The 2nd was a multipitch out of the water. Nath lead the slabby first pitch, and I did the 2nd pitch which started about 20 degrees overhung on gorgeous stalagtites and tufas and ended on more near-vertical crack and flake climbing. We rappelled back into the basket boat two hours later when Eric returned to pick us up and we headed back to Cat Ba again.

Our last day on the island, we rented a motorbike again and did some hiking in a national park. The highlight was scaling an old rusted lookout tower about 25m tall for great views of the surrounding landscape.

Next stop was Ninh Binh, the supposed "Ha Long Bay on land." Kris, Jess, Nath and I caught a bus - boat - bus - taxi (that turned around and ended with the driver having a screaming match with the bus company we booked with and we had to get out) - new taxi - bus and we rolled in about 5 hours later.

Eric had given us some information on some climbing in the area that had rather vague directions along the lines of (go west 20 minutes out of town and turn on the dike). There were a lot of dikes... it was located in the middle of rice paddies! After spending about 30 minutes lost in beautiful scenery, we asked a local where Nui Vang (Golden Mountain) was and he pointed us in the right direction. We pulled out the climbing gear, I scraped my way up a few climbs from 10b to 11d of mostly vary poor dirty quality before trying the "king line" of the area. Unfortunately, I popped a tendon in my left elbow finishing the 11d, but since it didn't hurt too much I still had to have a go at "Gangalicious" (7b). It was a slightly overhung almost 30m line of clean immaculate beautiful grey limestone with pockets and cracks forever rated 7b. I managed to onsight it, which made me immensely happy since it was some of the best climbing I'd done in a while, and Nath and Kris top roped it before we headed back to town. We took a "short cut" trying to get back, got lost and Ninh Binh turned out to bigger than we expected. Luckily, after turning around only twice and having a crazy lady in the street point us in the wrong direction when we didn't even ask for directions, we recognized the BP where we'd put gas in the bikes at and found our way home. It was wickedly hot in Ninh Binh, and Kris and Jess wanted to get back to Cat Ba for some DWS (they hadn't had the chance yet since Jess had a 3rd degree burn on her leg from the motorbike exhaust a few weeks earlier). They took off in the morning, and Nath and I got on a motorbike again to head to Tam Coc where you can take a boat ride through the karst formations and go through caves. We were lost for about 2 hours, but saw some spectacular views of the surrounding country side before we found Tam Coc. We got there at the perfect time since most of the hundreds of tourists were finishing up their boat rides and we had most of the area to ourselves for the 2 hour trip out and back through caves that pass through the huge karst formations.

When we got back to the hotel, we prepared for the potentially disasterous next leg of our journey. We were going to take a bus to Vientiane, in Laos. We were done with Vietnam on so many levels that we decided to skip some of the sights and just leave early. We booked the 18+ hour bus ride through the hotel and it picked us up at 9pm that night.

We'd heard MANY horror stories of this trip from Lonely Planet and internet posts where the bus just kicks you out along side the road in the country side at 2am in the morning. If you're lucky, they let you back on the bus for exhorbitant fees and your bag isn't stolen. If you're unlucky, things can get much worse... At 9pm, some motor bikes showed up to whisk us off to the bus and off we went. Once we hit the first dinner break, I actually felt better about the bus in general. The sign in the window said the correct destination AND we were the only westerners on the bus. That meant it was at least going to our destination. Now we just had to make it to the border and get back on after obtaining our visa. Amazingly, everything went smoothly. There were few people on the bus, so many people had two seats to sleep across, including us. At the border, the bus driver took our passports and helped us with the process, and we only lost about $4 USD to bribes to the Vietnamese and in Laos. We even beat a lot of the Vietnamese getting back to the bus before it took for Vientiane on the Laos side! We slept quite comfortably most of the trip, and the farther we got from Vietnam, the more our spirits went up. We laughed with the locals when the bus broke down twice and the did some quick fixes to get us going. I think one of the quick fixed was just cutting the belts that ran the air conditioning since there was some sort of problem but it never got unbearably hot (possibly since we'd experienced the SE Asia heat in buses many times already). Eventually, around 3pm our bus rolled into the bus station roughly right on time!

Now we're sitting in Vientiane eating good food, surrounded by much more friendly people, our stress levels have dropped significantly, and life is good.

Back to Thailand! - Chiang Mai

2008-08-02T20:24:00.001-07:00

We kept hearing of places that just suck people into staying longer than planned for various reasons. Everyone is travelling for different reasons, and so we hadn't been found our spot until Chiang Mai. The plan was to fly from Phenom Penh to Chiang Mai and spend a week or so climbing before heading off to explore the rest of N. Thailand and then eventually busing to Laos and Vietnam. However, for a myriad of reasons, we didn't leave Chiang Mai for three solid weeks and we're still planning on returning.

We only had three main objectives in Chiang Mai, climb, work on visas to China/India, and take a cooking class. I'm sure most of you have been to a good Thai restaurant at some point. Why not learn how to do that at home? Also, we hadn't been climbing consistently for a while and a crag near CM offered more of that muscle bursting overhung limestone climbing that I've started learning to yearn for. Also, CM was one of the few places we'd planned on spending some time in that had consulates to both China and India

After we figured out the crags location, we rented a motor bike for 80 baht (about $2.50) for the day and cruised into the country side. The climbing area is 35km east of town on the "superhighway." Personally, I don't think it was that super since I was passing everyone with the throttle maxed out and us cruising at a very non-blistering 85 km/hr. Not that I was driving like a mad man, mind you. The road was mostly empty outside of town, and it seems like a lot of locals drive slow. I'd guess it's to keep gas consumption down.

When we rolled up, luckily the local climbing school was already there and there were people to ask about route information. We hit the "main" crag and realized that the crag was much smaller than expected and the quality didn't match hopes. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good place to climb! However, it by no means is another Krabi (Railey/Tonsai). We climbed for the day, getting the muscles back into shape, and then headed back to town zipping down the side of the road on our little scooter.

Next up, cooking class! Unfortunately, much of the cuisines here in SE Asia are based on each other. While we learned a few new dishes, Nath had already learned 5/7 of the dishes in previous classes. We did still learn "khow soi" a wonderful spicy noodle soup with coconut milk in the broth/curry found only in N. Thailand. It's sooooo good!

Returning to the crag, we paid for luxury. A ride in the back of one of the "red truck" taxis with the local climbing school. A return trip including water and hot fresh food brought to the crag from a local restaurant was a lofty 200 baht each ($6)! Life is good....

We'd been hearing rumors through the backpacker grapevine that getting a visa to China was rather difficult due to the Olympics. Somewhere in there, we managed to take a day off of climbing and run to the Chinese Consulate. Unfortunately, despite being during the week, they were closed due to Thai holidays. We should have just taken the hint.

More climbing lead to us both improving. We were regaining some of our strength. The routes still weren't anything super, but there were definitely some climbs that brought huge grins to our faces. Most of the rock is more vertical than overhung, I found out, but there was one wickedly overhung 7b that I decided to work on. I eventually worked out the moves, and on my 3rd lead attempt I redpointed the route by a desperate direct finish that I later found out locals don't do. Our last day of climbing rolled around, and while I spent some time working on a 7c that won that battle, Nath worked on and redpointed a bouldery 7a route nearby. Earlier in the day she managed to onsight a gently overhung beautiful 6c pitch that was one of the better pitches we climbed. We definitely had some strength back by the time we left.

Somewhere in there, we headed back to the Chinese consulate for some punishment. We made it through the gate easily enough, but upon entering the room where we apply for visas we had more foreshadowing. There was a white guy arguing with the Chinese guy behind the glass quite loudly in very fluent Chinese. After about 10 minutes, he left. As he left, we asked him what was wrong and he said that even though he had lived and worked in China for 15 years and was planning on taking a bus into the country through Laos they were requiring him to show them a plane ticket into the country. This boded poorly since we were busing in ourselves! When we reached the window, we luckily talked to a different person. While she seemed helpful at first, she turned out to be completely the opposite. She told us that we could bus in since we had written out a detailed itinerary and had a letter from the English school we wanted to teach at in Yangshuo. Despite our obtaining this letter in good faith (it's not required at all and it contained what address, phone number, and even what room number we'd be at for our entire stay in China) the woman behind the glass arbitrarily told us that we couldn't get into the country unless we had an original copy of the letter, as well as a copy of the school's business license! We would also be required to show a ticket of departure from the country, which I didn't think was too unreasonable. Before leaving, I asked "what if the next person we talk to requires us to have a ticket into the country?" I thought it was a good question, but she either didn't understand it or pretended not to. We had to leave without an answer. More foreshadowing...

We contacted the English school first thing via e-mail. Our contact informed us that it was not possible for him to send us an original copy of the letter within a week. He also informed us that the requirements for entering the country seemed to be changing daily. Since the visa application takes a week itself, we didn't want to be stuck in Chiang Mai forever waiting for a visa we might not get. Still foolishly hopeful, we returned to the consulate a few days later to see if we could work something out. When we got to the gate, the guards immediately stopped us. They new only two words of English. "Air Ticket!!!" Without showing a flight ticket in and out of the country, we couldn't even talk to consulate representatives! At this point, I gave up. It was obvious they just didn't want us in the country and really were keeping people out. Why? Because they don't want protesters at the Olympics. As soon as the Olympic games end, they plan to ease the requirements for entering the country again. Note, we were planning on applying for a visa for AFTER the Olympics. Who decided to let China host the Olympics anyways!?! Oh well, there goes a once in a lifetime opportunity to climb in Yangshuo and meet locals while teaching English.

We would have climbed more, but after taking the cooking class and talking to some others staying in our guesthouse taking classes I realized that while climbing is fun, I can't take it home and share with anyone. Nath and I both loved the Thai massages that we were getting for the bargain price of about $3.50/hr, so we decided to spend around $100 each and learn how to do it ourselves! We signed up for "Level 1," a full week 30 hour class of Nuad Bo-Rarn, Ancient Northern Thai Massage. After the class started, it became very apparent that we would have to take level 2 if we really wanted a more complete knowledge of the very technical and difficult form of massage. We didn't have time, so instead we changed around our itinerary and now we're planning on swinging back through at the end of September to finish our schooling. By the time we finish the next class, we should be proficient to give up to a 4 hour amazing massage that bases itself in Indian yoga and medicine. Most of the people in the class were professional masseuses, and to say the least they half-assed the class. I'd go as far as to say that I actively wouldn't want a massage from any of them. Nath and I however stayed after class almost every day asking questions until they kicked us out, then practicing back at the guesthouse. We're not perfect yet, but I like to think that we're pretty good and getting better! If you're our friends or family, life is good!

Chiang Mai is a great town too. It's much cheaper than southern Thailand, with meals as cheap as $0.50! The people don't hassle the tourists nearly as much, and everyone we dealt with was extra friendly. This was the Thailand we'd heard about... Bangkok, and even Krabi hadn't lived up to expectations as far as all that went. Chiang Mai even has multiple amazing markets. Day markets, night markets, even a Sunday night market! The Sunday night market is something to look forward too. Food flowing freely from the street vendors, crafts, clothing and wares of all kinds for sale at dirt cheap, and thousands of people roaming the street looking for the best deals. Are you feet tired from all the walking up and down the 2km market? Stop for a foot massage at about $3/hour! We had a wonderful cafe we ate breakfast at every day, and the rainy season never really kept us from doing anything we wanted at any point. It was great fun, and a town that shouldn't be missed if you're in Thailand for a while. We never even did the legendary trekking in the mountains or any of the other myriad of tours offered, but we'll be back in late September for "Level 2!"

Le 16 juillet 2008: Chiang Mai, Thailande (et changement de plan!)

2008-08-02T20:04:00.001-07:00

De retour en Thailande, mais cette fois-ci dans le nord. On a change d'avion a Bangkok, une quatrieme fois deja a cet aeroport, et ce n'est pas fini.... on y retournera encore bientot! Mais d'abord j'aimerais vous dire que les gens ici sont beaucoup plus gentils que dans le sud de la Thailande.

Le premier soir on est donc arrive tard, vers 11h. On a partage un taxi avec deux autres personnes rencontrees a l'aeroport. On n'avait pas reussi a faire de reservation par internet pour une chambre. Il fallait donc trouver un endroit ou dormir, mais tous les hotels mentionnees dans notre guide de voyage etaient pleins. Fatigues, on a pris la premiere chambre libre qu'on a trouve se disant qu'on cherchera pour mieux le lendemain matin. Un vrai taudis j'vous dis. Les murs tout croches, sale, des coquerelles un peu partout, j'ai exige a Josh d'installer notre moustiquaire pour le lit et on a mit nos matelas de sol par dessus le matelas fourni! J'ai un peu peur maintenant depuis que j'ai entendu en Malaysie des histoires a propos des bebites de lit qui vivent dans les matelas et sortent la nuit pour nous piquer, yeurk. Disons qu'on a pas trop bien dormi, mais le lendemain matin apres 30 minutes de recherche, on avait trouve l'endroit parfait ou rester. L'hotel est super propre, la chambre la moins chere qu'on a trouve, on a notre propre salle de bain aussi super propre... et meme une douche avec eau chaude! La dame qui s'occupe de l'hotel est vraiment gentille (et super cute!) et elle nous aide beaucoup avec toutes nos questions. L'ironie: cet endroit reve est a environ 10m du taudis ou l'on est reste la nuit derniere. Si on avait continue a marche 1 minute, on l'aurait trouve, mais ce n'est pas toujours evident quand il fait noir, et probablement que c'etait deja ferme.

On est bien content de s'installer ici. La temperature est encore clemente avec nous. Il pleut souvent, mais surtout la nuit et parfois en fin de journee. Donc ca ne nous gene pas dans nos activites. En plus, le fait que le ciel est generalement ennuage nous avantage puisqu'il fait beaucoup trop chaud lorsque le soleil sort! On en a donc profite pour aller faire un peu d'escalade. Il y a des parois rocheuses a environ 40km de la ville. Il faut soit prendre un autobus qui y organise des tours ou louer une mobilette. C'est plus rapide et moins cher en mobilette, mais c'est une longue route, on a les fesses pas mal raquee apres ca! Donc on alterne.

Mais le but qu'on avait en restant a Chiang Mai est d'obtenir nos visas. On voulait demander notre visa pour l'Inde, mais ils ne peuvent pas nous assurer qu'on obtiendra un visa de 6 mois puisqu'on fait la demande a l'etranger ca se peut qu'ils nous donnent que 3 mois. Donc on doit attendre puisqu'on prevoit y aller en novembre. Puis on a entendu toutes sortes d'histoires de personnes ayant des problemes a obtenir leur visa pour la Chine. On prevoyait faire la demande une fois rendu au Vietnam, mais on decide de s'y prendre d'avance et d'aller faire un tour au consulat. En arrivant la-bas, y'a devant nous un europeen qui s'obstine en chinois avec eux! Ca ne regarde pas bien. On lui demande ce qu'il en est, il nous dit qu'il travaille la-bas depuis 15 ans et qu'ils ne veulent pas lui donner un visa parce qu'il n'a pas de billet d'avion puisqu'il ira en China en autobus. Ce qu'on prevoit faire aussi. Mais bon, a notre tour, on montre notre lettre envoyee par notre personne contact en chine (avec qui on est tout organise pour enseigner l'anglais benevolement a l'ecole en echange d'un endroit ou rester). La dame est surprenamment gentille avec nous, nous dit que y'a pas de probleme qu'on a pas besoin du billet d'avion, mais qu'on doit obtenir la version originale de la lettre puisque celle-ci nous a envoye par e-mail. On retourne donc a l'hotel et on communique avec la personne en Chine. Malheureusement ca prendrait des semaines a obtenir la lettre par la poste. Deux jours plus tard on retourne au consulat avec notre application complete mis a part la lettre originale. Bien cette fois-ci il ne nous on meme pas permis d'entrer dans le consulat, disant qu'on doit avoir un billet d'avion! On a recommunique avec la personne en Chine qui nous dit qu'ils changent effectivement les regles a chaque jour. Bref, on pourrait retourner autant de fois qu'on veut, ils vont toujours nous demander quelque chose de different et on obtiendra probablement jamais un visa. On est pas non plus pret a acheter un billet d'avion qu'on ne va pas utiliser et sans etre certains qu'on aura un visa pour y aller. Ils sont vraiment stupides! Tout ca a cause qu'ils ont decider de ne laisser entrer personne dans le pays pendant les jeux olympiques. Quelle idee d'avoir un evenement international si personne ne peut y assister?!! Tout pays normal serait heureux de profiter du surplus d'argent apporte par l'industrie touristique. Et nous on voulait y aller qu'apres les jeux olympiques pour eviter cette folie, mais malgre tout on a du se rendre a l'evidence qu'on ira malheureusement pas en Chine cette annee. On aurait adorer aller a Yangshuo. On y serait reste 1 mois, faire de l'escale a chaque jour, et enseigner l'anglais 4 soirs/semaine. Ca aurait super interessant culturellement d'avoir l'opportunite de discuter avec nos eleves. Yangshuo est un autre des meilleurs endroit au monde pour l'escalade (comme le sud de la Thailande et de l'Australie). Cette region est tellement belle, elle est sur toute les photos/carte postale de paysage chinois. Loge et nourrit, un mois sans depenser et sans soucis....

Eh, c'est la vie. On doit donc changer nos plans. On decide de passer plus de temps ici, au Laos et au Vietnam. L'itineraire etait de traverser par autobus dans le nord de Laos, puis le nord du Vietnam pour ensuite se rendre en Chine. Mais on doit maintenant tout faire a l'envers. Puisqu'on a deja notre visa pour le Vietnam qui est valide que pour 30 jours, on doit y aller maintenant et visiter le Laos apres. On se retrouve donc a acheter des billets d'avion a la derniere minute pour retourner pratiquement d'ou on vient! Ho Chi Ming City (HCMC) au Vietnam est a seulement quelques heures d'autobus de Phnom Penh au Cambodge. On vient de payer pour aller de Phnom Penh a Bangkok a Chiang Mai et la on doit tout refaire le trajet a l'inverse de Chiang Mai a Bangkok a HCMC, quelle perte de temps et d'argent!

Mais la bonne nouvelle c'est qu'on a decide de rester une semaine de plus a Chiang Mai pour prendre des cours. Un cours de cuisine bien sur, Josh encore une fois m'a accompagne, il s'en vient pas mal bon avec les currys!! Et surtout un cours de massage Thailandais. On y avait deja pense, mais on avait pas assez de temps et on ne connaissait pas de bonne ecole ou aller (il y a des tonnes d'endroits offrant des cours de pietre qualite). Mais comme les hazards font bien les choses, on a rencontrer trois massotherapeutes habitant au meme hotel que nous, venant de different pays Europeens, et qui etaient tous ici pour suivre une formation a la meme ecole! Et voila, on s'inscrit pour le cours de niveau 1, soit 5 jours de classe. Ca faisait tout drole de se coucher le dimanche soir en mettant le reveil-mation pour aller a l'ecole le lundi matin :) Depuis janvier on avait perdu la notion du temps et des journees. C'etait la solution parfaite puisqu'on n'arrive plus a se passer des massages Thailandais! On a vraiment adore le cours. Vous auriez du nous voir etudier et pratiquer a chaque soir. On est tous les deux de type plutot perfectionniste et on aime vraiment ca. Pendant la journee on est jumele a differentes personnes dans le cours pour pratiquer durant les demonstrations. On en revenait pas comment certaines personnes (incluant des massotherapeutes) n'avaient juste aucune idee de ce qu'elles faisait. Bref, on a decider de s'inscrire au cours de niveau 2 qu'on fera quand on reviendra a la fin septembre, apres avoir visite le Vietnam et le Laos. Oui, oui, je sais, on va avoir toute une longue liste de cobails pour pratiquer nos massages a Noel... !!!!! :)

Cambodia

2008-08-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

We flew into Siem Reap, Cambodia, the town that is the staging ground for visiting Ankor Wat. We had read a the Lonely Planet, and one of the guest houses stood out to us as a potential place to stay. When we arrived, we caught a taxi into town and of course he tried to take us somewhere else telling us that our choice was "dirty and expensive." We said no, luckily, and ended up staying in the nicest room of the year (outside of NZ and Oz) for a measly $6/night with all day bread, bananas, and tea and free bike rental!

We spent the next 3 days wandering around Ankor Wat. It rained sometimes, but we never got it too bad, and the experience was amazing. We saved the best for last, finishing with Ankor Wat itself (there are probably hundreds of temples spread over hundreds of square kilometers of jungle) and Ta Phrom (probably misspelled) the temple used for shooting Tomb Raider. The temples were amazing, and we were very glad to have a camera again. Some of them were enormous! Ankor Wat, built around 1200 AD is actually the largest religious building in the world! All of the buildings were covered in amazing sculptures, carvings and reliefs, and when the jungle had started to reclaim some of the temples it just looked magical. Our pictures don't do it justice at all, it's a must go! Two of the three days we biked which was great exercise and good fun. Another day so see a temple farther away we booked a tuk tuk for $20/for the day. Other exploring options are by horseback, and there is one temple on a hill that you can ride an elephant to!

At night in Siem Reap we went to see a free traditional dance show which was fascinating and excellent. The teens who were dancing were very good and you could tell they enjoyed what they were doing and their playfulness made it all the better. We found more great food, like fish amok. It's a baked fish curry in a banana leaf that's wonderful.

In Siem Reap we saw that there were drastic differences in poverty levels between Cambodia and the countries we had visited before. It was interesting to learn about the history through museums and reading various books, and learn that the entire country was devastated by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. They turned it into an idealistic communist "agrarian cooperative" with absolutely no industry or cities until 1979. All things industrial or "western" were decried evil and immoral. More than a quarter of all Cambodians were either starved to death or blatantly murdered during this brutal regime. Despite the poverty, it was impressive to see how far they had progressed in returning to "normality" in under 30 years.

After Siem Reap we headed to southern Cambodia to relax in Kampot. We wanted to visit the Bokor Hill station in a nearby NP, and relax in the area. We caught the first bus out of Siem Reap, but missed a connection in Phenom Penh and ended up taking our most classic "shared taxi" yet. After being gouged for the cost, we had our bags tied onto the back of the mini bus (we have a great picture), and then 23 people were loaded into the bus meant for roughly 11. For the first hour or so I thought there were only 22, but then looking out the window at the endless workers in rice paddies and other unique sights, I realized that there was a shadow of someone sitting on top of our minivan!

Kampot turned out to be OK. The Bokor Hill station was closed due to road construction. A massive resort is going to be built up there so they need a better road. As a result, we caught a bus, motorcycle ride, and boat combo to get to the remote Rabbit Island where we spent the day relaxing in the sun on a very secluded beach. The only other people on the beach were other travellers we had planned to go there with to keep the boat costs down. We played chess, read, and relaxed. Upon returning to Kampot, we found a little street stall selling drinks so we stopped and had two fresh fruit shakes for under $0.50 each and stared at the yummy looking desserts. We were trying to figure out which of the many desserts we wanted to try until we realized the locals were ordering a mixture of ALL of them covered in sweetened condensed milk, coconut milk and more! Needless to say, we ordered two! The lady laughed when she saw us smile with realization then happily point at what she was holding and hold up two fingers! We never did figure out what that was called...

After Kampot, we caught a more proper bus back to Phenom Penh, the capital, and again watched the country side slide by. I've realized that SE Asia is just covered in limestone walls. It's just logistics that keep them from being climbed. This time, I saw many many mini buses like the one we rode in that made our shared taxi experience seem empty. Once, I estimated there were up to 40 people in/on a single minibus with almost 20 of them on the roof! It's been fascinating to see the world and realize how much I take for granted living in the US.

We didn't have much time in Phenom Penh, but we managed to see a beautiful fountain/light/music show in a park, take a cooking class, and visit the museum at Tuol Sleng. The cooking class was amazing, filled with wonderful friendly people and we learned to make everything from various curries to fish amok. I hope that we can find good enough ingredients back home so that we can make some of these spectacular dishes for our friends and family back home.

Tuol Sleng was a somber place, to say the least. There were actually signs that said no smiling or laughing. The subject matter was definitely not funny. Tuol Sleng was a children's school until the Khmer Rouge victoriously marched into Phenom Penh in 1975. From that day forward, it was used as a detention center for the remainder of their control. Of the tens of thousands of people who passed through Tuol Sleng, essentially every single one was horribly tortured and executed. Only 7 people survived. The people executed were Khmer (ethnic Cambodians) who had lived in cities before the Khmer Rouge, previous government officials, people who wore glasses (they looked too intelligent), Chinese, anyone suspected of anything, and much, much more. The prisoners of Tuol Sleng were executed in the "Killing Fields" south of the city. We heard we should pass on visiting that one since the ground you walk on to this day is still a mixture of the remnants of bones and clothes of those killed. It was a somber way to finish Cambodia, but we both read the book First They Killed My Father, about a survivor of the Khmer Rouge reign and we were curious to learn more. We've learned much about world history on this trip, which has been another unique aspect I didn't expect.

After we left Tuol Sleng, it was time to head to the airport. We were headed back to Northern Thailand! Chiang Mai to be exact.

Le 7 juillet 2008: Cambodge

2008-08-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

Le Cambodge c'est un pays beaucoup plus pauvre et qui a une bien triste histoire. On a lu le touchant livre "D'abord ils ont tue mon pere" qui nous a permi d'apprendre et de mieux comprendre leur situation. L'auteure avait 5 ans lorsque les Khmer Rouges ont pris le pouvoir. L'histoire est racontee au present et du point de vue d'un enfant, j'en avais les larmes aux yeux et l'appetit coupee en lisant. C'est difficile de realiser comment les Khmer Rouges ont reussi a tuer 2 millions de personnes, soit le quart de la population du pays, principalement en creant la famine de 1975 a 1980. Aujourd'hui, quelques annees plus tard, les douleurs s'en ressentent toujours. Il y a des endroits ou il est dangereux de marcher car il y a encore des mines non decouvertes et dont l'emplacement exact demeure inconnu. Des gens amputes a cause de ces mines, de blessures de guerres et la population est plutot jeune. Les enfants sont tres pauvres, mais tres souriants et polis. Dans les endroits touristiques ils travaillent a vendre des livres, cartes postales, etc.

Nous avons bien sur commence par visiter les fameux temples d'Ankor ("Angkor Wat"), l'une des 7 merveilles du monde. On y a passe 3 jours et on s'est surtout promene a velo. On a beaucoup apprecie, c'etait aussi beau sinon plus que ce a quoi on s'attendait. L'hotel ou on habitait a Siem Reap est la plus belle et la moins chere des chambres qu'on a eu. Vous verrez quelques photos plus tard. On est aussi alle voir un spectacle de danse traditionnelle. Les danseurs etaient des ados super bons et qui souriaient et s'amusaient vraiment sur scene. On s'est bien divertis. Par contre, ca me faisait un peu mal au coeur de voir qu'encore aujourd'hui les jeunes danseurs doivent forcer leurs doigts a courber vers l'exterieur.

Puis, nous avons pris un long autobus suivi d'un "taxi partage" pour se rendre a Kampot dans le sud du Cambodge. L'autobus ca allait, c'etait plutot amusant avec leur tele diffusant un dvd de karaoke cambodgien! Mais le taxi-partage ca ca m'a rappele le Maroc. Nous etions 22 personnes a l'interieur d'une caravan, soit 1/2 siege chacun pour 3h de route. Moi j'etais assise entre 2 sieges, une fesse sur une barre de metal. On etait bien content une fois arrives. On voulait aller visiter Bokor, mais malheureusement la route est fermee car ils vont la paver. A la place nous somme alles a l'ile "Rabbit". C'est la derniere ile ici sur laquelle ils n'ont pas encore bati de gros hotels. Que les bons vieux petits bungalows en bamboo, quelques familles, poules, poulets et cochons sauvages. On a du se battre pour marchander le bateau pour nous y rendre et une fois la-bas c'etait une journee bien relaxante, pas grand chose a faire et pas une super plage. Par contre, le soir de retour a Kampot, on a trouve le meilleur kiosque a dessert. On y est alle pour boire un jus de fruits frais presses et on y a vu tout l'etalage de desserts qu'on ne connaissait pas. Pendant quelques minutes on s'est tourmente a se demander lesquels essayer, puis on a vu des locaux commander un bol contenant un morceau de chacun recouvert de lait de coco! Vous auriez du nous voir la face, les yeux et le sourire quand on a compris qu'on pouvait tous les essayer en meme temps et qu'on a reussi a se faire comprendre que c'est ce que l'on voulait (ils ne parlaient pas anglais). Qu'on s'est encore une fois bien regales!!! Depuis qu'on est revenu en Asie, on mange presqu'exclusivement dans la rue ou au marche, jamais dans les restos, on a mange toutes sortes de bonnes choses, c'est vraiment pas cher et le plus drole c'est qu'on a encore eu aucun maux d'estomacs, contrairement a notre arrivee en janvier ou nous faisions attention a tout ce que l'on mangeait et que Josh a ete tellement malade....

On a donc termine notre tour a Phnom Penh, la capitale. Cette fois-ci on a pris l'autobus. Mais avec la route de terre tres cahotique et on etait assis a l'arriere, j'vous dis que ca rebondissait. Josh c'est meme cogne la tete au plafond lorsque le chauffeur est passe dans un trou a toute vitesse! A Phnom Penh on a pris ca plutot relax. J'ai pris un deuxieme cours de cuisine, cette fois-ci Josh est venu avec moi. Il a adore, surtout qu'on mange toute la journee dans les cours :) Il y avait 3 autres quebecois dans le cours. Ca faisait du bien d'entendre des jokes en francais et de rire aux larmes. On a passe la soiree avec eux. J'ai compris pendant ce voyage et l'an dernier passe en Californie que de dire des niaiseries sur n'importe quel sujet et de rire a s'en rouler par terre, y'a que les bons-vivants de quebecois pour faire ca!!! La derniere journee nous avons visite le triste musee "Tuol Sleng", originalement une ecole qui a ete transformee en prison pendant le regne des khmers rouges ou ils battaient a mort les gens de la ville. Le but khmer rouges etait de former un pays "pure" ou tout le monde serait egal, ils ont donc evacue les villes, forces tous les gens a travailler dans les champs, tues plusieurs de personnes qui avaient trop de connaissances (docteurs, professeurs, ceux faisant parti de l'ancien gouvernement, soit ceux qui auraient pu creer une revolte) et tuer plusieurs autres rationnant la nourriture en trop petite portion, puisque la nourriture cultivee etait donne a la Chine en echange d'armements pour la guerre. Les habitants mouraient de faim, travaillent a cultiver riz, mais, etc. mais ne pouvaient pas en manger pour survivre, car ils risquaient d'etre battus a mort. D'autres sont morts empoisonnes a essayer de manger, par exemple, des champignons sauvages. Ce qui explique un peu pourquoi ici ils mangent toutes sortes d'insectes. Mes nouveaux amis quebecois du cours de cuisine ont essaye la tarentule (frite deux fois!), mais moi il n'est pas question que je me mette une bibite dans la bouche!

Malaysia Part 2

2008-08-02T04:03:00.000-07:00

After we left Mukut and hit the mainland, we made a B-line for Taman Negara, the famous national park near the center of the country. We stayed a two nights there, and did some hiking, walked a jungle canopy rope bridge system almost 2 km long, and saw the Orang Osli, the native people. Lonely Planet warned us of the leeches, and of course it rained while we were there and by the end of our first day hiking they were out in force. They were little, but just scary. After not getting any and seeing the guides running around in shorts and flip flops, I figured they were overhyped and did the same since it was brutally hot. Nath, of course, was in shoes and pants and got the first leech. I got it off with a match and then, unfortunately, I got one on my toe inside my sandals and the resulting hole wouldn't stop bleeding for over a day if left uncovered. We did a night safari where you ride around in the back of a truck and they point out animals with a spot light. That guy was just amazing at finding wildlife, a true expert.

From the Taman Negara area, we took the "Jungle Train north east to Kota Bahru. It heads off into the jungle and stops at endless little villages. The Lonely Planet described like an adventure, so we did it. It was hot, and amusing to see hundreds of school kids pile on and off, and it was definitely an experience. If you got hot, you could just walk to the opening between cars and hang out in the open air. No safety measures there! It was a nice change. There were quite a few amazing limestone walls along the way that I saw that called out to be climbed, but with a schedule and no ability to place a bolt that just wasn't going to happen.

Kota Bahru has a famed night market. We gorged ourselves on everything from Roti Murtabak, an unhealthy egg filled version of the roti canai, to blue mango sticky rice. We ate and drank from as many stands as possible for about an hour and a half. The total cost for amazing quality dinner, drinks, and dessert was about $5 for both of us. In Kota Bahru we had our first taste of sugar cane juice. There was a guy along the street who was shoving what looked similar to bamboo into a press and the juice was falling into a container. I stopped to watch and when I realized what it was, we immediately went over to give it a try. Damn is that good on a hot day! Now I stop anytime I see it, which isn't often unfortunately.

From Kota Bahru we headed to the Perhentian Islands, the large one specifically. A friend who is a dive master recommended a dive school and we headed there for our Advanced scuba certification. After two days of great diving and some fun learning, we had our new certification! The whole time we were staying there, I was just waiting for the opportunity to play on some boulders on the east side of the beautiful white sand beach. They were granite, and there looked like there were some promising features, dikes, and cracks! Our last day there, I wandered through with shoes and chalkbag, and climbed as much as possible. It was really fun and I found some nice hard dihedrals, slabs, and dikes to climb.

From the Perhentian Islands we headed to Cameron Highlands, a higher elevation jungle area known for its tea plantations. We did the mandatory 1/2 day tour of the area and were shuttled around to many different stops of varying interest for about 5 hours. My favorite was the "Butterfly Farm" where they had much more than butterflies! There were endless fascinating insects, snakes, and flowers. We liked the insects the most. They had rhinosceros beetles, beautiful preying mantis', and we'll never forget the scorpions. Again, no camera, but Nath and I each "held" one which they put on our arms. The scorpions were the enormous black ones about 5-6" long!

Kuala Lumpur was the next stop! We managed to get in a few climbing workouts. We made it to the climbing gym once, to the Bathu Caves once. We went to a few other places, but the mass transport which criss crossed the city was pathetic to say the least, and getting around as a backpacker was a nightmare. It was a minimum of 2 hours of mass transit, sometimes changing between 3 different types to get somewhere 10-20 miles away. Quite frustrating, really. We did find more good food though, and the climbing gym Camp 5 was the best I've ever climbed at. They had immaculately clean walls, loose chalk was banned, friction was perfect, and they had an entire wall of natural cracks of ranging sizes and types that included a 7a+ (5.12a) roof crack. Unfortunately, since it took us so long to get there we didn't get to climb for long, and part of that time we had to spend flipping through the guidebook trying to figure out if we could climb at the Bathu Caves for a day without buying a guide. The Bathu Caves are an area of mountains with one main limestone cave that serves as a very important Hindu temple but as a result has no routes. The surrounding hills are dotted with limestone faces. We took another obscenely long bus trip out there, and after a quick stop at the temple for some sight seeing and picture taking we wandered off toward the suspected direction of climbing. Eventually, we saw a few climbers doing their thing and joined in. We found a few routes of medium quality, and I ended the day trying to onsight a very bizarre 7a+ slab route with strange knob like features. I felt like i was in Tuolumne or Yosemite! I blew the crux, felt tired, and we had to start figuring out how to catch the bus back. It was a good day of getting the muscles working again.

If you noticed above, yes we took some pictures. We bought our 2nd IXUS 860 in KL. We're getting this bargaining thing down... Hopefully our 4th camera can go the distance!

Nath took a cooking class one day, and while she was preparing food, I was eating food on the street. Her class didn't take long, and she brought me the leftovers, which were great! From KL, we caught a flight to Cambodia. It was finally time to see the ancient Ankor Wat!

Malaysia Part 1 - Tioman/Mukut

2008-07-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

Malaysia was a dream world. We expected to be dropped back into difficult travel with bartering, trying to find the right bus, people lying to us so that we will buy some service or other, etc. However, it turned out to be quite the opposite! Malaysia is one of the easiest countries that we've had the pleasure to visit, and the people some of the friendliest. Even the children were amazing, most of them smiling and going out of their way to say, "Hello!" Malay food was also some of the best of the trip. There were influences from India, China, and more. On top of that, there were even fusions of the various cuisines. So much food to try, so little time!
Part of our plan for Malaysia was rather ambitious. Scotty, a friend and long-time climbing partner from San Diego, spent much time and effort climbing an obscure route buried in the jungle of Tioman Island on the south east side of Peninsular Malaysia. After three attempts, spread over three years, he finally climbed the 300m (1000') granite face after a 5 day push during which he endured a tropical storm near the summit. Since we were headed to the area, he recommended it to us and we decided to put it on the itinerary. We weren't really prepared for a multi-day ascent, so we would have to climb the route in a single day. It would be hard, but potentially possible.

Leaving Singapore, we bused up into Malaysia to the town closest to Tioman Island. From their the speed boat taxi service dropped at the southern most of the "touristy" villages. The tourist taxi roams up and down the west coast, but we needed to go to the southern tip. I left Nath at the Jetty, and started walking around town looking for a boat. After a talking to a few people, I found someone who would take us down in their tiny motor boat for around $30. We hopped in the boat, and during the next 30 or so minutes watched the beautiful island pass by on our left and the Dragon's Horns came into view. I'll give it to Scotty, he sure picked a beautiful place to climb! It's truly stunning, and we've been quite a few amazing places on this trip. The granite face we were to climb looked steep, but featured. The rock was black and white, with huge streaks running down. I was practically drooling! When the boat landed that evening, the next mission was to find lodging and food!

We were in Kampot Mukut (Mukut Village), a tiny place where there is a single foot path across the village that can easily be walked in about 10 minutes. As we started walking toward the direction of a place to stay we had read about in the Malaysian climbing guide, we quickly realized that staying in Mukut we be a unique experience. It just seemed deserted. There were many bungalows that looked closed, no workers, no tourists, nothing. There were a few locals around, but that's about it. When we found the recommended bungalows, the name had changed to Tanjon Adventure Inn and the paths looked rather overgrown. It was completely deserted. Since none of the other bungalows looked open, I left Nath to see if I could find someone to let us rent a bungalow.

Almost immediately, the wonder of Mukut started to show through. Amir, one of the locals, asked me if I needed help. I told him that I wanted to stay at the bungaloos down the path and he said that he would help me find a worker. His English was good enough that we talked a little while we walked all the way across the village and back to find Matar. Matar greeted us with a smile, and jumped on his motorbike to zip over to the bungalows to get one ready. They were completely unprepared for tourists, since it was the low season, and we didn't even have running water for the first day and a half. Instead, we just jumped in the ocean to clean off since we literally had the only beach of the entire village to ourselves. It was truly unbelievable... That night, wandering the town for dinner we saw Amir again who pointed us toward the ONLY restaurant that served dinner. We ate there almost every night we were in Mukut and tried everything on the menu.

Day 1:

We woke up the next day ready to start work on climbing the big route. We had read trip reports from the most recent pair to climb the route (there have only been 3 teams to climb the face, ever) and they told horror stories of spending 3 days chopping a trail through the jungle, barbed vines leaving lines of infected welts all over their bodies, and slashing away with a machete that they had borrowed at the local police station. We figured that the path would have been over grown again, figured we needed a good breakfast to prepare for a big day of jungle trashing! Walking across Mukut, we couldn't even see something that resembled a restaurant. The restaurant for dinner was closed, and the two that worked there were across the street working to build a house. We kept going, until we ran into Matar. Matar greeted us with his enormous smile and asked us, "Breakfast?" We said yes, and he replied energetically, "Roti Canai!" and pointed toward the end of the village we were walking toward. We figured we'd find this roti canai he was speaking of, and kept walking happy that we would be able to eat. As we kept going, a little restaurant came into view that many locals went to for breakfast. They didn't serve much as far as we could tell, and we ordered some roti canai! It was simply amazing! It's like a little fried pancake that is served with curry in one little plate and sugar in another. You tear pieces off the roti and dip them in the sugar or curry or both. I learned that roti canai was a little piece of heaven. That curry was some of the best I've ever had! As the days went by, we figured out that the only other option for breakfast was Nasi Lemak. It's coconut flavored rice with a little spicy sauce and it's covered in tiny fried anchovies. I tried it a few times for variety, but it was no roti! We had figured out dinner, and now breakfast, but what were we going to do for lunch while hacking away in the jungle all day? Luckily, we found a tiny market and bought some crackers, peanuts, cookies and a few other little things.

Most of the rest of the day was spent in the jungle. There was an established trail that lead into the jungle up toward the Dragon's Horns, but this was more a trekking trail that wouldn't take us to the base of the main granite face. We followed it until we passed the two boulders described in the Malaysian climbing guide, and took a left off into the jungle. The Malaysian climbing guide warned us, you need to have a compass and maybe even an altimeter in order to find the granite wall. I figured that we could go without, but almost immediately realized how serious they were. It was completely impossible to tell not only the direction of the wall, and the direction we were travelling, but even something as simple as north south east west! The jungle canopy completely blocked all view of the surroundings, and when the clouds obscured the sun, we couldn't even tell which direction the sun was! Sometimes it felt like we were on an old trail, but we were essentially creating a trail from scratch. Interestingly enough, one of the hardest parts of the trail building was to leave signs of how to get back! I quickly realized that one of the ferns that was EVERYWHERE was perfect. We just bent branches about midway as a sign that we had passed that way. Sometimes we were beating essentially a tunnel and that was easy to follow, but others when we found a path of least resistance, it was scary to realize how quickly we could be lost if we hadn't left signs of our passage. Unfortunately, the same fern that was everywhere and perfect for leaving signs of our passage was the same plant with the spiked vines! We were both very careful, but we both still ended up nursing wounds with antibiotic for days afterwards due to those evil things. It wasn't nearly as horrible as the other guys made it out to be, and a machete was completely unnecessary. After a few hours of descent progress, it started to rain. Actually, I should probably describe it more as a river started pouring down on us from the sky... Since our trail was headed uphill, and the ground was getting slippery, I called it quits and we headed down. By the time we made it back to the bungalow, we were so wet that we were clean... Our filthy clothes would be perfect next time we put them on, but everything in the backpack was soaked too. Now, if you're reading this it might seem like a while back, but we had just bought our camera 2 days previously in Singapore. Yup.... that's right.... the camera was in the backpack! It was in it's original sheath, in a camera bag, in a zip lock bag, in the top of the backpack. Now, normally that would probably have kept it dry. Or maybe at least prevented it from getting wet enough to be damaged, but unfortunately the top of the backpack we brought had POOLED WATER in the top. When I opened it up, I had to pour water out! When I saw the zip lock bag had water in it, I was devastated! It was completely soaked through, all the way. We tried to dry it, but it was as futile as resisting the borg. We were in Malaysia, in one of the coolest villages we'd stayed at so far, trying to climb an unimaginably beautiful wall, and again we were without a camera!!!!! AAAAAAaaaarrrrrgh!

On top of the camera, after swimming in the ocean to cool down Nath was drying herself with a towel in front of the bungalow and got stung by a wasp in the head! Some of you have heard the story about the wasp nest that Nath walked into in the Needles back in California, when she got swarmed and they stung her many times on the head. She's still traumatized from it, so this was an extremely horrible for her and apparently so bad she could feel the poison and pain spreading through her. On top of that, she left the room to get something drying outside a few minutes later, another wasp stung her on the head! At this point, I looked outside carefully, and sure enough there was a wasp nest just under the roof of the bungalow! They were HUGE! What a way to end the day...

Day 2:

We decided to have a rest day on day 2. My hand was pretty infected from the trail building, and Nath's head was hurting from the previous day's wasp encounters. After our morning roti, which usually cost under $2 for as much as we could eat along with drinks, we hit the beach in front of our bungalow for some good old snorkeling! We put on swimming goggles and swim suits and started off into the ocean. There were corals, but there was much damage and not too much. There were beautiful fish we'd seen everywhere else on the few corals that were on the bottom, but the snorkeling wasn't fantastic. We had fun just swimming along seeing what we could find and taking it easy. After a while, so that we wouldn't get too sunburned, we headed back to the bungalows. We still had some time, and had heard about a waterfall to the east of the village. The walk there took about an hour, and when we got there it was rather late in the day. The waterfalls were similar to what we had been playing in Litchfield NP in Australia just a few weeks ago, but not nearly as inviting. Instead of swimming, we headed back toward Mukut.

Along the way, we passed a huge soccer field. Many of the locals were playing soccer, and having a great time. We stopped and watched, and after a few minutes they started motioning me to join them. I hesitated since I hadn't played for years, but gave in and joined the crowd.
I wasn't very good, but playing soccer with those guys, laughing and running around the grassy field barefoot was some of the most fun I've had on the trip. It was a really cool experience, and I was very happy when one of them told me in broken English that they play every day in the evening. I told myself that I would come play again.

That night at dinner, we met some Singaporean tourists who invited us to eat dinner with them the next night.

Day 3:

Post roti, it was another day of trail building. It was hot up there in the jungle, blindly pushing the trail farther and farther. We really had no idea if we were heading in the right direction, but intuition lead us straight to the climb. We turned where we should, scrambled gullies, and finally barged straight up the hill until the main face with uncanny accuracy and literally ended up in the perfect spot! Standing at the base of the route, I realized this was going to be more adventure than I had planned. The first pitch had no rock climbing at all.... it was a vine chocked gully, near vertical, that lead to the cleaner rock above. To lead that pitch, I would have to play Tarzan for almost 100' with questionable protection. We headed down, fixing the trail in places to ensure we could follow it if we were coming down at night, and headed to dinner!

We ate dinner with the man we met the day before, and his family. They were on an organized tour that included room and dinner, but the tour operator didn't mind feeding us as well since he always made too much food anyways. We ate amazing fish curry, fresh fruits, and more. It was fun to sit and hang out with some other people, and at the end of the dinner they introduced us to a dessert called ABC. It was really good, and they showed us the place we could buy it! We had a new place to buy food from! Whoo Hoo!

Day 4:

The next day we saw the weather was good and we went up with the gear to preview the initial pitches of the route. The plan was to climb up a few pitches, teach Nath how to jumar (ascend a rope mechanically), stash the gear, and come back another day a quickly climb the route and come back down. The hike went very quickly, and it seemed like no time before we were at the base. I quickly racked up and flaked out the rope and headed off up the first pitch. It started with ledge scrambling and a little vine pulling, but quickly the angle steepens and the only thing to grab are vines. I determined that the best strategy was to grab as many vines as possible to minimize my chance of having them pull out sending me to the ground, and I started hauling myself up the wall. As I progressed, there were a few places to grab actual rock, but it really was mostly vine climbing. Eventually, after much hesitation about what I was doing, I managed to pull myself up onto a large forested ledge and sling a large tree to belay off of. Nath quickly followed up, and I started off on the next pitch.

The next pitch was real rock climbing, and it was hard. I found a bolted line, that Scotty may or may not have climbed. I believe that he climbed more vines up a face to the right according to his topo (route description) but there were bolts protecting some very thin face climbing. They were added relatively recently, but they still showed signs of rusting due to the climate and the proximity to the salty ocean. Within 20' of climbing, I was already hanging on the bolts not wanting to take a fall on them due to their quality, and I ended up stepping on one of the bolts to pass a very difficult move. Higher, the difficulty eased and a crack appeared which could be protected by cams. The crack was rather dirty though, and the rock quality not the best. After finishing up a 10-15 meter corner, I ended up on a ledge with a single newer bolt for belay and what appeared to be Scotty's original extremely rusted bolts. I backed up the single bolt with some large cams, fixed the rope, and rappelled back down to join Nath.

Once on the ground, I showed Nath how to jumar. She took to it quite quickly, and was chugging up the pitch in no time. Once on top, I had her put me on belay and I reclimbed the pitch barely pulling off the move where I had stepped on the bolt before. The pitch showed a rating of around 5.9 with maybe some aid. I headed out on easy territory and quickly found myself looking at a horror show of a lead. It was a steep leaning crack, wet from the humidity covered with a strange dirty slimy layer that would compress when cams were placed and pulled, and on top of all that it was wide. I smiled to myself and thought, "Only Scotty...." As I struggled up the crack, I botched a foot sequence and ended up hanging on the rope. Above, the crack ended in a protectionless roof. There was an old bolt, possibly Scotty's, right where the crack ended, but I had a cam right next to it and the bolt was so bad that even I wouldn't clip it. My motto is often, "if it's there, clip it!" I started working my way up into the roof feeling for holds, smearing on tiny feet on the slab below. I moved up and left away from my gear and had to make a final massive reach to great holds above. As I hauled my feet over the roof, I knew I was done with that pitch. I placed two pieces of gear to protect Nathalie since the anchor was off to the side, and finished off the pitch.

Nath came up and had a little trouble with the wide crack and roof but eventually pulled through the moves. We were sitting on a nice large sloping ledge where I'm sure previous parties had stayed the night. The rock quality so far had been quite low, but it looked much better and cleaner above. The next pitch didn't look too bad, and it leaned hard left meaning retreat might become more difficult, so Nath and I decided that we had previewed enough and rappelled back down to the ground. We stowed our gear under a rock and made the jungle hike back down to the hut.

On the way down to the hut, I made the horrible realization that I had left the key in the top of the backpack which was stowed at the base of the climb! The funny thing is, in climbing you don't store your gear often, and one of the only other times I've stored a back was with Scotty and we did the same thing and had to do an extra 8 miles of hiking at night to retrieve the keys! I was ready to go back, but Nath convinced me that we could find another way into the room. I told her we could try since we were only 15 minutes from the bungalow. When I got to the room, I figured out that I could easily remove the glass from the window, which I did, and we were back in the room!

Once we were done with the hike and back in the room, we got in our swimming suits and headed down to the beach. Today, there were others staying in one of the bungalows, and as we headed down to the water they yelled and pointed at the water. We looked down, and on the beach was the biggest turtle I've ever seen in my life. It looked like it was easily a meter long! The huge guy pulled himself up on shore for a bit, then turned around and headed back into the water. And us without a camera!!!!! Oh well, seems like it's the theme of the trip.

At dinnertime, we ended up eating with some locals who were very nice and had some of the best food we ate our whole time in Malaysia. They lived in Mersing, the city from which you boat to Tioman Island, and brought tour groups from Singapore out for a few days at a time. They had a group there for part of the time we were there and luckily they invited us for dinner on their last night there. There was endless seafood, and then endless dessert. The seafood was probably caught a few hours before and was just perfection. They were very nice, and we talked quite a bit. They told us about how they watch the news often and that part of the US was severely flooded at the moment. It was funny to get current news from a Malaysian local in a remote part of an island. After that they had us go talk to their clients who had endless questions about our climbing of the Dragon's Horns. The clients gave us free beer too! It was a good night.

Day 5:

We decided to take a rest day since the weather was suboptimal and we wanted to be completely fresh for our big push. The others who were staying a few bungalows down were in the restaurant area of the place, and they yelled at us to come join them, which we did. It turned out that they were the owner and his son, who live in Kuala Lumpur. It was the low season so they didn't expect any guests. I don't remember their names since we met them over a month ago, and we only spent one day with them, but they were just like everyone else in Mukut; friendly, happy, kind, and giving. They were drinking Nescafe like water and they offered it to Nath and I. I joined in, and soon I had a good sugar/caffiene buzz going. Matar was there, who works for them, and they were playing checkers. They use a larger board than I was used to, and they taught me how to play. Checkers is a common game, but I really had no idea the rules when you get a "king." They just bounce all over the place! It's wild. Matar was the master and could defeat anyone. I got my butt kicked. Nath and I played and I think we were about evenly matched if I remember right. As lunch approached, they asked us if we wanted to join them. Matar and the owner had been hunting in the jungle for mouse deer and caught one. They were Matar was cooking up mouse deer curry!!! What an amazing opportunity! We, of course, took them up on their offer and had another amazing meal with the locals! Mukut really was a magical place. That was their last day there, they only came for 2-3 days, and they took off that afternoon.

I finished the day with another round of soccer with the locals! :) I got better, but I still wasn't great.

Day 6: The big day!

We were up around 5:30 and hiking around 6am. It was potentially going to be a big day. The route was hard, and various characteristics made for slow climbing. We blasted the trail to the base in under an hour, tossed the ropes out, I racked up and I unhappily started jungle pulling again to complete the first pitch. It really wasn't fun since there was no protection and if the vines went, I went. In a matter of minutes I was on the ledge and bringing Nathalie up. We finished the first of 10 pitches in 15 minutes! Unfortunately, we forgot the topo so Nath had to go back down... We finished the first of 10 pitches AGAIN in 22 minutes! :)

I knew what to expect from the next pitch and where the difficulties were so I knew it would go faster. I was planned on going all the way to our previous highpoint and linking the two pitches from the day before. I climbed up through the bolts, decided time was more important than style and stepped on the bolt again, flew up the crack in a corner, and passed the next ledge which had a tree growing out of it, that I had stopped at the day before. Now I was at the base of the wide dirty wet crack leaning crack, but I knew how to climb it. I managed it easier than expected, and soon I was pulling through the roof and bringing my feet up. As soon as I was standing above the roof on a good ledge for my feet I was very relieved. I moved up a move or two and started looking for where I put the gear in two days ago. While I was looking around, I realized the rope was hooked under the roof I had just pulled myself over. I leaned down and flicked it free, and in the process my instincts went haywire. For no apparent reason, I felt myself off balance and moving backward. I immediately screamed, "FALLING," twice so Nath could hopefully haul in some rope and prepare for the coming impact on her end. She did wonderfully, but I was already a ways above my last piece since the roof had no protection, and I took a huge swinging fall of around 10m/35' into the tree growing out of the ledge below snapping a few medium size branches off of it. The block I had been holding had just detached from the face and and gone flying, as had I. It was rather scary, and luckily Nath wasn't hit by any of the debris, rock or tree that had come crashing down past her. Also, I had managed to get away unscathed except a little lost skin where I had impacted on the tree.

I've learned that when climbing, you have to be proactive to not give into the fear. Instead of hanging there, focusing on what happened, I just pulled myself hand over hand back up the rope, to where my highest cam was in the crack. Moving is better than thinking sometimes. When I got to the last piece, I was surprised to see that due to the coating in the crack, the 0.5 camalot had slid over 6" almost entirely out of the crack and was precariously holding me up by 2 of the 4 lobes! I started climbing again, reset the cam deeper in the crack, and pulled the roof one last time. After building the anchor, I brought Nath up and we sat on the ledge looking at the next pitch and discussing options.

The next pitch didn't look too hard to climb, but the protection was pathetic to say the least. There was at least one bolted variation to what Scotty had climbed out left, but some sort of chemical ooze that seeped out of the rock above had corroded the bolts to less than worthless in a matter of a couple years! Even the granite, which is one of the sturdiest rocks, was corroded as if acid had been poured on it. It looked almost like featured limestone. Scotty's variation followed a crack, but I knew that higher there would be a high probability that bolts would be necessary for safe climbing where the two variations met, and even if I followed Scotty's variation I didn't trust my gear as much due to the coating on the inside of the crack. With the low quality rock, poor protection, and remote nature of the climb (no rescue really), I threw in the towel. The climb wasn't for us. Instead we sat down on the large ledge and just appreciated the amazing view down on the jungle, beaches, ocean, and islands for about an hour. If we had a bolt kit, and significantly more time, I would have stayed and finished the route on such a beautiful location, but we didn't and I think we made the right choice in retreating.

If anyone ever goes up to do that climb, be aware that the bolts deteriorate very rapidly, possibly as quickly as in Krabi, Thailand. The bolts should probably be replaced with titanium glue-ins of the same quality used in Krabi. The route has only seen 3 ascents, and it already has multiple bolted variations, old really bad bolts and newer rusted bolts, and it's starting to look ugly. Do it right, because it is truly an amazing piece of rock, in a world class location. I wish I could have gotten to the quality pitches up higher, safely. Maybe we'll be back!

We rappelled, packed the bags, and headed down the trail. When we met up with the trekking trail, we decided to explore it. We dumped our packs and headed off up the hiker's trail. As we slogged uphill, we realized that we were getting closer and closer to where our trail went! In the end, we found a relatively good trail that lead us right to the base of the climb already in existance! Ha! Oh well, it'll just be easier next time. With that knowledge, we headed back down the trail feeling somewhat defeated, but happy with our overall experience in Mukut.

That evening, I played one last game of soccer with the guys and managed to even score a goal! I was definitely improving (but still not nearly as good as them) and loving it.

Day 7:

We left Mukut after a truly special week there. The people there were some of the friendliest I've ever met in my life, anywhere, and we had many great experiences that we'll always remember. It's really fun to have every child in a village yell, "Hello!" every time you walk by.... Almost all of the villagers asked us when we were coming back and tried to convince us to come next year! We failed at the climb, but we found an amazing little niche of the world we otherwise would have missed. Outside of staying with my brother for a few weeks, our time in Mukut was one of the better experiences of the trip.

Le 17 juillet 2008: Malaysie

2008-07-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

Ah, la Malaysie :) Jusqu'a maintenant c'est notre pays prefere du voyage. C'est tellement facile de voyager ici. A part Kuala Lumpur qui fait exception. Partout ailleurs , les gens sont extremement gentils et fiables; les enfants sont adorables; les transports en communs sont ridiculement pas cher et de qualite/confort impressionnant; et surtout, la bouffe est bonne, mais tellement bonne!!! C'est directement du a leur histore, il y a les Malaysiens originaux, les descendants indiens et les descendants chinois. Donc on retrouve des mets de toutes ces cuisines en plus de melanges typiques. La seule chose bizarre qu'on ne comprend pas c'est qu'ils coupent la queue des chats a mi-longueur??!!?!!! Enfin, trois semaine en Malaysie c'etait presque pas assez! Alors voici plus de detail sur nos aventures en Malaysie.

Jour 0 - Un autre gros projet d'escalade en tete. Scotty, l'ami de Josh et son partenaire d'escalade a San Diego, a ete le premier a grimper le 'Dragon Horn', un mur de granite situe sur l'ile de Tioman. Depuis, que 3 autres equipes ont repete l'exploit. Nous avons comme mission d'y aller. Si tout va bien, je serai la premiere femme a me retrouver tout en haut de ces 300m de roches. Mais avant, il y a 300m de jungle a franchir et il faut reussit a se rendre sur cette ile. Lors de notre magasinage durant notre derniere journee a Singapour, on a achete entre autres une nouvelle camera, une deuxieme corde et d'autre equipement d'escalade requis pour l'ascension du Dragon Horn. On part donc tres tot le matin. Premiere etape, attrapper un bus qui se rend au bord de la Malaysie. Puis on doit traverser les douanes. Ca veut dire debarquer du bus, sortir de Singapour, retrouver le bus, debarquer encore, entrer en Malaysie, retrouver le bus une deuxieme fois. Tout ca a l'air facile, mais c'est pas toujours evident quand on ne sait pas ou aller, quand y'a pas grand chose d'indique dans un language qu'on connait et quand on a personne a qui se renseigner. Mais j'vous dis, on s'en vient bon, a apprend toutes sortes de trucs a voyager. Cette fois-ci, ma strategie consistait a memoriser de vue 3-4 personnes qui semble venir d'ici et tenter d'en suivre au moins une. Ca a bien marche les deux fois et en moins de 30 min. on etait sortis des douanes, ye. Deuxieme etape, trouver un bus pour aller a Mersing, un village sur la cote. La encore, je ne me fais plus arreter par les vendeurs qui essaient d'arnaquer les touristes. Je marche d'un pas convaincu a travers toutes ces personnes, cherchant l'autre cote de la station de bus, la ou c'est tranquille et ou les locaux achetent leurs billets. En quelques minutes on a trouve un bus qui part dans la prochaine heure et pour pas cher. Parfait, tout va bien. Troisieme etape, debarques a la station d'autobus a Mersing, on doit trouver le port d'ou partent les bateaux. On a aucune idee ou l'on est et on ne connait pas la ville. Ceux a qui on demandent refusent de nous aider si on ne prend pas leur bateau. Mais on ne sait pas si on peut leur faire confiance. Je commence a etre fatiguee. Josh prend la releve. On marche dans une direction aleatoire, sur une rue qui semble principale. Josh arrive a lire des similitudes avec l'anglais sur des signaux en Malaysien et on finit par trouver le port apres pres d'un km de marche sous la chaleur avec nos tres lourds sac-a-dos remplis d'encore plus d'equipement d'escalade. Bref, on trouve un traversier qui part dans quelques minutes. ye. Mais arrive sur l'ile de Tioman, ce n'est pas finit. On debarque a Gensing. On doit maintenant trouver quelqu'un qui a un bateau et qui veut bien nos amener jusqu'a Mukut au sud de l'ile. Mukut s'est un tout petit village ou les touristes (et donc les bateaux) ne vont pas. Mais nous on veut y aller car c'est de la qu'on peut grimper le Dragon Horn. On marche donc dans Mersing et on trouve un magasin de plongee. Josh va s'informer et arrive a nous negocier une 'ballade' en chaloupe a moteur jusqu'a Mukut. 30 minutes plus tard on y est enfin... mais c'est pas finit, la derniere etape est de trouver un endroit ou dormir. Comme y'a pas de touristes ici, y'a pas d'hotels! On trouve de petits bungalows au bout du village. Mais il n'y a personne et ca semble abandonne. Je reste avec les bagages et Josh part a la recherche du proprio dans le village (qui ne fait qu'une rue!). Il finit par trouver quelqu'un qui parle anglais et qui lui aide a trouver quelqu'un qui a la clee des bungalows, car le proprietaire habite a Kuala Lumpur! A part que ca a pris 2 jours avant qu'ils arrivent a etablir l'eau jusqu'a notre bungalow (i.e. toilette et douche froide), tout est bien qui finit bien. On a la petite plage a nous tout seul, c'est beau, tranquille et magnifique, une "deuxieme lune de miel" comme les gens du village nous ont dit :) Ici on leur laisse croire qu'on est maries pour eviter les problemes...

Jour 1 - Premier matin a Mukut. On a bien dormi, surtout apres la grosse journee d'hier. Et qu'il fait bon de se reveiller dans notre petit paradis perdu. Autant les gens sont surpris de nous voir la, autant ils sont si gentils avec nous. On se sent comme le roi et la reine. Hier soir, en prenant une marche au village, un vieil homme nous a gentiment offert deux grosses noix de cocos fraiches pour nous souhaiter la bienvenue. Ce matin, ce sont les enfants qui sont tellement cutes et qui nous disent "hello" sans arret en nous faisant des bye-byes de la main. Puis, on croise les travailleurs (ils construisent un nouveau pont), parmis ceux-ci, l'homme qui nous a donne la clee du bungalow nous dit: "Breakfast? Roti canai!" et nous fait signe de continuer un peu plus loin sur la route. On trouve donc le seul endroit ouvert pour dejeuner. Comme y'a pas de touristes ici, y'a pas non plus de restaurants. On commande donc 2 roti canai. C'est une espece de crepe indienne servi avec un curry de poisson bien epice. Pas les dejeuners auxquels on est habitues, mais heureusement on a aime ca, car avec un the au lait condense-sucre, ca a ete la seule option pour toute la semaine! Puis, en chemin on croise un mini depanneur qui vent des peanuts et des biscuits genre Oreo. On en achete quelques paquets, ca sera nos lunchs pour la semaine! On doit grimper a nos limites avec une nutrition un peu defaillante, c'est aussi ca l'aventure!! On part donc pour une premiere journee dans la jungle. On doit creer notre propre sentier. Beaucoup de travail, la vegetation est tres dense et on n'a pas d'outils autres que nos deux mains. On a pas non plus de compas et on ne voit pas le soleil pour nous aider. On y va donc avec notre intuition. Apres quelques heures de 'travail', c'est l'orage, mais un vrai orage tropical! On retourne donc en direction du bungalow. Malheur, l'eau a infiltre notre sac-a-dos et a forme un bassin d'eau a l'interieur. Malgre que protegee par un etui et un sac de plastique, notre belle camera toute neuve achetee il y a meme pas 2 jours a Singapour est deja brisee, on en a vraiment le coeur gros. Qu'a-t-on fait pour meriter cette malchance avec toutes nos cameras? Donc pas de photos pour la Malaysie :( Apres la pluie et une baignade a notre plage 'privee' pour se consoler, ma deuxieme malchance. Comme je me seche sur notre balcon, une guepe, et oui encore les guepes, mais cette fois-ci une grosse guepe tropicale qui doit faire plus d'un pouce de long, noire et orange, me pique juste sur la tempe a cote de l'oeil. Je ne l'ai meme pas vu, j'ai qu'entendu le bourdonnement epeurant et vu la face de Josh se disant "c'etait une grosse celle-la". Je nous enferme dans le bungalow criant de panique et pleurant (j'sais pas si je finirai par me remettre de l'histoire de l'automne passee), ca brule comme un vaccin, je sens le poison descendre dans mes veines. Mais je dois ressortir quelques minutes plus tard ramasser mon sac laisse sur le balcon. Je prends mon courage a deux mains, Josh ne veut pas y aller car il n'est pas habille et je dois vaincre ma peur. Et bien pendant les quelques secondes ou j'etais dehors une autre grosse guepe (ou peut-etre la meme?) fonce directement vers moi et me pique derriere la tete comme j'etais penchee pour ramasser mon sac. S'en est trop. Josh deduit qu'il doit y avoir un nid, et comme de fait, juste la au-dessus de notre porte, une bonne dizaine de grosses guepes bourdonnent. Le soir je sors en courant, on doit aller manger, un seul restaurant est aussi ouvert pour souper, mais celui-la a 5-6 mets au menu, tous ecrits en Malaysien, on les essaie au hazard. En chemin on a croise la personne responsable du bungalow qui nous a donne une bouteille de spray pour les insectes (c'est tout petit le village, on voit tout le monde a chaque jour), Josh s'est charge de tuer les guepes et de detruire le nid...

Jour 2 - Journee de repos force. Ma tempe et derrire ma tete la ou j'ai ete piquee c'est tout enfle et j'ai des maux de tetes incroyables. Par chance je traine maintenant toujours des Benadril avec moi. Quand a Josh, sa main est enflee et infectee a cause d'une plante qui l'a mal pique dans la jungle hier. Elles sont parfois mechantes les plantes vigoureuses de la jungle! Mais on passe une tres belle journee sur notre petite ile. Juste dire bonjour aux enfants et aux habitants (a chaque jour on s'efforce d'apprendre un nouveau mot en Malaysien) ca met du bonheur dans la vie! Puis repos et snorkelling a notre petite plage. Dans l'apres-midi on est alle visiter les chutes d'eau, la seule 'attraction' a l'autre bout du village. Au retour, tous les ados et jeunes adultes du village etaient reunis pour jouer au soccer. Comme on passait (je le repete, y'a vraiment juste une rue ici!) ils ont gentiment invite Josh a jouer avec eux. Il ne pouvait pas dire non, ils etaient tous a essayer de le convaincre malgre qu'ils ne parlent pratiquement pas anglais. Je suis restee a regarder, apparemment ici le soccer est reserve aux 'hommes'. On s'est bien amuse. Ils sont tellement drole, souriant et plein d'entrain, ils jouent vraiment pour s'amuser. Mon prefere etait le gardien de but. Minuscule mais bien decoupe, j'suis meme pas certaine s'il pese 100lbs, il courrait a toute allure pour aller chercher le ballon lorsque sorti des limites du terrain, et malgre qu'il riait tout le temps, on pouvait voir la peur dans sa face lorsqu'un joueur de l'equipe adverse tentait de marquer un but, il etait si petit devant ce gros but de soccer et le ballon qui arrivait a toute allure, j'crois qu'il arrivait a l'arreter les yeux fermer pour ensuite recommencer a ricaner!!! Josh est retourne quelques-fois jouer avec eux, ici c'est l'activite principale a chaque jour avant le souper.

Jour 3 - De retour au travail! On doit terminer notre sentier vers la paroi rocheuse. Intuition du tonnerre, au premier coup on a trouve la base de la grimpe! Ca semble presque impossible, sans compas ni altimetre, apres plusieurs heures, on ne s'est pas perdu et on a marche tout ce temps dans la bonne direction. En retournant vers le bungalow, on travaille a rendre notre sentier facilement reconnaissable a vue d'oeil. Moi je m'occcupe des banches au sol, et Josh de celles plus hautes dans les airs. Le soir, on rencontre un gars de Singapour qui etait a Mukut dans un "voyage tout compris" pour le week-end avec sa famille et son collegue de travail. Ce sont les seuls visiteurs ici, des groupes de Singapour qui viennent ici dans une formule tout-organise pour une couple de jours. Il nous invite gentiment a partager leur repas. On termine donc la journee "entre amis" avec un vrai festin. Du poulet, des crevettes grillees, des legumes, du jus de fruit et meme un verre de vin, le grand luxe ici!! Quelle belle facon de celebrer notre sentier!

Jour 4 - On retourne dans la jungle, cette fois-ci avec tout l'equipement d'escalade. Notre sentier prend environ 1h30 de marche abrupte. Le plan est d'essayer de grimper le debut de la paroi pour s'assurer qu'on est bien au bon endroit, puis de trouver une cachette a l'abri de la pluie pour laisser notre equipement ici afin que ca aille plus vite le matin de la 'grosse' journee d'escalade. Tout se passe comme prevu et on retourne au bungalow en fin de journee. Ce soir on est encore chanceux. Un couple de Malaysien qui s'occupait d'un autre groupe de visiteurs de Singapour, et donc qui parlaient anglais, nous invitent a partager leur souper BBQ. Un autre festin et encore gratuit! Les plus grosses et les meilleurs langoustines que j'ai vu de ma vie et tout plein d'autres fruits de mer incluant certains dont j'ai aucune idee c'est quoi. Tout ce qu'ils nous demandent en retour c'est de jaser avec le groupe de visiteurs qui sont curieux a propos de notre projet d'escalade. Ils sont des jeunes de Singapour, ils nous offrent la biere qu'ils ont apporte jusqu'ici (car il n'y a pas de tout sur cette ile!) et nous ont est tellement heureux d'avoir des "amis" avec qui passer la soiree! Mais on va se coucher tot, demain c'est le grand jour...

Jour 5 - Le ciel est gris et il pleut! On doit donc remettre le projet d'escalade. C'est dimanche, les deux groupes de visiteurs de Singapour sont repartis. Le village est a nouveau desert. Mais il y a 3 nouvelles personnes prenant le cafe pres de notre bungalow. C'est le proprietaire et ses deux fils. Ils sont ici pour la journee. Ils nous invitent a se joindre a eux. Le proprietaire, quoi qu'on ne l'ait jamais vu puisqu'il habite a Singapour, nous dit qu'il nous aime bien puis qu'on est pas complique. J'comprends donc, on est arrive ici, on a trouve le bungalow, on a dit qu'on voulait rester ici, on a pas marchande le prix qui etait resonnable, on avait pas d'eau les deux premiers jours, mais a chaque fois on a dit: "OK!". Apres tout on voulait etre ici et ce n'est pas comme si on avait d'autres options!! Alors en retour il dit qu'il aimerait nous inviter pour le lunch. Quelle parfaite facon de passer cette journee pluvieuse. On a jouer "aux dames" (j'crois que c'est comme ca que ca s'appelle, ca se joue sur un echiquier, les pions avancent en diagonal, je n'avais pas jouer depuis 20 ans!) avec ses garcons qui etaient a peu pres de notre age. On a une fois de plus eu la chance de discuter avec des habitants d'ci. C'etait comme passer un dimanche apres-midi en famille, des petites choses comme ca qui nous manquent durant le voyage. Et la cerise sur le sunday, le responsable qui nous avait donne la clee du bungalow s'est improvise chef-cuisinier et nous a concocte ce delicieux curry maison avec du "mouse-deer" frais chasse!!! Je ne sais meme pas ce que c'est que cet animal, ni ce qu'est le nom en francais, mais une fois cuit ca ressemblait a un lapin et c'etait vraiment bon, une specialite locale qu'on ne retrouve pas au restaurant, quelle chance :)

Jour 6 - On met l'alarme a 5h15 du matin! A 6h on est pret a partir. Il fait encore noir, c'est un peu epeurant de se promener dans la jungle avec une lampe de poche. Mais ca fait parti du plan. On doit gagner du temps. Une longue journee nous attends. A 7h10 on est arrive au pied de la roche. Ca a ete beaucoup plus vite de faire la randonnee sans les gros sacs a dos. Tout ce qu'on trainait c'etait nos provisions d'eau, de lait de soya, de peanuts et de craquelins, hmm tout un menu! On retrouve donc notre equipement cache et a 7h25 on est pret a grimper. Il y a 10 longueurs de corde a monter. La premiere des 10 etapes consiste a s'agriper aux vignes pour arriver a monter. C'est du vrai Scotty ca, pas le fun du tout. Vers 8h, on est tous les deux en haut de la premiere partie et on se rend compte qu'on a oublie le topo dans le sac-a-dos (en escalade, il est tres facile de se perdre et de reste pris sur une grosse paroi rocheuse comme celle-ci si on ne suit pas attentivement une map detaillee). Comme j'ai grimpe en deuxieme et que je suis encore attachee a la corde, c'est moi qui ira chercher le topo puisque ca ira plus vite. Josh me descend donc a travers les arbres et les vignes, puis je dois remonter encore, vraiment pas l'fun, mais ca fait parti du projet!! A 8h10 Josh commence a grimper la deuxieme partie, cette fois c'est de la vrai escalade de roche plutot difficile. Juste comme il terminait et s'apretait a s'attacher a l'ancrage, un gros morceau de roche auquel il s'agripait casse et Josh prend une bonne chute d'environ 10m de long. Moi tout ce que j'ai entendu c'est la roche debouler, une branche d'arbre que la roche a cassee en chemin qui deboule aussi et Josh crier qu'il tombe. Instantanement je m'accroupie pour prendre de la corde et faire en sorte que Josh tombe de moins haut et pour me proteger afin de ne pas recevoir la roche par la tete. Tout va quand meme bien, on est pas blesse, Josh remonte et je monte a mon tour. Vers 9h on a termine les deux premieres parties. Cote temps tout va bien, c'est assez rapide. On devrait avoir le temps d'atteindre le sommet et de redescendre avant la noirceur. Malheureusement on s'apercoit que les "bolts" (qu'on utilise pour y accrocher notre corde au fur et a mesure qu'on monte) que l'equipe de Malaysiens avait place il y a environ 2 ans pour remplacer celles de Scotty sont deja toutes rouillees. Probablement a cause du climat tropical leur duree de vie est apparemment bien ecourtee. On ne peut donc pas se fier a ces "bolts", car on ne sait pas si elles sont encore assez solides pour retenir une chute. En plus que la qualite de la roche est plutot pauvre (se qu'on se doutait et qui vient de nous etre prouve par le gros morceau qui a casse). On discute, on boserve la roche au dessus de nous, on tente de trouver peut-etre un autre chemin pour monter cette section, mais on n'a pas moyen de savoir si l'etat des "bolts" s'ameliorera ou si elles sont toutes comme ca. Bref, a cause de toutes sortes de facteurs comme ca qui sont hors de notre control, et puisqu'on n'a pas avec nous d'outils pour remplacer les "bolts", a 9h30 on accepte la conclusion qu'on ne se rendra pas au sommet, du moins pas pour cette fois. Decision tres difficile a prendre, surtout apres tous les efforts qu'on a mis pour se rendre jusqu'ici, mais l'escalade doit rester securitaire, et la on est dans une situation ou il y a des risques qu'on ne veut pas courir. Il faut garder l'escalade amusant et securitaire. C'est donc heureux, mais avec le coeur gros qu'on redescent sans trop parler... A 11h on est de retour au Bungalow. On decide d'aller se promener et d'explorer le sentier amenage pour les groupes de touristes qui va dans la jungle dans l'autre direction. Et bien imaginez-vous donc qu'au bout de ce sentier, y'a un autre sentier qui contourne la roche et qui rejoint notre sentier qu'on a construit!!! Pendant tout ce temps c'etait la, on aurait pu sauver une couple de jours d'arrachage de brousailles dans la jungle, mais on ne savait juste pas, ce n'est meme pas mentione dans le guide d'escalade qu'il y a maintenant un tout nouveau sentier entretenu. On a fait du mieux qu'on pouvait avec l'information qu'on avait, on ne regrette rien, on s'est bien amuse pendant toutes ces journees, mais j'avoue que c'etait une drole de sensation, que je ne trouvais un peu stupides par-dessus la sensation d'echec de ne pas se rendre au sommet, mais ce n'est pas notre faute, y'avait pas moyen de savoir...

Le lendemain on quitte Mukut, triste de laisser tous ces gens sympatiques derrieres nous et de ne pas avoir accompli notre projet, mais heureux de continuer le voyage. Durant les deux semaines suivantes on s'est promenes un peu partout en Malaysie. On est alle au parc national Taman Negara ou on a entre autre vu un village d'aborigenes Orang Asli. C'etait interessant de lire les descriptions de toutes les plantes qu'on connaissait maintenant tres bien! Le cote negatif est qu'il a pleut toute la nuit et que les sentiers etaient remplis de sangsues. Josh qui ne craint rien par avec ses sandales. Moi j'y vais avec mes grossses bottes, mes pantalons, etc. C'etait pas mal chaud pour se promener a 30-40 degres humide. Et bien avec ma mal chance, c'est moi qui m'ait fait prendre. La sangsue a monter tout le long de ma botte et de mes bas pour s'accrocher a ma jambe. Ca a pris 4 allumettes pour reussir a l'enlever. Apres ca j'ai appris le truc et j'ai mis mes pantalons dans mes bas!!! Puis on a pris le "jungle" train pour se rendre a Kota Bahru dans le nord de la Malaysie. C'etait toute une experience, 8h sans air climatisee, mais avec des divertissements comme les chariots de nourriture, les ecoliers, etc. On est reste a Kota Bahru qu'un seul soir, le temps de se regaler au marche. Hmmmm, cocktails a base de lait de coco, riz bleu avec herbes fraiches (la specialite ici), poulet et boeuf marine et grille, des crepes et des tonnes de patisseries, tout ce festin pour moins de 5$ pour nous deux :) On est ensuite alle a l'ile Perhentian ou on est reste 3 jours pour suivre notre certification avancee de plongee. C'etait vraiment bien, on a vu des requins, une epave et appris beaucoup. Par contre on a pas beaucoup profite de la belle plage de sable blanc puisqu'on passait notre temps sous l'eau ou a faire nos devoirs pour le cours. Puis on est descendu du cote ouest et arrete a Cameron Highlands ou on a visite des plantations de the, une ferme de papillons (le guide s'est amuse a me mettre un gros scorpion d'environ 20cm de long sur le bras me disant que ce n'est pas dangereux si je ne bouge pas. Plutot desagreable comme sensation surtout lorsqu'il s'est mis a monter vers mon epaule et que le guide riait de moi plutot que de l'enlever!!) et mange des fraises :) Je crois que c'est le seul endroit en Asie ou ils ont un climat permettant de faire pousser des fraises. On s'est bien amuses et encore une fois bien regales. On a termine notre visite par Kuala Lumpur, qu'a pas trop aime puisque les gens n'etaient pas aussi gentils et les transports en commun sont totalement inefficace. Mais on en a profite pour aller au gym d'escalade (le plus grand gym d'escalade du sud-est de l'asie, et le plus beau gym d'escalade qu'on a vu) ainsi que grimper a la grotte Bathu. La grotte abrite un temple Indien qu'on a visite, et ou on ne peut evidemment pas grimper (wow, ca serait un autre paradis d'escalade sinon!) mais autour, a l'exterieur de la grotte, il y a des voies d'escalade. J'y ai aussi pris mon premier cours de cuisine, j'ai adore, je m'ennuie de mes chaudrons!!! Une premiere journee sans Josh depuis tres longtemps, mais il etait tres content puisqu'ils nous ont donne un petit plat de plastique pour ramener nos restants de bouffe! On est aussi retourner magasiner pour acheter une nouvelle camera. Notre nouveau bebe, cette fois-ci on y fait tellement attention, on la traine dans un etuit a l'epreuve de l'eau etc. Certaines personnes commencent avec une plante ou un chien, nous on doit d'abord apprendre a s'occuper d'une camera...

PHOTOS Australie 4 PICTURES !!!

2008-07-17T03:31:00.000-07:00

We have the last of the Australia photos up!

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

Et voici les dernieres photos de notre voyage en Australie...

Singapore - Back in SE Asia

2008-07-17T01:31:00.000-07:00

Leaving Darwin, we took a quick flight to nearby Singapore. We were back in SE Asia for the rest of the year! Singapore is interesting. It is a city and a country, and the country isn't much more than the city. The current population is around 4.5 million, and with such tiny space Singaporians have definitely learned to build up! Singapore is also a unique blend of multipule cultures. We stayed in Chinatown while we were there, but we also ventured to Little India. The area is truly cosmopolitan, and it known as one of the better places to eat in the world due to variety and quality of the cuisines represented. Well, we did our best to try new foods, and quickly learned that the hype was warranted! Taking our knowledge from Thailand, that the cheaper/better food is in the street style stalls, we found many excellent new dishes at extremely low prices.

Like in Melbourne, we weren't able to enjoy the city as much as we could because we were so busy shopping around trying to buy things that we needed for the months ahead. Our missions included buying a new camera, since we no longer had one, I needed new shoes since mine were falling apart and I wanted to start running again to stay in shape, and buying a 60m rope for rappelling off a route in Malaysia that we intended to try (more on this in the Malaysia post that's coming). Like Melbourne, we walked the town up and down and explored the shops, malls, and markets looking for the best deals. In the end, we bought a new Canon IXUS860 (same as the SD870 in the US/Canada I believe), a wide angle point and shoot, a 70m 8mm tagline that was light and much cheaper than any other options, and I found some obscenely light Asics that are perfect for backpacking.

While in Singapore we managed to get off the beaten path some. Our first night we went to a local bar that had an extremely good band that did covers of American music and hung out with Nathalie's friend Vincent who lives there. Another day we visited him at his apartment when he threw a party with coworkers, and we went for a much needed swim in the pool at his apartment complex. There was a month long art festival going on while we were there so we went to see something different, a Cantonese Opera. It was truly a unique experience, the singing style and the music were completely foreign. The music was way too much percussion for my tastes, and we had no idea what was going due to the language barrier, so Nath and I balied at the intermission since it appeared it would probably last over 3 hours. We managed to hit the climbing gym in Singapore twice while we were there to start getting the muscles going for the upcoming route we would be trying in Malaysia. It was small, but had a cool lead wall about 15m tall that was outside. I think that the best hour and a half that we spent in Singapore was at a yoga studio. No one else showed up for the scheduled session, and the instructor just did a private class for Nath and I and did much instruction and correction of our poses. It was an amazing opportunity with the best yoga instructor I've ever had!

After about 4 days, it was time to hop on the bus north and cross the border up into Malaysia!

Photos AUSTRALIE 3 Pictures !!!

2008-07-10T03:50:00.000-07:00

Mo pictures mo betta! The pictures from the end of our trip to Arapiles/Grampians through our stay in Jindabyne with Josh's brother Pete are up.

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

Une troisieme serie de photos de l'Australie sont pretes pour vous!

Le 13 juin 2008: Singapour

2008-07-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

Cette fois on l'a choisie notre journee de vol international: un vendredi le 13!!! A part avoir apercu un chat noir en arrivant a Singapour, tout a bien ete, hihi. Environ 4h30 de vol. On avait prepare nos derniers sandwiches en vue de la diete au riz blanc qui nous attend pour les prochains 6 mois! On a bien hate de retourner en Asia. L'Australie c'etait super, mais ca va faire du bien au budget de retourner dans des pays plus 'cheap'. Mais pour l'instant, Singapour c'est pas si 'cheap' que ca. On avait pas eu la chance de reserver a l'avance notre hotel. Mais les telephones publics a l'aeroport sont gratuits. Par contre, toutes les chambres les moins dispendieuses etaient reservees pour tout le week-end. On se retrouve donc dans un dortoir avec 12 personnes en plein milieu du Chinatown! Mais ca va, l'auberge est toute petite, 'propre' selon les normes de l'Asie! et tres sympathique. On prend le train (equivalent du metro) pour se deplacer. Ici la population est surtout Chinoise et Indienne. Donc on peut manger pour vraiment pas cher dans les 'food court' chinois et indien. J'vous dit qu'il y en a des trucs bizarres au menu!! Je recommende Singapour a tous ceux qui n'ont pas encore voyage en Asie. C'est une grande ville oui, mais les quartiers Chinatown et Little India donnent un bon apercu de ces pays sans les desagrements! Les gens sont tres gentils ici et la bouffe et les magasins sont authentiques.

Donc a notre arrivee le vendredi soir, on s'est depeche pour aller rejoindre Vincent dans un bar. Vincent s'est un gars que j'avais rencontre lors d'une conference au travail a San Diego. Il est quebecois, il terminait son doctorat au Scripps Institute (la ou je faisais mon post-doc) et il planifiait un post-doc a Singapour. Comme ca, on s'est echange nos e-mail et garde contact en vue de peut-etre se croiser a Singapour. Et la ca y est on est tous ensembles dans un bar a Singapour. C'est vraiment cool de rencontrer des gens que l'on 'connait' en pays etranger. Meme si j'avais rencontre Vincent qu'une seule fois, j'avais l'impression de visiter un ami de longue date. Et c'est toujours pratique d'avoir quelqu'un qui vous amenes dans les bons endroits. Le bar etait vraiment cool. Il y avait de la musique live. Un band d'asiatiques avec un chanteur indien, ca faisait drole!!! Ils faisaient les 'covers' rock/pop habituels, mais a ma grande surprise ils etaients vraiment bons. Le chanteur avait une tres belle voix. Bref, on s'est bien amuse, mais on a pas trop bu, les drinks sont 14$ chacun! Vincent nous a aussi invite chez-lui pour des sushis a la piscine de son complexe avec des amis le dimanche apres-midi. C'etait bon de faire des activites de la vie 'reguliere'...

A part ca, on est un peu tanne des activites touristiques. On sait qu'on va visiter plus de temples dans les prochains mois. Alors ici on se promene dans les rues, on fait notre jogging et du magasinages. On y va differemment pour apprendre la culture. On est alle au gym d'escalade, ou on a rencontre les grimpeurs locaux et on est alle souper avec eux. On est alle a une seance de yoga, wow la chance, il y avait un conge, tout le monde etait parti pour le week-end, on a donc eu une classe privee. On a beaucoup apris et corrige nos mouvements, ce qu'on a pas souvent la chance de faire en Amerique. On est aussi alle a une opera Cantonaise dans le Chinatown durant le festival des arts. Ouf, on ne comprenait evidemment rien du tout! Mais c'etait bien drole. La musique est bizarre, beaucoup trop de percussions, on dirait parfois un groupe de jeunes qui frappent de toutes leurs forces sur des poubelles en metal! Mais les melodies chinoises a la flute etaient belles. Les costumes sont tres beaux et les maquillages tres typiques asiatiques. On a aime l'experience, mais je dois avouer que lorsqu'ils ont arrete pour l'entracte apres 2h de spectacles... on s'est sauve!

Le 22 mai 2008: Australie 4 - De Sydney a Darwin

2008-07-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

Arrives a Sydney, on va rester chez Aaron et Fiona, des amis de Pete et Annette. Le frere de Josh nous avait tout arrange ca! Alors Aaron vient nous chercher le soir a l'arret d'autobus (Josh avait une photo de leur mariage que son frere lui avait donne pour qu'on le reconnaisse dans la rue!). Il fait bon d'avoir encore un endroit ou rester pour 2 jours. On essaie de ne pas trop deranger, de toute facon ils travaillent et nous on passe la journee a marcher et a visiter. Sydney c'est tres beau. Il y a de tres grands parcs, les jardins botaniques et tout plein de personnes qui font leur jogging a toute heure de la journee. L'ocean entre partout dans la ville et j'ai l'impression que toutes les maisons sont au bord de l'eau. Par contre, c'est plus cher qu'a Melbourne. Bref, les deux jours on passe vite, le soir on a souper et celebrer avec Aaron et Fiona. On prenait le bus tres tot le matin, j'crois qu'on est partit et qu'on etait encore saouls de la veille!!

Notre premier long autobus. On a achete une passe Greyhound qui nous permet de reserver nos sieges a la derniere minute et d'arret ou l'on veut sur la cote est. Mais pour se rendre de Sydney a Cairns, meme avec des arrets, y'a quand meme plus de 3000km de route a faire. On fait donc un premier stop a Port-Macquarie. On voulait profiter des plages, mais il ne faisait pas tout a fait assez chaud encore. On doit aller plus au nord! On s'est quand meme baigne brievement, c'etait un peu froid, mes tres agreable, un bon changement apres l'hiver qui arrivait chez Pete et Annette. Mais malheureusement, durant cet arret a la plage, du sable a infiltre ma camera qui est maintenant brisee. Pas de chance pour les photos :( Mais juste avant, nous etions alles visiter un hopital de koalas, donc au moins on a quelques photos de ces charmants animaux. Ils sont tres difficile a apercevoir dans la nature, on a pas reussi a les trouver. Mais l'hopital, c'est un endroit ou des benevoles travaillent a guerir les koalas trouve malades ou blesses sur la rue. Ils laissent les touristes visiter et fonctionnent qu'avec les dons.

Apres ca on reprend le bus vers Brisbanne. Pas de temps pour visiter la ville. On arrive a 6h du matin et Lazar toujours fidele au poste nous attend a l'arret d'autobus! Qu'il fait bon de revoir un visage qu'on connait. Depuis qu'il nous avait laisse chez le frere de josh, Lazar etait ici pour faire de l'escalade. On va donc passer 5-6 jours avec lui a grimper a "Frog Buttress". Surprise, arrive au stationnement, Lazar n'a pas la Subaru. Il a emprunte la voiture d'une amie aussi venue le visiter pour venir nous chercher. La Subaru a encore lache la veille. Mais on ira avec lui pour essayer de la reparer. D'autres aventures nous attendent, avec Lazard et sa vieille Subaru, on ne sait jamais trop ce qui va arriver. Bref, cette fois-ci c'etait le radiateur qui chauffait. Une fois arrive au camping, il n'y avait pas un chat. S'en etait epeurant. Lazar dit que lui meme s'inquite parfois, surtout lorsqu'il va en ville et que les gens lui demandent ou il habite, sans reflechir il repond au camping, puis il realise qu'il vient de leur dire qu'il habite tout seul dans ce coin perdu de la montagne. Hahaha, on rit, mais moi j'exige que Josh viennent avec moi jusqu'au toilette le soir! Surtout depuis qu'Annette nous a fait ecouter ce film d'horreur Australien "Wolf Creek" base sur des histoires vraies de tueurs dans les "outback" i.e. les coins perdus, c'est grand l'Australie, y'en a beaucoup des coins perdus quand on fait du camping! Bref, on s'est bien amuse, avec Lazar on rit beaucoup, il a pleut souvent, mais on a quand meme fait de l'escalade presqu'a tous les jours. Juste assez pour tranquillement reprendre la forme...

Puis une autre nuit dans l'autobus. On fait nos voyage de nuit, ca passe plus vite et on sauve de l'argent sur les hotels de jeunesses. Prochain arret: Airlie Beach. Ca c'est tout une place de party pour les jeunes au bord de la plage. Mais nous comme on s'en vient vieux, on va se coucher de bonne heure! On a reserve notre bateau pour le lendemain matin. On a decider de ne pas aller a Fiji, les billets d'avion etaient plus cher qu'on croyait, mais la en revanche on se paye la traite. Les vacances des vacances. Soit trois jours sur un voilier a se promener dans les iles "Whitsundays" et a faire de la plongee. Wow, on a pas vecu dans tant de luxe depuis longtemps. La premiere journee, la formule 'voyage tout organise' m'enervait un peu, mais en bout de ligne, c'etait tellement reposant de ne pas avoir a penser a quoi que ce soit pendant 3 jours. On est loge et nourrit sur le bateau (la bouffe etait bonne, pas excellente, mais tres bonne, ce qui est rare ici en Australie, ils sont plutot fort sur les "fish and chips"!). On est alle a la plage "Whiteheaven" d'ou le nom, wow, la plus grande et la plus belle plage de sable blanc que j'ai vu dans ma vie. Puis on a passe nos journees a plonger et a faire du "snorkelling" parmi les poissons tropicaux et les coraux de toutes les couleurs. En Thailande les poissons etaient vraiment beaux, mais ici c'est vrai qu'ils ont de plus beaux coraux, i.e. plus colores. Sur le bateau il y avait 14 autres personnes avec nous. Tous des gens avec qui on s'entendait tres bien. Y'avait meme 3 Francais. Ah que j'etais contente de pouvoir parler en francais meme s'ils avaient leur accent de la France!! Bref, 3 jours de reves...

Mais ce n'est pas fini. On se rend ensuite a Cairns et a Port-Douglas pour faire encore plus de plongee au "Great Barrier Reef". (Bon, prononcer ca en anglais ce n'est pas facile. Pete et Annette riaient tellement de mon accent, que juste avant qu'on les quittes ils m'ont enregistree, hihi. ) Encore la, une journee a la plage et au parc a Port-Douglas, une petite ville riche ou les vedettes hollywoodiennes vont en vacances, et une journee de plongee. On s'en vient tres bons dans l'identification de poissons tropicaux! Puis on a pris un tour guide (bien oui, on commence a aimer la formule "ne pas se casser la tete"!) vers Cape Tribulation. La on a visite une ferme de crocodiles, on s'est promene dans la jungle, et on a vu des crocodiles sauvages lors d'une mini-croisiere sur la riviere. En Australie c'est fou, ils ont presque tous les animaux dangereux: les crocodiles dans le nord (on ne peut vraiment pas se baigner partout ici), les requins blancs dans le sud, deux sortes de "jelly-fish" qui peuvent causer la mort, deux sortes d'arraignes qui peuvent aussi tuer, les serpents, etc. On a appris tout plein de truc lors de ce voyage, comme ne pas laisser ses souliers en dehors de la tente. Mais heureusement rien ne nous ait arrive!

Dernier arret en Australie. On passe par Darwin. Cette fois-ci on prend l'avion. Ca faisait un bon bout de temps, deux mois et demi deja qu'on a pas vole! Cette fois-ce on a loue une voiture pour 3 jours. Voila, on se sent comme en Nouvelle-Zelande. Deux nuits de plus a dormir dans l'auto! On est alle directment on parc national "Litchfield". On a tellement aime ca, qu'on y est reste les deux jours. On a vu des nids de termites mesurant jusqu'a 6 metres de haut. J'peux pas croire que ces petites bibites peuvent construire de tel edifices en utilisant leur selles! Mais ce qui etaient magnifiques ce sont les chutes et les bassins d'eau dans lesquels on pouvait se baigner. On en a profiter au max. Enfin l'ete!! La troisieme journee on est retourne a Darwin, j'avais besoin d'une nouvelle coupe de cheveux avant de retourner en Asie et on avait un peu de magasinage a faire avant de se rendre a l'aeroport. C'est termine pour l'Australie, c'est maintenant le sud-est de l'Asie qui nous attend pour le reste du voyage. Fini les kangorous (est ce que je vous ai dit qu'on la cuisine a toutes les sauces? Spaghetti, Burrito, hamburgers, steak, filet, etc. hmmmm delicieuse viande sans gras!), le riz blanc nous attend. C'est le bon cote, chaque fois qu'on quitte un endroit, on est content d'aller a la prochaine destination...

Australia 5: Back on the Road - East Coast

2008-07-05T21:26:00.001-07:00

Pete was kind enough to drop us off in Canberra where we picked up the Greyhound to Sydney. He even lined up a place for us to stay with his friends Aaron and Fiona! We stayed just across the bay from the Sydney Opera house and spent 2 days wandering around on foot. We saw the opera house, the bridge, the botanical gardens. All were beautiful, especially the gardens next to the opera house. They sprawl for miles and have amazing views. One of the interesting things in the garden are the "grey headed flying foxes" (fruit bats). There are thousands. It was a nice city, but we didn't spend much time there since we had promised Lazar we would meet him up north in a few days.

We caught another Greyhound bus (we probably Greyhounded for close to 4,000km and spent many nights trying to sleep on red eye buses since it was cheaper than paying for a hostel at night) and headed to Port Macquarie. There, we visited a koala hospital and saw many of the furry little guys. We hit the beach and went swimming in the ocean for the first time in a while. As we headed north it was becoming noticably warmer despite winter getting closer in the southern hemisphere. The most depressing thing about stopping in Port Macquarie is that this is where Nath's camera stopped working. That's right folks... no more cameras for us! :( We tried to get it fixed, but it was not only too expensive but a logistical nightmare. At least we didn't lose the pictures this time (not that we've uploaded them yet since the camera was broken).

Next Greyhound stop was Brisbane! Lazar picked us up at the bus station, miraculously finding us on the 4th or 5th floor of the enormous building, and we headed to the car. As we walked to the car, I noticed his wasn't in the parking lot in front of us. I still laugh at when I asked what happened and he just calmly replied, "There have been events." Apparently, his car overheated, blew a hose, and lost any power uphill. Luckily, he had met a fellow climber at Frog Buttress where we were headed and she had let him borrow her car for a few hours to pick us up! Yeah climbing community! We arrived at Frog Buttress, set up camp quickly, and headed out to bag a few routes. We were both rusty with all the time taken off from climbing. The next week was spent climbing dreamy splitter cracks, and heading into town for food, swimming laps on rest days, and attempting to repair the car. The car was repaired for a reasonable amount of money. The busted hose was replaced and some liquid to stop radiator leaks was applied and all seemed to be running better. Lazar and Nath were both leading well, and Nath managed to onsight another 22! It was a beautiful 35-40m crack in a corner that required much stemming and technique. I worked on onsighting the 23s, and on my last day redpointed a beautiful 24 that was supposed to be the best route there. I would have tried climbing harder, but the harder routes were unimaginably thin. In route descriptions there would be mentions of 6 black aliens and 2 blue. Lazar had climbed with people with ballnuts, etc. Well, I just didn't have enough of that size gear. For the 24 I had just enough small cams with Lazar and my rack combined and it was still scary squeezing 00 TCUs into flares, or two lobes of a cam since that was as deep as it went. Luckily, the climbing was relatively secure (but hard) until the top where the gear got a little better and the route harder. Anyways, we had fun, got rained on (which was the theme of our climbing in mainland Australia), played darts in the campground, and hit the bar when it was too cold at night. Nath and I were both sad when Lazar dropped us off at the bus station. He is a great guy, really positive, super funny, and we both hope to see him again. Lazar, if you read this, you really should come to the states to do a bigwall! ;)

Another Greyhound bus brought us to the famous Airlie Beach, the adventure center for the famous Whitsunday islands. They are a group of islands out near the Great Barrier Reef that are just beautiful. Nath bought one of those disposable cameras that can go underwater, we booked a 3 day 2 night trip on a sailboat and we headed out! We visited the astounding Whitehaven Beach, probably one of the most beautiful beaches on earth. Our tour guide told us that the sand was so pure, it was what the lens of the Hubble Telescope was made out of. We slept and went scuba diving near Turtle Island, but the visibility wasn't too good (quite horrible actually). However, next we headed out to the Great Barrier Reef for our first time! Nath and I went scuba diving and snorkeled. The water was amazingly clear. The coral created enormous reefs that rose up out of the ocean for a few hours since we were there for an abnormally low lowtide. This protected us from waves, and we spent the night sleeping well far out in the ocean surrounded by the GBR. We woke the next day to more snorkeling before the long trip home. Unfortunately, although we were on a sailboat, the winds were low and we were under motor almost the entire time. We did get about an hour of sailing on the way home when the winds picked up which was great. We would have been more disappointed by the small amout of sailing, but lower winds mean better visibility in the water so we were glad to have an excellent opportunity to see the reef and it's beauty!

We returned to Airlie Beach with enough time to grab food, some new used books, and jump another overnight Greyhound to Cairns. Cairns is the main place to go the GBR. The GBR is closer to the land up north, and the water is warmer. We only stayed one night in Cairns before heading north to Port Douglas. We heard that although it was more expensive, the reef was even closer and the the diving better since fewer people were impacting the reef up there. We spent another day scuba diving and snorkelling on a day boat trip and that was awesome. I saw a cuttlefish (like a squid), a black tip reef shark, and we found a giant clam that lived up to it's name! We spent another day doing a tour of Cape Tribulationon which we saw giant salt water crocodiles in a zoo-like setting and in the wild. Also, we walked in the jungle learning what to avoid in Malaysia on Tioman island (more on that in a later post).

By the way, Australia is teeming with stuff that will kill you. Maybe that's why there are so few people per square mile? There are two types of spiders with fatal bites, many poisonous snakes (some are the most poisonous on earth), salt water crocodiles which make any waterway salt or fresh a potential hazard since they can and will eat people if given the opportunity, in the north the box jellyfish and the irukandji jellyfish will make you want to die if they don't kill you, and the great white shark patrols southern Australia. Even the freaking platypus is poisonous! No, I'm not joking, look it up...

After Cairns, a short flight brought us to Darwin. At this point we were back in high temperature/humidity, it was preparing us for SE Asia again. We rented a car and headed south to Litchfield National Park where there are beautiful waterfalls and rivers to swim in, as well as the bizarre termite mounds. The termites build these enormous mounds over 6m in height that are engineering marvels keeping the dry from the wet season and controlling the temperature by orienting them along the N-S axis. Quite fascinating to see and read about the little guys. There are soldiers that spit acid from funnel shaped mouths. We saw them while they were doing some outside repairs! We spent two days in Lichfield since the swimming was so nice, and I managed to tear it up in one of the pools doing many deep water soloing routes. It was awesome, and wet/barefoot I'd say some of the routes were up near the 12a range. I was really pushing my limits and loving it. Some of the lines were probably first ascents, but who knows. Seems like most accessible stuff has been climbed these days....

When we got back to Darwin, we took care of some odds and ends like getting the photos processed from the disposable camera. They were of expected quality, unfortunately. Don't buy those things, ever! When all was ready, we headed to the airport. We were off to Singapore, back to SE Asia!

Australia 4: Hanging with my Brother!

2008-07-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, my brother, Pete, lives in Jindabyne, NSW, Australia. He married Annette, an Australian, and moved there years ago. Nath, Lazar, and I arrived in Jindabyne late in the night, but Pete was still up waiting and met us at a gas station to show us the way to his place. He lives in a rather rural area outside of Jindabyne on about 16 acres of property. The road to his place was crawling with native animals, and I managed to see my first and last wombats of the trip on the way to his place. However, they were all running away, and all I really saw were fuzzy butts disappearing into the darkness. Pete says they're built like tanks and if you hit one of the little guys they can knock the wheel off your car! We arrived late, Pete showed us our room, we talked a little, and he let Lazar crash for the night. I went to sleep excited about the next two weeks, my first opportunity to spend time with my brother in about 6-7 years!

We did many great things while in Jindabyne. We hiked local hills and rivers, explored a cave, jumped in hot springs, tried local liquors, saw a band and a comedian, and drank a lot. One day, we even went on a hard core mountaineering trip through the snow and ice up Australia's tallest mountain, Mt. Kosciuszko! Actually, it was more like a day hike up a road with patches of snow/ice a few inches thick to the modest height of 2228 meters/7310'. Pete introduced me to Top Gear, and English car show that is absolutely hilarious, and he showed me quite a bit about building as we worked on his house and property. I now know the basics of welding and thus my running shoes have a hole in the toe. :)

One of the really enjoyable things that Nath and I did was help Pete work around the house. Pete is a carpenter by trade now, and designed and built much of his beautiful house. It is a two story home on 16 acres of slowly rolling hills. He has a truly massive window (around 8m x 8m?) that overlooks the countryside. Annette has a horse, and was in the process of buying a 2nd while we were there. The two major projects we helped Pete with were nearly completing the new deck with a sunk fire pit that he had designed and was working on, and we helped him clear his land of many non-native willow trees that "land care" had killed last year. The deck was beautiful and the fire pit was perfect. Pete threw a party and we all hung out by the fire getting drunk on good alcohol until the wee hours of the morning. Clearing the trees was fun because we had to haul huge sections that fell into the creek with a chain attached to the 4-runner. Even better, we had to burn the piles that we created! Our dad taught us all about how to burn stuff as we grew up and its definitely something that I've been missing while living in San Diego!

I really enjoyed living in the country for a few weeks, and it was a truly needed relief from all our travel. Travel is hard. It sounds all fun and amusing, but stress is often high and logistics are a nightmare. At Pete's, I was waking up and taking his dog Diesel out most mornings around sunrise on a 30+ minute walk through neighboring sheep pastures. At sunset some nights we'd try to go see the platypus that live near Pete's place. While we were working on the house, it was low stress since it was fun to help Pete and it really felt more like hanging out. The whole experience was just relaxing and very rejuvenating.

The best was just talking while we did all of these things. I learned a lot about my brother that I didn't know, and got to know Annette better. I'm writing this in July, halfway through the trip. Nath and I have been to Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia. We've had amazing adventures and climbed spectacular things. We've scuba dived in unimaginable beauty and seen bizarre and captivating wildlife. However, the best part of this trip so far has been staying in the little town if Jindabyne and reconnecting with Pete after so long. I'm already looking forward to going back!

Thanks for a great time Pete and Annette!

Photos AUSTRALIA pictures !!!

2008-06-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

Et la premiere moitie des photos de l'Australie (incluant le Totem Pole!!) sont la pour vous:

www.nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com

The first half of the pictures for Australia are up! That includes the Tote!

Australia 3: Tasmania to Jindabyne

2008-06-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

After we finished the Totem Pole, we set to exploring the as much of Tasmania as we could. We went to Port Arthur, the old prison town which is now a historical site, which was actually quite interesting, then headed back to camp at Fortescue Bay again so that we could try to see some Fairy Penguins. They're as cute as their name implies, but we waited in the wrong spot and missed them at dusk, so we only saw them by headlamp. Oh well. The next day was a 10 pitch 220m 23 called I've Heard it all Before on Mt. Brown. You hike the mountain, then rappel down the face until you clip in just above the ocean and swells, if it's low tide and the swell is down, and climb back up the face. It was a stellar route, with a little rotten rock here and there. That seemed to be a theme for the climbing in Tasmania, great climbing, if you can handle poor rock quality. We finished our Tas tour up near Launceston for some wine tasting and Nath insisted we hit the Cadbury Chocolate on our last morning. Now it was time to go back to Arapiles!

We blitzed through Melbourne this time, and met Lazar, Derek's friend, in Horsham where he kindly picked us up late at night. The next few weeks were spent climbing with Lazar. Both he and Nath progressed quickly while they were there. Lazar was consistently onsighting 21 by the time we left, and Nath was able to onsight a 22 by the time we left. It was fun watching them improve and get better. I spent a lot of time on routes in the 23-25 range. I have to say that the 23's at Arapiles were difficult to say the least. They were often runout, sustained, difficult to protect where there was gear, and were just damn hard! I think I did every three star 23 at Arapiles by the time I left, and was challenged on every one of them! Some were crazy, like the 15m traverse under a roof, or the one with a single micro stopper in about 10m of HARD face climbing. I didn't do much improving at Arapiles, because the hard routes aren't high quality, and they often were complicated to get to. I tried a few on TR and lead, but didn't go through the trouble of leading any of them clean. Instead, I finally got my wish and we headed to The Grampians!

It had been such bad weather at Arapiles before Tasmania we didn't go to the Grampians once. The weather is worse over there since the mountains are higher. We had a few days of clouds and no wind, so we headed to the Grampians for two days. The first was great since Nath got her first grade 21 onsight on gear after the sun set. By the time she was through the crux it was pretty dark so Lazar and I were climbing by headlamp! I managed to onsight a 25 and generally enjoyed myself on more pure crack climbing at the wall we were at. More importantly for me though, was going to Taipan wall. We only had one day there, since Nath and Lazar couldn't climb anything there and it was so far away from where we were camping that I never made it out there with anyone else. They patiently spent a day belaying, or in Nath's case reading. Lazar TR'd the two routes that I did, and got a hell of a workout. My two goals on Taipan wall were onsight Mr. Joshua, a wickedly sandbagged 25, and try Serpentine, one of the best routes in the world with a lofty grade of 29! Well, I onsighted Mr. Joshua after a more than one hour battle. I found every awkward rest I could and it was still as desperate as anything I've ever done in my life. When I finished the route, I ended up on a ledge huffing and puffing so tired I couldn't clip the anchors for over 2 minutes I was so tired! After that one, I headed next door to Invisible Fist, a harder route rated 26. While the hardest moves were harder, there were fewer of them, and I actually found this one easier than Mr. Joshua! It was my 2nd 5.12c onsight of the trip! After that, we neaded back to Arapiles for the rest of our climbing since the weather was rather bad.

Back in Arapiles, Nath was steadily progressing. She managed to work her way up to redpointing 21 and onsighting up to grade 20, until our last day. On our last day, she managed to onsight a three star (highly recommended) 22 in a brilliant effort! We had decided that the next day it was time to move on and we headed back to camp to prepare for our morning departure. Lazar, who had been in Arapiles longer than us, was also ready to move on to warmer climates and so he offered to give us a ride to our next destination - Jindabyne! We hopped in the car in the morning after tearing down a campsite full of memories, and headed off.

We were in Lazar's car he had bought cheap when we got to Australia, and the fun quickly began. After a few hours, we got a flat tire and the wheel was fused in some way to the car! There was no one around, of course, so Lazar and I whacked on it with a brick a bit. Eventually, Lazar figured out that we had to whack it from behind, so reached under the car and with one good swing the tire was off! We changed the tire after a funny delay, and drove to the next town to buy a new tire. After that, we were pulled over by the police for having a light out which we had to stop and fix. It was rather funny. We didn't make it to Jindabyne until around midnight due to all the delays. At this point, Lazar dropped us off and headed north to another climbing area called Frog Buttress near Brisbane where we would be meeting up with him in a couple of weeks.

Le 23 avril 2008: Australie 3 - D'Arapiles a la maison du frere de Josh

2008-06-15T17:19:00.001-07:00

On retourne donc pour deux semaines au camping a Arapiles pour un peu plus d'escalade! J'avoue que ca ne me tente pas trop de retourner a la vie au camping. L'idee etait d'aller grimper au Grampians, juste a cote, mais ils fait trop frois la-bas maintenant puisque c'est a plus haute elevation et il aurait fallu louer une voiture se qui coutait plus cher que l'on croyait. Mais bon, comme j'ai ete malade, il y a tout plein de voies que je n'ai toujours pas eu la chance de grimper. Aussi on a notre nouvel ami Lazard (un des amis de Derek de la Nouvelle-Zelande). Lazard est tres fiable et toujours fidele au poste. Ils nous attend a notre arrivee a 10h du soir a l'arret d'autobus. Tous les autres de la gang de la Nouvelle-Zelande sont repartis sauf Derek qui part le lendemain. Lazard est en Australie pour 4 mois et il a achete une veille voiture. C'est un bon compromis, on a quelqu'un pour nous amener en ville (he, une douche et de la viande fraiche a chaque 3 jours!) et on lui offre de grimper avec nous (parce qu'en escalade il faut evidemment toujours etre au moins deux). Lazard est tres l'fun. On soupe avec lui sous ses toiles bleues. C'est notre nouvelle maison. On grimpe a chaque jour, Lazard est a peu pres du meme niveau que moi. C'est donc motivant, on s'encourage a grimper plus fort, et ca me fait un remplacant pour suivre Josh sur les voies tres difficiles! On s'est bien amuse durant ces deux semaines. Et ca m'a permis de vraiment apprendre a grimper en premier de cordee en traditionel. Non seulement j'ai apris a avoir confiance dans mes propres placement de protections, mais a ma derniere journee, j'ai reussi une voie aussi difficile que le mieux que j'avais reussi en Thailande (i.e. 22 soit 5.11a) mais cette fois sans les 'bolts'. J'etais tres fiere de moi, c'est comme accomplir un reve :) Deux jounees ou il faisait beau on est alle grimper aux Grampians. Lazard est venu avec nous et nous a donne un lift. C'est vraiment beau ici, mais les voies sont plus difficiles. C'etait parfait pour Josh qui a sont tour a realise de petits reves. Entre autre, il a grimpe une voie qui s'appelle 'Mr. Joshua' (hihihi, a cause du nom mais aussi parce que c'est l'une des belles voies la-bas) de niveau 26, soit 5.12c, encore plus difficile que le Totem Pole (mais sans toute l'aventure!).

Mais comme la temperature commencait a se gater encore plus, et qu'on avait atteint nos objectifs (pas tous, mais on reviendra!) il etait temps pour nous d'aller visiter le frere de Josh. Non mais on est en Australie depuis 6 semaines et il n'a pas vu sont frere depuis tellement d'annees qu'il en a perdu le compte... Lazard decide de partir en meme temps que nous pour aller visiter des amis a Sydney et du meme coup de nous donner un lift jusqu'a Jindabyne, dans les 'Snowy Mountains', la ou vit Pete, le frere de Josh. On saute sur l'occasion, ca va etre moins cher puisqu'on va partager les couts de l'essence, mais aussi beaucoup plus amusant que de prendre l'autobus. Car embarquer avec Lazard dans sa vieille Subaru, c'est une aventure a chaque fois! On part donc le matin apres avoir tout ramasse (on l'a evidemment aide a defaire toutes les toiles bleues) et c'est parti. On a toute une longue journee de route a faire. Tout va bien jusqu'en debut d'apres-midi ou on a un flat! Premier incident. Rien de grave, on s'arrete et on change le pneu. C'est presque l'fun, je n'ai pas fait ca depuis que je suis demenagee a San Diego! Je me depeche donc d'installer le 'jack' et de sauter sur la barre pour devisser les 4 bolts. Probleme: une fois les bolts enlevees, la roue ne veut pas sortir. On a beau tout essayer, frapper de toutes nos forces, mais la roue est jammee la a cause de la rouille je crois! Apres pres d'une heure d'efforts, Lazard a reussi a sortir la roue en utilisant une brique qu'il a trouve. Ouf, on repart, mais on doit arreter dans un garage pour acheter un autre pneu. Deuxieme incident: on se fait arreter par la police a cause d'une lumiere brulee! Au prochain village, on arrete a une station d'essence pour acheter une nouvelle ampoule et les gars se sont amuses a la changer. Il faisait deja noir, ils etaient plutot comiques avec leur lampe de poche de camping sous le capot de la voiture! Et pour terminer le tout, les derniers kilometres sont dans les montagnes, a traversers de tout petit village qui s'active que durant la saison de ski, et bien toutes les stations d'essences etaient fermees car il commencait deja a etre tard le soir... ouf, on s'y est rendu de justesse, completement dans le rouge! On est donc arrives passe minuit chez Pete et sa femme Annette, qui ont gentiment heberge Lazard pour la nuit. Wow, de vrais lits, une douche et des oeufs au dejeuner pour tout le monde, quel paradis! A part la visite chez John en Tasmanie, on ne se rappelle pas de la derniere fois que l'on a ete dans une maison...

Qu'il fait bon d'avoir un vrai endroit ou rester. Et quelle belle maison. Gigantesque et toute neuve, Pete est contracteur, sur un ranch avec les chevaux d'Annette. Il fait drole de se lever le matin et de voir les chevaux courir pas la fenetre. Leur 'bay-window' dans le salon est tellement grande, que j'y ai vu ma premiere etoile filante un soir en regardant la tele!!! On avait pas envi de visiter quoi que ce soit. Pete a pris deux semaines de vacances pour passer du temps avec nous et Annette travaille qu'a temps partiel. Donc certaines journees on s'amusait a aider Pete sur des travaux a la maison, Josh a appris a souder et moi a couper des arbres avec une 'chain-saw'! Et d'autres journees on partait tous ensembles pour visiter. On est alle a Canberra et on a visiter des grottes. Josh et Pete s'entendent tellement bien. Ils ne se ressemblent pas du tout, un blond et un brun, mais ils aiment tous les deux discuter de politiques et de toutes sortes de choses. Je trouve ca tellement triste qu'ils ne se soient pas vu depuis si longtemps. Ils n'ont jamais ete super proche, mais la ils rattrappent le temps perdu, ils discutent du matin au soir sans arret! Quand je peux, j'essaie de rester avec Annette pour laisser les gars seuls ensemble. Annette est tres gentille et une excellente cuisiniere, on s'entend donc bien! Des bons repas et du bon vin a chaque jour... on est reparti avec des kilos supplementaires :) Mais qu'il a fait bon vivre la pendant plus de deux semaines, a pres de la moitie de notre voyage, c'etait un repos bien merite, les vacances des vacances!! Merci beaucoup a Pete et Annette, ils viendront peut-etre nous rejoindre au Nepal en Octobre, ca serait genial, sinon on va beaucoup s'ennuyer, on ne sait pas trop apres quand on les reverra. C'etait triste de partir, on avait tous le coeur gros...

Le 16 avril 2008: Australie 2 - Tasmanie & Totem Pole

2008-06-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

Ah la Tasmanie, on y a entendu que du bien, mais le climat est similaire a celui de la Nouvelle-Zelande. On avait achete nos billets d'avion en fonction des marees basses afin d'augmenter nos chances de pouvoir grimper le Totem Pole. Plus que chanceux cette fois-ci, on a eu la plus belle des semaines des deux derniers mois, soleil pratiquement a tous les jours et environ 20C, ce qui est rare a ce temps-ci de l'annee, pensez a la mi-octobre au Quebec. On avait loue une petite voiture, mais cette fois-ci pas besoin de dormir dedans, on est reste chez John, l'ami rencontre il y a 2-3 jours. John est un drole de gars, intelligent, excellent joueur d'echec, etait un cale d'informatique plus jeune, il fait maintenant une maitrise sur le bouddhiste, n'a pas un sous, loue une grande maison avec 5 colocs, mais super genereux, ils invitent tous les voyageurs comme nous a dormir chez-eux, ils ont de vieux matelas en permanence sur les planchers du salon, etc. Mais surtout, ils n'achetent jamais de nourriture. John et un de ses colocs font les poubelles! Chaque soir ils plongent dans les poubelles de l'epicerie ou de la patisserie. J'vous jure ils reviennent avec toutes sortes de trouvailles. Je n'en croyais pas mes yeux! Des provisions a la caisse. Tous les pains et patisseries frais du matin jetes dans une grande boite. Des caisses de gauffres, de chocolat chaud, fines herbes, etc. Des tonnes de fruits et legumes... disons pret a etre manges! Mais sans farce, il rapportent suffisamment pour se nourir et nourir tous les invites. Mais bon, on ne voulait pas abuser (et j'preferais quand meme acheter ma viande fraiche!) on a surtout mange a l'exterieur (faut bien en profiter, on retournera au camping pour 2 semaines). Bref, je coupe ca court sur la Tasmanie, car je veux focusser sur notre grande aventure qu'est le Totem Pole. De facon generale on a adore la Tasmanie, les payages sont tres beaux, les gens super sympathiques, c'est beaucoup plus petit que la Nouvelle-Zelande, et ils ont d'excellent vins!!!

Le Totem Pole c'est donc une voie d'escalade tres difficile et tres renommee a travers le monde. Il n'y a que peu de grimpeurs qui puissent s'y attaquer. Un des reves de Josh et moi je ne pouvais pas refuser cette occasion. On en avait beaucoup parle avant notre depart, c'etait le 'gros' projet de notre annee. L'une des motivations a grimper a tous les jours en Thailande pour devenir plus fort. J'etais juste un peu inquiete, car puisque j'ai ete malade et que je n'ai pas beaucoup grimpe a Arapiles, je ne suis pas au meilleur de ma forme. Le Totem Pole c'est donc un pilier de roche situe dans la mer, imaginez un grand cube rectangulaire qui fait 70m de haut et 4m de cote. J'ai vu cette photo partout dans les magasines d'escalades et posters, c'est un des grands classiques. Je ne croyais jamais avoir un jour la chance de m'y rendre. C'est a nos limites de ce que l'on peut grimper, plus precisement, a la limite de ce que Josh peut grimper en premier de cordee et moi suivre en 2e de cordee. Mais ce n'est pas seulement de l'escalade, je le repete, c'est toute une aventure....

On part donc a 7h le matin de chez John qui habite a Hobart pour se rendre sur la peninsule au sud de la Tasmanie avec notre nouvelle amie Castilla (celle rencontre la veille vers 11h du soir!). On est pret, tres excites, on a vraiment hate de le voir en vrai ce Totem Pole dont on a tant entendu parle. Apres deux heures de voitures sous la pluie, on arrive au camping. Et oui, il devait faire beau, mais il pleut. On se dit tant pi, on est ici, on va au moins faire la marche d'approche, 2h de hiking, et au pire on y laissera les sacs-a-dos avec tous l'equipement pour le lendemain. Pour grimper le Totem Pole il faut de la chance, une combinaison de plusieurs elements: pas de pluie, pas trop de vent et maree basse. Vous comprendrez bientot pourquoi. Donc apres 2h de marche avec des kilogrammes d'equipement sur le dos, j'suis deja fatiguee, en plus on s'est leve tot le matin, on le voit enfin ce Totem Pole! On arrive par en haut, on regarde en bas de la falaise a nos pieds et on le voit, il semble tout petit vu d'ici!! Par chance la pluie s'est arretee. On y tente notre chance. On descend a travers les brousailles, Castilla fait aussi un peu d'escalade, elle peut donc nous suivre sur ces sentiers non-amenages. Apres pres d'une autre heure, on trouve finalement l'encrage. Ouf, c'est juste le debut. Meme si j'en avais entendu parle, je ne comprenais pas trop. Je savais que c'etait une grimpe difficile et situee dans un endroit exceptionel, mais la je venais de realiser que c'est pas juste une grimpe, mais toute une aventure. J'me dis c'est ca, les gens viennent ici pas juste pour la grimpe, mais pour toute l'aventure. Mais plus tard je vais realiser que cette voie d'escalade est non seulement difficile, mais de qualite exceptionnelle.

La deuxieme etape est donc de se rendre au pied du Totem Pole. Presentement on est au bout du sentier, attache a l'encrage en haut de la falaise et le Totem Pole est dans l'eau en bas de nous. Normalement en escalade on arrive en bas de la falaise, on la grimpe, puis on utilise un encrage pour redescendre en rappel sur la corde. Cette fois-ci on arrive par en haut. Josh descent en premier. Il est maintenant en bas de la falaise attache a la corde qui elle est attache a l'encrage ou je suis au haut de la falaise. Et la l'aventure commence. Josh doit 'swingger' sur la corde en direction du Totem Pole et essayer de s'accrocher a l'encrage au bas du Totem Pole. Je ne sais pas si vous pouvez imaginer. Il est pendu a une corde, se pousse avec ses pieds de la falaise vers le Totem Pole, juste au dessus des gigantesques vagues qui frappent la roche a toute allure (d'ou on a besoin de la marree basse et de pas de vent, sinon les vagues seraient trop grosses) et s'il manque son coup, il revient a toute allure vers la falaise! Au 7e coup il a reussi a s'accrocher au Totem Pole. Je descends aussitot. Pour moi c'est plus facile puisque Josh tiendra l'extremite de ma corde de facon a ce que je puisse descendre jusqu'a lui. Une fois aussi attachee a l'encrage au bas du Totem Pole c'est la grimpe qui commence. Mais juste avant, j'dois vous dire que pour un moment je me suis vraiment demandee ce qu'on faisait ici. Non mais faut vraiment etre fous. On est attaches a la parois, dans un endroit ou il n'y a pas de secours possible (il faisait bon de savoir que Castilla etait la a nous observer), assis dans nos harnais d'escalade (position pas tres confortable je vous le jure!) les vagues frappent si fort sur nos fesses qu'on en a deja les pantalons tout mouilles. Avant meme que je dise quoi que ce soit, Josh me regarde dans les yeux et me dis que c'est juste de l'escalade comme a l'habitude, que l'environnement est intimidant, mais que tout ira bien. Oh la la, pour qu'il me dise ca, je comprends alors que lui aussi a un peu peur et se demande bien ce qu'on fait ici!!! Et moi dans ma tete je me dis "que de l'escalade oui, mais sinon y'a rien de comme a l'habitude"... c'est ca l'aventure. Mais bon, le seul moyen de revenir a la terre c'est de se rendre en haut de se pilier. Et on a pas de temps a perdre.

Josh commence a grimper, il doit "aider" les premiers metres (c'est-a-dire placer une protection et tirer dessus plutot que de grimper avec ses mains) car la roche est trop mouillee. Moi je reste la a l'assurer, essayant de cacher mes pieds dans un petit trou pour garder mes souliers d'escalade au sec autant que possible. Grimper sur une roche mouillee ou avec des semelles mouillees c'est impossible, vous comprendrez que ca glisse bien trop! Malgre les vagues qui me frappent, je dois garder mon attention sur Josh, j'ai sa vie entre mes mains. En bon grimpeur qu'il est, il fait tres bien et se rend a la fin de la premiere moitie, la la roche forme un plancher ou l'on peut se poser. Il s'accroche au 2e encrage et me regarde pour me donner le signal qu'il est 'safe'. Au meme moment la plus grosse vague m'envahie, j'ai de l'eau jusque par-dessus ma tete, comme je regardais Josh en haut, j'ai la figure tout arrosee et j'en perd meme mon capuchon rempli d'eau!! Pas de temps a perdre, c'est a mon tout de me sortir de la. Josh m'assure, m'aide a passer la section de roche mouillee en mettant autant de pression qu'il peut sur la corde et je commence ensuite a grimper. Apres quelques minutes ah que les muscles de mes bras sont tres durs et font mal. Je n'arrive plus a me tenir. En escalade on appelle cet effet le 'flash pump'. Normalement, en debut de journee on grimpe des voies plus faciles pour rechauffer nos muscles. J'avais deja grimper des voies aussi difficiles techniquement, mais jamais sans rechauffement, dans tout l'excitement, je n'avais meme pas realiser que j'allais devoir grimper une voie tres difficiles avec des muscles froid. Je lache donc prise et me repose un peu mon poid sur la corde. Apres plusieurs effort, je rejoins Josh. A ce meme moment la pression relache, on se sent mieux, on est sorti des vagues, on a passe la partie la plus difficile, on sait maintenant qu'on va survivre!!! Ce n'est plus qu'une question de temps avant qu'on atteigne le sommet, en autant qu'on y arrive avant la noirceur...

Josh a aussi reussi la deuxieme partie sans tomber, une "on-sight" qu'on appelle, et du meme coup realiser un reve! Moi un peu plus reposee je le suis a mon tour. Je fais bien pendant la premiere moitiee de la 2e partie, jusqu'a ce qu'il y ait une craque horizontale dans la roche juste 2-3cm trop haute pour que je puisse l'attrapper (j'peux pas vous dire comme j'aimerais parfois etre juste un peu plus grande). Evidemment la je tombe, et je me bas avec la roche, mais a chaque fois qu'on tombe, a cause de l'extension dans la corde, on doit recommencer le meme mouvement difficile, c'est tres fatiguant. Cette deuxieme partie m'a semblee treeees longue! A quelques metres de la fin, mes muscles faisaient si mal que pendant quelques minutes j'ai cru ne pas y arriver. Josh me rassure, un peu d'adreneline, et je le rejoins enfin. Ca y est, on est la, tout en haut de ce Totem Pole. Quel bon sentiment d'accomplissement que d'arriver au sommet. On vient de passer des heures d'excitement se sentant seul au monde dans cet endroit completement depaysant. Mais du meme coup, qu'est-ce qu'on entend pas? Un claxon et des cris d'encouragement???!!!!?!?!?! Mais d'ou ca vient??? Des hikers du haut de la falaise et un bateau de touriste qui passait par-la ont eu la chance de nous voir finaliser le tout. J'vous jure que ca faisait drole d'entendre ces claquements de mains alors qu'on croyait etre seul au monde avec Castilla prenant des photos :)

Mes ce n'est pas fini! Oh oui on est tout en haut du pilier, mais on doit retourner sur la rive... On avait 2 cordes pour grimper le Totem Pole. Derek nous avait gentiment prete la sienne, qu'on est chanceux d'avoir des amis ici! Donc il y a la premiere corde si vous vous rappelez qu'on a attache au haut de la falaise pour pouvoir descendre et 'swingger' jusqu'au Totem Pole. Cette corde a toujours une extremite attachee au haut de la falaise, et l'autre extremite, je l'ai trainee avec moi tout le temps que j'ai grimper. Cette corde faisait un grand 'U' puisqu'elle pendait entre le haut de la falaise et moi sur le pilier de roche. Donc du poids supplementaire lorsque je grimpais, mais notre seul moyen de retourner sur la rive. Si on perdait cette corde, on serait reste pris sur le Totem Pole, sans eau, sans nourriture. C'etait donc ma mission la plus importante, on a pas hesite a l'attacher a moi deux fois plutot qu'une! On a donc grimpe avec la deuxieme corde. Une fois au sommet du Totem Pole, on doit attacher l'extremite de la premiere corde que j'ai apporte a l'encrage au haut du Totem Pole. De facon a ce que la corde soit tendu entre le haut du Totem Pole et le haut de la falaise. Et la il reste a s'attacher a cette corde, sauter dans le vide, puis se tirer jusqu'a ce qu'on rejoingne Castilla de l'autre cote!!! En escalade on utilise toujours le principe de la 'redondance'. C'est-a-dire que tout doit etre double en tout temps pour que si une partie quelconque brise (ce qui n'arrive pratiquement jamais), la doublure va nous retenir et on ne mourra pas! Mais cette fois-ci c'etait bien plus epeurant que d'habitude. Je n'aurrais pas ete satisfaite d'avoir le tout en double, ca a plutot ete le tout redondant 3 ou 4 fois, pas question que quelque chose lache et que je tombe 70m de haut dans ces vagues immenses! Donc avec plus de redondance qu'il en faut, Josh part en premier. Fidel a lui meme, il a adore sauter et se tirer jusqu'a la rive. C'est maintenant mon tour, et egalement fidele a moi meme, ah que je n'aime donc pas sauter!! Je m'attache a la corde qui est tendue, maintenant toute seule au sommet du Totem Pole, assise en petit bonhomme a l'extremite de la roche j'ai aucune envie de sauter, pour la premiere fois de la journee j'ai vraiment peur, mais je sais qu'il n'y a rien de dangereux et que je dois juste le faire. Je prend mon courrage a deux mains et j'y vais.... Une fois dans les airs, le sourire m'a rattrappee. C'etait vraiment amusant de se tirer sur cette corde pour rejoindre Josh et Castilla de l'autre cote. C'etait si amusant, qu'avant de defaire la corde et les encrages, on a envoye Castilla s'amuser sur notre 'tyrolean', elle a traverser jusqu'a ce qu'elle ait pu de sa main toucher au Totem Pole et revenir. C'etait notre remerciement pour la patience de notre photograph. J'peux pas croire qu'on ait des photos de cette aventure, quelle chance!

La grande aventure tire donc a sa fin. On doit retourner au camping, un autre 3h de marche dans la noirceur, mais on avait la pleine lune pour nous eclairer! Tout semblait si parfait. Qu'il faisait bon d'etre de retour les deux pieds sur terre et de partager toutes ces emotions avec Castilla. J'suis pas certaine que mon texte rend justice a tout ce qu'on a vecu, probablement que les photos ajouteront un peu, mais s'il y a une chose qui m'a suivi tout le long de la journee (et la je pense a ma tante mimi) c'est: "ah que j'avais donc envie de pipi" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Australia 2 - The Totem Pole!!!

2008-06-04T00:12:00.000-07:00

All you climber types know Tasmania for one thing: The Totem Pole. One of the very sought after coveted ascents in climbing. It consists of a thin freestanding spire of rock 4m wide that thrusts out of the raging ocean almost 65m. The picture of the first free ascent is so famous it's used world wide. Even non-climbers in Tasmania and Australia knoew what it is! The difficulties are many. It's an extremely difficult and exposed climb. Typically, you just have to worry about weather, but just to get on "The Tote" you have to worry about the sea as well! You need so many factors to come together for a successful ascent, that you have to be damn lucky! There has to be low wind, no rain, and the temperatures have to be reasonable. The surf has to be low, as does the tide. In order to maximize our chance of success, we set our plane tickets to coincide with low tide during mid-day (it's that important). The chance of success was still low. We planned to be in Taz for a full week, ready to wait it out if we had to! Tazmania is known for bad weather and high surf, so I still wasn't sure about our chances of even getting on the route!

Well, we flew into Hobart, picked up our rental car (they tried to rip us off, bring your internet receipt, luckily we did) and headed to a friend of a friends we had met in The Pines at Arapiles. He not only let us crash at his place for a few nights, but took us out climbing at Mt. Wellington the next day! It was dolerite columns, very similar to basalt, but the friction is the best I've ever seen in my life! You could hold onto anything! Lucky too, since the features were few and far between sometimes. We did one 60m trad line that I think I got off route on since it was supposed to be a classic. I ended up on chossy rock and it was much harder than rated (by the way, Taz is apparently known for sandbags - when a route is harder than rated) but I made it and Nath followed. After that, I tried onsighting a multipitch 24 (5.12a) sport (bolted) route up an arete and managed to pull it off. By then, we were already running out of time so we took off. When I asked John (the guy we were staying with) what type of rock the Totem Pole was, it turned out to be DOLERITE! I was excited since I had essentially just "calibrated" and gotten used to the rock and the style since the Totem Pole is a multipitch 25 mostly bolted route up an arete!!!

That night, while crashing at John's place, some other travellers showed up and they crashed there too. With the most amazing bit of luck, possibly ever, one of them was an occassional climber and when she found out what we planned to do the next day she asked if she could come and watch! We of course said, "Sure, do you mind taking pictures!" We suddenly had a photographer for one of the most amazing routes on the planet!

We woke early and made the 2 hour drive to Fortescue Bay where the Totem Pole is, and then after some preparations we started the 2+ hour hike out to Cape Huay. It had rained on us on and off during the drive, and I just hoped it would dry enough for us to climb the route. We arrived at the end of Cape Huay and I looked down from the edge of the cliff where the trail ends, and gaped at what I saw. The Totem Pole was a tiny little finger sticking up out of the water over 100m below with waves ravaging the base of it. We started the "climber's" hike down, which took a little while and we were finally at our destination a little before noon staring, level, with the top of our objective! Perfect! Low tide was at 12:05, the rain had dried enough, while cloudy and a little cool it was still warm enough to climb since there was very little wind. Despite what seemed to me large surges of waves slamming into the base of the Totem Pole, everything was falling into place......

Luckily, a friend from Arapiles (Derek) had let us borrow a rope so we had two for the route (you have to have at least two ropes to climb and get off the thing), and I tied one to the mainland for the rappel, grabbed all the gear, put on my harness, rain jacket, and stuffed my climbing shoes and chalk bag into the rain jacket in an attempt to keep them dry from the maelstrom of waves I was descending into. Before I left, I instructed Nathalie, "When I'm off rappel, come down QUICK, because neither of us want to be hanging down there longer than we have to!" I didn't really know what to expect, but I was nervous. There isn't much that gets me nervous when it comes to climbing, but the Totem Pole did the trick.

To help you picture it, the Totem pole is at the end of a small peninsula of land (Cape Huay) that drops precipitously into the ocean. From the end of the Cape, the Totem Pole is squeezed between the mainland and another island formation named the Candlestick by climbers. Beyond that is another larger island that keeps extending out where the peninsula ended. The Totem Pole is right between two land masses at a pinch point in the ocean, with open ocean on either side. This means that the waves/swells come from BOTH DIRECTIONS! The rappel is roughly 180' into this intimidating situation, and then you have to get on the thing! Near the bottom of the rappel, I ended up standing on a small ledge a little over 2 meters above the surging ocean. As the swells came through from either direction they crashed into rocks and sent spray everywhere.

I prepared myself for what I had to do: run (barefoot), leap across the gap between the mainland and the Totem Pole swinging on the rope I had just rappelled in on, and take a small wire (a nut with the head pushed down for you climber types) and try to hook it on the head of a bolt that had been placed on the Totem Pole by climbers. If I missed, I would swing back violently into the wall behind me. I prepared the nut, clipped to a long sling attached to my harness, and sprinted across the small ledge leaping for all I was worth! As the gap between me and the Totem Pole closed, I quickly realized how hard this would be. Right at the apex of my swing, the bolt was barely in reach and I only had one attempt at catching it with my small wire before flying backward into the rocks behind me. I reached, I hoped, and I missed! As quickly as I could, I turned around and prepared for impact before attempting to absorb all that swinging energy with my bare feet on rocks. Ouch! I swung back to the ledge and stared at my objective again, a tiny little bolt around 15' away.

I steeled myself for another attempt. Still staring at the bolt, ignoring all else, I ran and jumped as hard as I could... BOOM! A wave came in right as I was swinging and exploded around me soaking my legs with its spray. I stayed focused, but again my attempt to hook the bolt was a miserable failure. I slammed back into the wall behind me feet first again and realized this really wasn't going to be easy. I swung again and again, and eventually on my sixth or seventh try I hooked the head of the bolt with my little wire and I suddenly realized I was a sitting duck for those surges below! The rock was wet almost 2m above my head, and each wave the crashed into the base from the left side of the Totem Pole would be having it's way with me. Luckily, I had my shoes and chalk bag hidden in my rain jacket....

I quickly started working on creating a redundant anchor. I had carrot hangers for the 2nd bolt. I quickly put one on and clipped myself into it. The 2nd bolt I clipped was rusted and bent over from over use and metal fatigue. Then I realized that I couldn't get a proper hanger on the first, good bolt since I was already hanging off it with a wire. That problem quickly solved itself when the wire (pulled straight out since I still had tension on the rappel line) blew off the bolt sending me down onto the crappy bolt below. It wasn't much of a fall onto that lower bolt, but it scared the hell out of me! Suddenly I was hanging off of a single crappy bolt and the rappel line, and if that crappy piece of metal decided to go, then I'd be swinging rather violently back into the wall behind me. As quickly as I could, I got a hanger on the first bolt and clipped back into it! Then, I took myself off rappel and it was time for Nathalie to come down as the waves smashed into the wall beneath me. The whole time, the explosions from the waves seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. Either the waves were getting bigger throughout the day, or the tide had turned and was rising beneath my feet.

As Nath decended, I turned my attention to the waves careening into the base of the Totem Pole. While intimidating as hell, I quickly realized that I'd never seen water that blue in my life! It was amazing! Most water has a blue-green look, but this was BLUE!

I started scanning the line I would be climbing above me, and realized that not only was it wet and difficult, but it was also far to the first carrot bolt! It was at least 10' before the next bolt, but at least there was a tiny dripping wet crack above and to the left in the direction of the bolt.

Nath came down and we situated ourselves on the tiny cramped hanging belay, and I unclipped from the anchor to start climbing. Looking down, I realized that if I fell from even a little ways up, that would put me not only in the ocean with quite a bit of metal attached to me, but I'd be attached by a rope to hold me in the spot where the waves were slamming into the rock! Oh yeah, did I mention that those cold waters have Great White sharks? With the rock so wet and the danger so high, I decided to go the safe way, and I placed two pieces of gear in the crack up left and hung on them while I put my climbing shoes and chalk bag on, which had managed to stay dry. The shoes weren't dry long though, since the rock was soaked. I pulled up on the pieces of gear until I could at least reach something dry with my hands, and I chalked up and started climbing. The first 10' were the most intimidating I started smearing my feet on tiny wet holds while pulling strenuous lieback moves in order to reach the bolt above, and even after my feet were on drier territory the shoes were still wet underneath. I kept going until I could place a hanger and a clip into the first lead bolt on the route. I looked up and it was going to be a battle to the ledge above. There are few holds, and few bolts as well. I climbed as quick as I could, feeling guilty hearing every wave that slammed into the base knowing that Nathalie was being soaked by them. There was only so much I could do though, since I was climbing 5.12a with no warmup and the protection was spaced enough that I had to take it seriously and methodically to make sure I didn't go for any frequent flyer miles. Luckily, Nathalie had a huge grin on her face every time I looked down! What a trooper!

I worked my way up and up, and eventually found myself past the last bolt on easier territory. I placed a cam in a small crack since it was a long ways to the ledge, still, and when I was finally standing on top of the 2m ledge I let out a whoop of joy! I had done it, I'd conquered the scary, mentally demanding first pitch of the route with no falls at all! I quickly clipped myself into the bolts and pitons at the ledge, and looked down to yell, "Off belay!" Just as I was finished yelling the biggest wave so far slammed into the base and kicked up a spray so violent that I saw Nathalie disappear in the froth. When the white fell back into the ocean, there she was, the hood of her jacket pulled off from her head by the weight of water that had just landed in it! It was time to get her out of there! I hauled up rope as quick as I could until it was tight, threw it through my belay device and she was off the belay and on her way to join me. She did spectacularly, pulling all the moves of the pitch, except she just wasn't ready to try 5.12a without warmup. Her forearms "flashpumped" and she had trouble hanging on and had to rest occasionally on the way up.

Once we were on the ledge, I knew we were through the hardest part mentally, and that we would get to the top, so I was excited! However, I was on the other hand I was anxious. I had just climbed the first pitch "onsight" which meant climbing it without falling first try. It's the purest, most rewarding way to climb something. I still had a chance to onsight the Totem Pole! I haven't met anyone who has done it, including climbers who are better than I am. Looming above was 40m of wicked hard sustained climbing on the thinnest of holds with a grade of 25 (5.12b).

With the mix of excitement and anxiousness, I started up the pitch hoping that I could pull it off onsight! As I worked my way up the pitch, I realized that it was going to be a long protracted battle. I wanted to take it slow, rest where I could, and make sure I didn't fall. The pitch was amazing, simply perfect. Climbing an endless corner for move after move up a square pillar 4m across balanced in the blue, blue ocean... I slowly unlocked every sequence, and difficulty. When I got tired, I pulled harder. When I ran out of holds, I judged it right and leapt for the next hold far away hoping it was good, and it was. When I couldn't hold on any longer, there would be a small 2" foothold to take some weight off my hand so I could rest. I committed myself to climbing without hesitation when I was far above gear, and I slowly unlocked the puzzle over the course of the next hour or more, on one of the greatest climbs I've ever done. Toward the top, I was using my core muscles so much that my abs ached from helping my hands and feet work together efficiently. As I topped out on the final ledge, I could barely believe it! I had onsighted the Totem Pole! It was one of my biggest goals of the entire climbing trip and I had done it! I sat down and clipped in, and just enjoyed sitting on the top of such a beautiful ocean spire while I prepared to bring Nath up behind me.

This pitch was graded 23 in the guidebooks, so I hadn't realized it would be quite so hard for her. Nath had never climbed a 25 before (this is the true grade, I found out, after talking to many others and looking at the grade everywhere but a Tasmanian climbing guide) and again the lack of warmup that day took its toll. In addition, the holds were spaced in such a way that it would have been extremely difficult for her to link certain features with her 5'1" frame. Reach is definitely a factor on the Totem Pole. She climbed the first half splendidly, but as she reached the more difficult sections (where I had to jump between holds because they were too far apart) she had more trouble. Eventually she made it to the top, taking about as long as I did on my ascent of the 40m pitch, and we were both sitting on the top ledge together!

There was a final 3m summit block that I quickly lead up, for some pictures, and down lead. Peter Croft says, "Summits matter" and in this case I had to agree. After this, we had to start working on getting OFF the thing! The whole time Nathalie was climbing, she had the rope we had rappelled off the mainland attached to her. Before we had climbed, I had explained how important it was to her and how under now circumstances could she drop it, so it was attached to her with two locking carabiners. Now, the rope made a huge "U" between us on the summit of the Totem Pole, and the anchor back on the mainland. I pulled it tight, like a tightrope but with more slack, and tied it to two bolts on the summit of the Totem Pole. After I did this, I clipped into the rope and jumped off the edge of the Totem Pole to dangle 60m above the raging ocean below. I pulled myself hand over hand out to the middle and just hung there a while since I'd rarely be in such a spectacular position in my entire life. Once I was satisfied, I continued on to the mainland to set it up so Nath could do the same and we could get the ropes back. Nath was terrified to hop off the Totem Pole with so much air under her heels, but once she did, she immediately loved it. I showed her how to flip upside down and pull yourself to the other side efficiently, and we were back on the mainland having completed our first "Tyrolean Traverse" ever! Cassia, the traveller who came out with us, even threw on a harness and went out to touch the Totem Pole and come back!

With that, we packed up. It was getting dark, quick, and I had no idea that a 2 pitch 65m climb could take that long! I hadn't even brought headlamps out with us. Luckily, we had a full moon to walk back to the car with, and so we started the 3 hour slow moonlight walk back riding the high of success from our amazing, beautiful day!

Le 24 mars 2008: Australie 1 - Melbourne & Arapiles

2008-05-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

Et on reprend l'avion! Cette fois-ci juste un petit vol de 4h, economique avec Jetstar, mais pas de bouffe gratuite! On se donne 2 jours a Melbourne pour s'organiser avant d'aller grimper a Arapiles. On economise en ne louant pas d'auto pour l'instant, on sera donc 3 semaines en camping perdu dans un autre paradis d'escalade! Mais avant nous avons beaucoup, beaucoup a preparer. Soit 2 jours de courses au centre-ville de Melbourne, on reviendra dans 3 semaines pour visiter et prendre des photos. Ouf, j'ai peine a croire qu'on y est arrive. Si c'etait a refaire, on prevoirais 3 jours plutot que 2! On est encore souvent a la derniere minute pour la 'planification' du voyage, mais de facon generale on s'ameliore et je suis etonnee de notre nouvelle efficacite. Josh et moi formions deja une bonne equipe, mais depuis janvier on apprend l'un de l'autre et on apprend aussi ensemble des nouvelles experiences que l'on vit. Cette fois-ci, on a meme pas ouvert notre Lonely Planet, pas le temps de lire un guide de voyage. On se lance dans les rues inconnues de la ville, on marche, on marche, on marche, on trouve notre chemin, on trouve tout ce dont on a besoin... et le tout a rabais! Josh a compris qu'il est parfois payant de ne pas acheter au premier magasin ou l'on trouve, meme si ca veut dire faire deux fois le tour de la ville plutot qu'une! Il est aussi rendu bon a acheter les speciaux de la semaine a l'epicerie :) Moi j'apprend a ne pas trop m'en faire lorsque tout est plus cher qu'a Montreal et a accepter que parfois il faut payer le prix. On a aussi developpe une habilete a se renseigner, a demander de l'information aux bonnes personnes et a poser les bonnes questions. On obtient des renseignements cles, on sauve du temps et de l'argent. Quoique pour les questions, en Nouvelle-Zelande tout comme en Australie, c'est la job de Josh, car moi avec leur accent je ne comprend pas la moitie de ce qu'ils disent. On a donc decouvert le 'Big W', un equivalent au Wal-Mart, au bonheur de Josh ou l'on a pu acheter tous les petits trucs qui nous manquaient (advils, shampoing, debarbouillettes, sens-bon pour nos souliers qui pu, etc.) une bien longue liste apres deux mois de voyage! On a vendu nos livres a une librairie, vendu notre guide d'escalade de la Nouvelle-Zelande au vendeur du magasin d'escalade ou l'on a achete l'equipement qui nous manquait (quelle chance, il s'en allait justement en voyage la-bas!). On a aussi achete une nouvelle tente plus grande pour que Josh et nos bagages puissent y entrer (une demo deja pas chere et a 10% de rabais), deux petits matelas auto-gonflable pour le comfort de nos dos (style thermarest a 50% de rabais). On a refait le plein de propane et de nourriture pour 5-6 jours (car sans auto, on ne sait pas quand on aura l'occasion d'aller en ville), oh et un cooler en tissu a 2$. Par contre on n'a pas reussi a vendre la petite tente K-Mart de la Nouvelle-Zelande. On passe donc au bureau de poste pour envoyer une boite chez le frere de Josh. Soit la petite tente et tous les trucs pour l'Asie (pilules, anti-moustiques, etc.) qu'on a pas besoin ici. 30$ pour le coli, mais pour se departir de plusieurs kilogrammes, ca en vaut la peine. On a aussi figure la meilleure facon (i.e. la plus rapide et la moins chere) de se rendre directement jusqu'au camping a Arapiles en train et en autobus.

On est donc pret pour notre depart. Ah oui on est pret, on est fatigue, mais genoux commencent a faire mal a trop marcher, mais on a tout ce qu'il nous faut: vetements, equipement d'escalade, equipement de camping, nourriture pour 6 jours, etc. On a en fait pres de 200 lbs de bagages sur le dos et sous la main!!! La station de train est a seulement 15-20 minutes, mais pas question que je marche avec tous ces bagages, j'appelle un taxi, un 7$ bien investi. L'ironie: le taxi n'arrivait pas, on a telephone et retelephone. J'en ai finalement attrappe un qui passait dans la rue. Mais on est arrive de justesse et on a du courir comme des fous a l'interieur de la station pour attrapper notre train a 2 minutes avant le depart. Josh se dit quelle peine d'avoir pris une douche, on est tout en sueur! Et moi qui ne voulait pas marcher, bien on s'est retrouve a courir 1/2 km avec nos 200 lbs de bagages!!!

Arrives a Arapiles il fait beaucoup plus froid que prevu! -1C, l'une des nuits les plus froides en partant. Pas de chance. Pendant les trois semaines qu'on est la, il pleut un peu a chaque jour (non mais on est suppose etre dans le desert!) et il fait froid la nuit. Des temperatures anormales, mais bon, on est la et on veut grimper. Les roches sont incroyable. La meilleure ecole que je pouvais esperer pour apprendre l'escalade en traditionel (i.e. la roche est conservee au naturel, il n'y a pas de 'bolts' pour se cliper apres comme en Thailande, ici on doit placer ses propres protections dans les craques, tout un autre sport et d'ou les kilogrammes de bagages!). L'ideal ici c'est que meme les voies faciles sont super belles. J'y vais donc avec des voies faciles ou je sais que je ne risque pas de tomber et Josh me suis en 2e et commente sur le placement de mes protections. Une excellente facon d'apprendre. Quand je serai en confiance, je grimperai des voies plus difficiles... Mais je n'ai pas eu de chance cote forme. D'abord, a notre 3e jour, Josh a tente une voie difficile. Je l'assurais du haut d'une premiere roche. Parfois les grimpes ne commencent pas au niveau du sol, mais d'un petit plancher un peu plus haut sur la roche. Je m'attache donc avec 2 protections pour ne pas tomber. Josh commence a grimper, apres qu'il ait place 3 protections, il tombe. Jusque la c'est la pratique normale, pas de probleme, il est retenu par la corde et je le descend doucement. Il decide d'essayer une 2e fois. Malheureusement sa deuxieme protection etait dans le meme trou qu'il avait utilise pour se tenir la premiere fois. Il tombe, mais cette fois juste apres la premiere protection qui n'a malheureusement pas tenu le coup, ce qui arrive que tres rarement. Josh en a ete le premier surpris, il n'a pas vu ca souvent en 9 ans d'escalade. Donc, Josh tombe, ca premiere et seule protection part avec lui et il tombe donc tout en dessous de moi... Il va bien juste une longue chute dans le vide. Moi j'etais retenu par mes 2 protections, mais comme celle de Josh a lache, tout le poid de Josh c'est retrouve sur moi et ma main s'est retrouvee ecrasee lorsque je retenais la corde. Il me demande si tout va bien, je lui dis seulement de remonter en vitesse histoire que je puisse liberer ma main. Bref, plutot enflee, mais rien de casse, 2-3 jours de repos, mais j'ai retenu Josh, c'est ca l'escalade, on fait equipe, on met notre vie entre les mains de notre partenaire, et j'ai fait mon travail, ma main enflee pour sauver sa chute ce n'est rien, ca fait parti de la game comme on dit! Mais le probleme c'est qu'apres ca j'ai eu des maux d'estomacs. Ca a dure 2 semaines. J'ai passe deux journees entiere a l'hopital, vu 4 docteurs differents, mais ils n'ont rien trouve. Ils me retournaient a chaque fois avec des anti-douleurs differents, mais bon, maintenant je vais bien, on ne saura jamais ce que j'avais. Sauf qu'avec tout ca en 3 semaines, j'ai grimpe que quelques jours :)

Au camping on s'est fait plusieurs amis et la routine s'est installe. Les kangorous sont partout et tres sympathiques, ils se laissent observer et prendre en photos. Une fois je marchais et en tournant un coin j'ai fait un face-a-face avec un kangorou couche. Il etait a 2-3 metres de moi, il sursaute et se leve, il devait etre plus grand que moi! J'ai eu chaud une seconde, mais ces kangorous gris sont tres dociles. Il n'a pas bouge, j'ai juste commence a marcher dans l'autre direction. Mais l'innatendu pour moi c'etait les perroquets. Il y en a tellement, de toutes les sortes et de toutes les couleurs. Ils sont tellement beaux. Et tous les oiseaux. Pas de meilleure facon de se faire reveiller le matin. En Australie on a decouvert le plus beau chant d'oiseau, ainsi que le pire! Une fois reveille, c'est l'escalade. Quand je file bien j'essaie d'y aller, mais y'a des journees ou je n'arrivais pas a marcher tellement mon estomac faisait mal. A part le fait qu'il n'y a pas de douche au camping (au moins on peut boire l'eau de pluie) et que la ville la plus pres est a 37 km (pensez-y, c'est comme aller de Montreal a Ste-Angele!) c'est un bon endroit ou rester. Tous des grimpeurs comme nous. Je suis etonnee du grand nombre de jeunes qui, comme nous, prennent plusieurs mois/annee de conge. Donc ceux qui prevoit rester 2-3 mois a ce camping sont drolement bien installe avec des toiles bleues partout. Certain ont meme des divans, ils les ont achete usage en ville et ont fait du pouce pour les apporter au camping!!! Et oui, le pouche c'est notre moyen de transport vers la civilisation. Les gens de la ville sont habitues aux grimpeurs qui habitent le camping a chaque automne, et n'hesitent pas a nous embarquer. De mon cote ca m'a rassuree, car je n'aimais pas trop l'idee au debut. J'ai fait du pouce pour la premiere fois de ma vie a 31 ans! Donc une fois par semaine on va en ville, ca prend pas mal toute la journee, douche, epicerie et internet. Puis c'est le retour au camping. Comme on a pas de frigo, j'vous dit qu'on en a mange des sandwiches au beurre de peanuts et des pates au thon en canne! Par chance ils ont le lait en carton qui se conserve. Le soir on se couche tot car il fait noir et froid tot. Donc si vous comprenez l'idee, avec une douche par semaine, les memes vetements sur le dos 24h/24, mon chum qui pu et qui pique avec sa barbe longue, et on dort en momie dans notre sac de couchage respectif parce qu'il fait pres de 0C la nuit, j'vous dit que pour ce qui est d'un voyage romantique ce n'est pas maintenant! Par contre, apres 3 semaines de vie comme ca, j'imagine que j'dois etre prete pour la chasse!!

J'vous disais qu'on s'est fait plusieurs amis. C'est assez drole comment le monde est petit. Comme nous sommes tous des grimpeurs, nous visitons tous les memes endroits durant les memes saisons. Voici la chaine, j'espere que vous arriverez a me suivre! Y'a donc Collumn qui a fait la 'VISA RUN' avec nous en Thailande. Quand on l'a rencontre, il commencait a frequenter Rebecca. Column devait nous rejoindre a Arapiles pour grimper. Puis, en Nouvelle-Zelande on a rencontre Derek a Wanaka. Derek est venu a Arapiles avec sa soeur et ses amis qu'on a du coup tous rencontre. Andi, un ami d'une amie de Derek (j'ai oublie son nom) qui etait a Arapiles juste avant nous, elle attendait un gars qu'elle avait rencontre en Thailande. On apprendra plus tard que le gars en question c'est Column, qui n'est pas venu nous rejoindre, a cause de cette fille qui l'attendait et qu'entre temps il avait rencontre Rebecca! Mais on reverra Column et Rebecca dans quelques semaines lorsqu'on reviendra au camping apres une semaine passe en Tasmanie. Andi connaissait aussi deux amis qui etaient justement en Tasmanie pour grimper le Totem Pole, notre prochain projet. Ils sont donc revenus juste avant qu'on parte et on a pu leur poser plusieurs questions. Et on est suppose les revoir pour grimper en Indes en novembre. Le Totem Pole c'est toute une aventure que je vous decrirai dans le prochain blog. Donc la veille, juste avant notre depart pour la Tasmanie, on rencontre John, un ami d'une amie d'Andi, l'une des filles du groupe avec les divans. Et bien John nous invite comme ca a aller habiter chez lui en Tasmanie. Ce qu'on fera et la veille de la journee ou l'on allait grimper le Totem Pole, chez John, on rencontre une amie de sa coloc qui nous demande si elle peut se joindre a nous pour nous observer (elle connait la renommee de ce projet d'escalade), pour nous c'est plus que super, on aura un photograph!!! Ah que les 'adons' de la vie sont bien fait. Donc pour aller en Tasmanie, on doit prendre l'avion de Melbourne. Pour s'y rendre, on attrapper un lift avec une amie de Derek qui habite a Melbourne et qui etait venu le voir au camping pour le week-end. A notre retour de la Tasmanie, c'est Lazard (un autre des amis de Derek) qui viendra nous chercher a l'arret d'autobus, avec qui on va grimper pour 2 semaines de plus, et qui eventuellement nous conduira jusque chez le frere de Josh et qu'on reverra plus tard a Brisbanne (j'y reviendrai dans mes prochains blog). Bref, toute une chaine d'ami qui s'est installe. On a ete vraiment chanceux de ce cote.

C'est donc termine avec Arapiles pour maintenant. Le camping et tous les amis, ca a ete notre maison et notre famille pour les 3 dernieres semaines. Le plus bizarre pour moi ca a ete de realiser a quel point on fait maintenant parti de ce monde des 'backpackers'. On est juste comme tous ces jeunes qui semblaient si different avant. C'est nous les sans-emploi qui passont nos journees sur les roches avec notre tuques sur la tete. Sans voiture, qui nous promenons en autobus trimbalant tout ce que l'on possede dans notre gigantesque sac-a-dos ou qui meme faisont du pouce! Avant de prendre l'avion pour la Tasmanie, on a pris 2 jours pour visiter Melbourne, ou plutot pour manger plein de bonne chose. Melbourne me rappelle un peu Montreal avec tous ses bars et bons restaurants. Mais s'il y a une chose qui nous a surpris, c'est lorsqu'a 5h le vendredi soir on a vu tous ces travailleurs sortir de leur bureau, vetis de leurs beaux habits et leurs beaux souliers noirs, courrant dans la ville ou il fait deja noir pour attraper le train vers la maison, cellulaire a l'oreille et laptop a la main. Wow, quel depaysement, autant on a eu du mal a realiser qu'on est des backpackers maintenant, autant on avait vite oublie qu'on appartenait a ce monde de travailleur il n'y a pas si longtemps. Une drole de sensation que j'ai du mal a decrire...

NEW-ZEALAND Pictures / Photos de la NOUVELLE-ZELANDE !

2008-05-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

We've got the pictures up for New Zealand, FINALLY. Sorry it took so long all... It's hard to do internet while camping at and climbing 37km from town for weeks on end. Anyways, here ya go!

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com/

Bien, du moins pour ce qu'il en reste, hihi ! Comme on a malheureusement perdu la camera de Josh avec toutes les magnifiques photos de paysages, montagnes, glaciers, etc. Voici les photos de la derniere partie de notre voyage en Nouvelle-Zelande. Cliquez sur le lien ci-haut et amusez-vous bien :)

Australia

2008-05-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

We flew into Melbourne and promptly realized that most of the hostels were full due to the holiday weekend. Luckily, we found one, but it was the highrise ghetto version. It was bad as hostels go, but luckily we were in the heart of downtown Melbourne and it turned out to be perfect for us due to all of the things we needed to get done before heading out to Arapiles for a few weeks of climbing. This time we wouldn't have a car, to save money, and had a lot of preparation to do before we got there.

We needed to sell books, buy carrot hangers (specialized gear for climbing in Australia), buy a new tent since the other one barely fit us and the new one had to fit us and gear, mail as much as possible to my brother since we didn't need all of the stuff we had to Asia like mosquito net or pills, resupply on a few items, and the worst one was go grocery shopping since we needed to bring a few days worth of food all the way from Melbourne to Arapiles since we would be camping without a car.

We ditched the lonely planet since it wouldn't help us much for all of the things we needed to do and proceeded to spend our first day in Melbourne walking the downtown grid finding not only everything we needed, but where it was cheapest! It was a wild day of exploring, but by the end we had found everything we needed and at great prices! Our best find was a tent orders of magnitude better than the one from NZ for a mere $45!

That night, we planned out our strategy for buying and selling everything the next day and had a wonderful dinner of yummy kangaroo! The next day we woke up with our mission of getting everything everything done and again walked all of Melbourne executing all of the good deals we found the day before. There were half off sales, floor models, and more. I even found a guy heading to NZ for some climbing and sold our NZ climbing guide to him! It was great to get everything done so quickly, but unfortunately we didn't have much time to appreciate the city. Our last trip of the day was to the grocery store, where we bought enough food for at least 3 days of camping.

The next day we woke early and started packing. It was ridiculous. I'm sure my backpack had over 80lbs in it, and then I was carrying two more bags in my hands! Nath was also loaded down pretty bad so we decided to call a cab to go the 10 minute walk to the train station since it would have taken a lot longer with all that food along with everything else we were carrying! Of course the cab didn't come, Nath flagged one down in the street, and we made it to the train station with only a few minutes to spare. Luckily, we had bought the ticket already so it was just a matter of finding the correct train terminal. We read the destinations as we ran by, and luckily caught it just before it left. We probably ended up running about a half mile with all that weight. I was wrecked. The worst part was, we were just beginning 3 weeks of camping and we were already covered in sweat...

Over the next 5 or so hours we managed to take one train and two busses directly to the Arapiles campground! We were there! The world famous Araplies, where I'd heard many times was the "best cragging in the world!"

We were staying in the Pines campground, one of three that are all close together, but the Pines has all the climbers, it seems. The campground is great, there are no campsites, you just throw a tent where ever you want. It's only $2/person/night, and the enforcement is almost nonexistant. We paid, but when the guy would occasionally come throught I would say, "we don't know how long we're staying, can I pay later?" "No worries, mate!" There's something you'd never hear in the US!

Everymorning you wake to the beautiful call of the black and white magpies. I have no idea how something can make so many beautiful sounds at the same time. It's like a symphony coming from a single bird! If you wake up early enough and walk 100' out of the campground, there are kangaroos everywhere! They are so cute, how that stand there and stare at you. The animals of Australia have no natural predators and are relatively fearless. The other amazing animals were the parrots! They had such beautiful vivid blues, greens, and reds, that even I could see them easily! The worst were the large black birds that looked like ravens. They would make this sound like an old man doing three death groans in a B- horror movie. It was a horrible noise, but at least it just got funnier the more we heard it. I saw the Australian version of the porcupine, and two huge lizards with large scales and stubby tails. It was really fun to spend so much time outdoors and see so much new wildlife.

The climbing was what we were there for though, and it was truly amazing. The rock is highly featured (weathered) metamorphic sandstone that is extremely hard. The routes are wildly steep for the grade, due to huge hand holds and footholds on many of the faces. Both of us started climbing relatively easy stuff since we hadn't been climbing for a while on gear, and the gear placements were predominantly nuts, as opposed to cams which we were used to. We both lead some easy stuff to see what the rock was like, and by the end of the day I had onsighted a grade 24 (5.12a) on gear, Orestes. Nath took longer to get used to the gear climbing again since she hadn't done much before we left the states and worked on routes in the 16-18 range (5.8-5.9 or so). On day two I managed to onsight Have a Nice Flight (25), which was all bolted.

As my confidence grew, I decided to gun for Kryptonite Crack, a sandbagged 23 known for spitting everyone off. At the end of the third day, when Nath was tired from onsighting her first two grade 19 gear leads (5.10a), I gave it a try. I worked through the awkward severely overhung and leaning crack, but as soon as the crack ended, there were hardly any holds! I whipped off, lowered, pulled the rope and decided to try again. I clipped the rope through my first piece of gear again, which was a textbook quality placement and started climbing. I had to dynamically handjam past my previous jam since there was now a #2 camalot sitting in it, and this didn't work... I came whipping out of the crack and to my horror felt the first cam, instead of catching me, blew out of the crack! I whipped quite a ways past the ledge the route starts from, and was caught about 10-15' below before I hit the ground. While I was fine, Nath wasn't. I had just taken a very severe fall, and she caught me because she had wrapped the rope around her hand which was now crushed into the belay device and I hung off of her crushed hand with all my weight. As quickly as I could, I went hand over hand up the rope until I had something to start climbing on, but her hand was already injured. She had pretty bad bruising and range of motion was limited. I was pretty worried about it being broken, but she kept insisting that it wasn't. I ran up, built and anchor, rappelled down to retrieve the gear in the crack, and we retreated to camp. There we found someone with ice for Nath's hand, and she took some Vitamin I (Ibuprofren).

Unfortunately, as her hand healed over the next 2-3 days, Nath apparently caught a virus of some sort. Everyone in the campsite seemed to be sick from something or other, but Nath caught the worst of it. She had extreme pain in her stomach to the point where walking, and even sleeping were difficult. That saw us in the emergency room twice while we were out there, quite the hassel when you're without a car and it's 37 km away, but we pulled it off through friends and hitchhiking. Her stomach pain lasted for quite a while, and put a huge hamper on our climbing. She couldn't walk far, and I was afraid to fall while she was belaying since her stomach hurt.

Over the next few weeks, we dealt with her stomach problems, climbed while we could, and dealt with the crap weather. It was cold, windy, or rainy most of the days we were there, enough that I started doubting that Australia was in a drought. Despite the difficulties, we still had some good days. I redpointed Yesterday, a grade 26 (12c) gear line that was so hard I had to stop putting gear in at the top in order to reach the anchor. Looking at a huge fall (all air since it was overhung) I somehow managed to top the line out on my 3rd time on it. Nath and I also had a huge day linking every "good" route on the Right Watch Tower face. Each climb was over 100m long, so we borrowed a rope to make the rappels down the face possible, woke up early, and went to work. We ticked off, Mantle (14), Brolga (16), Auto Da Fe (21), Watch Tower Crack (16) and Skink (19). It was an amazing day, all of the pitches were top quality, but boy were we tired when we finished. Most people complete one of these routes in a day. Auto Da Fe was one of the best routes I did at Arapiles. Wild climbing on the thinnest of holds and thinner protection. When I got to the upper crux I realized that if I blew it, I'd end up with Nathalie 20m below! The moves weren't too bad though, and the climb was phenomenal!

After much time spent in Arapiles, it was time to head back to Melbourne. We caught a ride with a friend of a friend, and spent about 2 days exploring Melbourne. It's a great town with a lot of nice restaurants and places to go. When that time was up, it was time to hop a plane to Tasmania! We were off to climb the world famous Totem Pole!!!!

Le 7 mars 2008: Nouvelle-Zelande / 3e partie

2008-05-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

Il nous reste moins de 2 semaines. On doit monter la cote ouest, puis revenir vers Christchurch. On doit donc retourner sous la pluie! On dit bye a Dereck, notre ami rencontre a Wanaka. On devrait le revoir a Arapiles (un endroit d'escalade reconnu mondialement comme c'etait le cas en Thailande) en Australie dans quelques semaines. On se dirige maintenant vers les glaciers Fox et Franz Joseph qui sont les seuls glaciers en foret temperee (a basse altitude) et qui descendent presqu'au niveau de la mer. On prend une autre des plus belles routes (selon Meg), mais encore une fois on y voit que des nuages. En voici ma conclusion: toutes les routes ici sont panoramiques, puisqu'elles sont toutes bordees de paysages magnifiques, mais chacun prefere celle qu'il a eu la chance de conduire sous le soleil. Dans mon cas, ca reste la route vers Mt-Cook! Par chance, on a eu quelques eclaircis qui nous ont permis d'admirer les glaciers. Malheureusement, le sentier ne permet pas de s'approcher des glaciers, mais juste d'avoir une belle vue. Josh apercoit un groupe guide prendre un sentier qui semble se rendre plus pres des glaciers. On decide d'aller y faire un tour. Evidemment, il y a une grande pancarte interdissant l'acces et indiquant 'dangereux' et 'sentier prive'. Nous mais encore une fois ils rient de nous, on est dans un parc national et ils privatisent des sentiers pour charger plus d'argent aux touristes. C'est plus d'une centaine de dollars pour marcher dans ce sentier avec un guide. Et y'a des escaliers de bois, le sentier est tout amenage, loin d'etre dangereux. On decide s'essayer et d'y aller pareil. Bonne chose, tous les guides qu'on a rencontre nous ont seulement rappeles que ce sentier est 'prive' et nous ont juste demande de laisser passer les groupes a sens inverse. On s'est donc rendu jusqu'au glacier, au grand bonheur de Josh qui a pu marcher les 2 pieds dessus! Au retour il recommence a pleuvoir, il pleut et il pleut. Comme on dort encore dans la voiture, on se paye un bon souper au resto dans un charmant petit cafe reconnu pour sa cuisine utilisant des produits locaux. On choisit le carre d'agneau... ah que c'etait bon :)

On se leve tot le matin. C'est le temps pour une autre longue randonnee: le sentier Copland qui nous a ete fortement recommende par plusieurs personnes a cause de la presence de sources d'eau chaude dans lesquelles ont peut se baigner une fois arrive au refuge. Apparemment l'un des meilleurs sentiers, tout le monde nous conseille d'apporter une bouteille de vin, que ca va etre super dans les sources d'eau chaude. La verite: 17km de marche sous la pluie et dans une foret sans aucune vue. Arrives au refuge, les sources d'eau chaude sont effectivement geniales, trois bassins d'eau moderement chaude a tres chaude, un vrai spa naturel avec vue incroyable sur les sommets enneiges. Pour un instant on se dit que la marche en valait la peine, mais erreur, apres 10-15 minutes s'en est assez, on en peut plus, les 'sandflies' nous piquent partout sur la tete. Pas moyen de profiter des sources d'eau chaude. J'me console en me disant qu'au moins je vais bien dormir sur un matelas. Mais pas de chance cette fois, les deux personnes de chaque cote de nous ont ronfles toute la nuit. Plus, on doit se lever super tot car ils annoncent des orages et on doit traverser la riviere avant que le niveau d'eau ne s'eleve pour ne pas rester pris la (surtout qu'on a pas apporte d'extra de bouffe). Je n'arrive pas a croire qu'on a perdu 2 jours a marcher sous la pluie pour un 15 minutes de baignade! J'ai froid et 17 km sous la pluie, les 2 pieds dans l'eau, c'est long. Je n'en pouvais vraiment plus. J'avais atteint mon quotas! Josh et moi devenions de moins en moins joyeux et de plus en plus impatients avec toutes ces situations stressantes. Toute cette pluie qui nous tombe sur la tete; toutes ces nuits ou l'on est fatigues et qu'on doit conduire jusqu'a ce qu'on trouve un endroit ou stationner et dormir; tous ces matins ensoleilles ou on s'installe pour dejeuner dehors et qu'on retourne dans la voiture aussitot parce qu'il y a trop de 'sandflies', etc. Josh ne comprend pas comment on peut vivre a Montreal. Je lui explique que c'est different, qu'on a des foyers, qu'on se fait de bons soupers en famille et entre amis, qu'on rit, qu'on joue a des jeux, qu'on ecoute des films, qu'on sort, etc. Bref, a notre retour du sentier, je ne donne pas le choix a Josh, on part a la recherche d'une chambre dans une auberge de jeunesse pour y passer la nuit. 90$ bien investi pour retrouver le bonheur! On s'est achete d'excellentes saucisses d'agneau (evidemment!); j'ai pris plaisir a nous cuisiner un delicieux souper; pendant ce temps Josh s'est occupe de laver nos vetements trempes et souilles; on a bu notre meilleure bouteille de vin achete lors de notre derniere degustation; on avait un lit avec des oreilles, de vrais draps et des couvertures; on a pu recharger toutes nos batteries; on avait meme notre propre douche, une tele et des films!!! Tout ca peut vous sembler tres banal, mais apres deux semaines a vivre dans une petite voiture, vous n'avez pas idee a quel point on apprecie tous ces petits details de la vie 'quotidienne'.

Le lendemain, on visite le glacier Franz-Joseph. On prend encore de magnifiques photos paronamiques et on reprend la route. C'est malheureusement la derniere fois qu'on a vu la camera de Josh :(

On se rend a Westport au nord de la cote ouest. Ici, au lieu des signaux routiers jaunes pour traverse de chevreuils, c'est une pancarte avec un pingouin! Le pingouin bleu, tout petit, qu'on peut apercevoir au coucher du soleil, mains nous sommes arrives trop tard, il faisait deja noir, pas de pingouins. Le lendemain on fait de l'escalade, une paroi rocheuse donnant sur l'ocean, un autre endroit paradisiaque avec les vagues se jettant sur la roche juste au dessous de l'ou on grimpe. En plus, on etait les seuls a y etre cette journee-la et il faisait soleil! Mais de facon generale, comme on n'en peut plus de la pluie, de vent et du froid, on se dirige au nord de l'ile ou il fait plus beau et plus chaud (oui, ca nous a pris un p'tit bout de temps avant de comprendre qu'il fait plus chaud au nord puisqu'on est dans l'hemisphere sud, hihihi).

Prochain arret: Takaka. Cette fois on sait ou aller. Plusieurs grimpeurs nous ont recommende le camping 'Hang Dog' a moins d'un kilometre des parois d'escalade de Paynes Ford. On peut enfin installer notre tente pour quelques jours, 10$/nuit pour ce camping completement hippi: une toilette avec des crayons pour ecrire sur les murs, des bancs et un tableau noir autour du feu, des gens bizarres et des cossins 'hippi' un peu partout. Qu'il fait bon vivre: de l'escalade, du soleil, pas de pluie, pas de route ni de stress! Apres deux jours, on est alle visiter le parc Abel-Tasman histoire de reposer nos muscles. Y'a une longue randonnee de plusieurs jours sur la cote, mais cette fois on decide de se limiter a une journee. Josh a deduit une nouvelle equation a partir de nos randonnees precedentes: si on marche 50% du sentier, c'est qu'on en a donc marche 40% de trop! Mais on y va pour un autre 15-20 km et on reserve un bateau qui va nous ramener au stationnement. On s'ameliore dans nos decisions, mais encore une fois c'etait un peu trop. On aurait du en marcher la moitie et passer l'apres-midi a la plage! Mais quand meme, ca en valait la peine, le sentier etait tres beau, avec plein d'oiseaux, vues sur les plages dorees la plupart du temps... et cette fois-ci on a les photos! Apres une autre journee d'escalade, on doit quitter. Nos vacances en Nouvelle-Zelande tirent a leur fin et on est encore loin de Christchurch. On fait un detour pour visiter 'Farewell Spit' (une tres longue et mince peninsule) et la plage 'Whariki'. Wow, des dunes de sable blanche au bord de la mer. On s'est amuse comme des enfants a courir pieds nus et a sauter partout. Un bon cardio avant un bon lunch au 'Mussel Inn', un autre bon resto recommende par Meg.

Puis, beaucoup de route a faire. La bonne nouvelle: on passe par Nelson, une autre region remplie de vignobles reconnus pour leurs sauvignons blancs. Apres quelques degustations de vin, notre coup de coeur va pour le pinot gris de chez Rimu Groove. On achete une bouteille qu'on reserve pour notre prochaine randonne sur le sentier 'Queen Charlotte'. Cette-fois on ne se fait pas prendre, on a appris notre lecon. On apporte nos serviettes, maillots, le vin, plein de bonne bouffe et on marche que la premiere heure du sentier (soit environ 10%!!) et on passe la journee a la plage. Il faisait trop froid pour se baigner, mais au moins il faisait soleil et on s'est repose.

On descent maintenant la cote est. On passe par tellement de routes paronamiques, qu'a vrai dire on ne les apprecies plus autant. Josh ri a chaque fois: "ah, une autre chute d'eau". La Nouvelle-Zelande c'est magnifique, mais j'ai hate de changer de decor et je sais que la vie sera un peu plus facile en Australie puisqu'on prevoit camper a Arapiles pour 3 semaines a 2$/nuit. J'me rend compte que 3 semaines de vancances dans le meme pays c'est l'ideal pour moi. Apres ca j'ai besoin de changement, sinon je commence a m'ennuyer. Donc en chemin vers Christchurch, on devait arreter a la plage, mais il faisait froid et il ventait tellement fort qu'on arrete pour des dernieres degustations de vin a la place! Josh aussi en a marre du mauvais temps et de la pluie, a chaque fois il mentionne que l'Australie est l'un des pays les plus secs au monde et comme il fera plus beau et plus chaud la-bas.

Mais avant l'Australie, il nous reste une nuit et une journee a passer a Christchurch. On prend la route pour un camping gratuit. C'etait bien plus loin que prevu, on a du faire un bon 60km de detour pour finalement arriver dans un champ degarni avec une toilette seche remplie d'abeilles. Pas question que je dorme dehors. De toute facon il pleut et on doit garder la tente au sec pour essayer de la vendre. Mais meme de l'auto je stresse tellement on entend les millions d'abeilles bourdonner autour (depuis que je me suis fait attaquee par les guepes l'automne dernier, j'en tremble encore a chaque fois que je les sens pres de moi). J'etais au bord des larmes, mais Josh a pris la situation en main. On etait assez pres de la ville pour avoir de la musique a la radio et on avait une derniere bouteille de vin! C'est ca le voyage, ces petits moments difficiles qui se transforment en petits moments magiques. Le lendemain a Christchurch, on doit vendre notre tente, nos livres, etc. Mais tout est ferme... c'est Paques! On ne le savait meme pas. Ca change les plans. La ville est deserte, on a peine a trouver un endroit ou manger, sans penser qu'on doit trouver un endroit ou dormir car notre vol est a 6h du matin. Fatiguee, je propose de passer la nuit a l'aeroport. De toute facon on doit y etre a 4h du matin. Josh dit qu'on aurait du dormir plus souvent ici, car on y a trouve des douches gratuites dans les toilettes!

En resume, notre mois en Nouvelle-Zelande s'est transforme en plus de 4000 km de route, soit 30 jours a vivre dans une auto. Josh n'en revient pas qu'on ait vecu dans un si petit environnement et moi qu'on ait passe 24h/24 ensemble. Mais ce qui n'a pas ete facile c'est: les sandwiches au beurre d'arachides parce qu'il fait trop mauvais pour cuisiner; le stress de trouver un endroit ou dormir; la difficulte de trouver une douche pour se laver au 3-4 jours; penser a remplir nos bouteilles d'eau lorsqu'on est en ville, etc. Je recommende donc la Nouvelle-Zelande avec un 'gros' budget de vacances. Mais dans notre cas, je ne regrette rien. Ca a ete difficile, mais ca nous a aussi permi d'apprecier tout plein de petits plaisirs de la vie (par exemple les cornets de creme-glacee a 50cents chez McDo ou un 2L entier de creme-glacee pour lunch puisqu'on a pas de congelateur pour la garder). Le meilleur pour ma part restera Mt-Cook, la randonnee Routeburn, l'agneau... et le vin! Mais la Nouvelle-Zelande c'est surtout vraiment vraiment beau. Pensez aux plus belles montagnes que vous avez vu dans un pays, aux plus belles verdures d'un autre pays, aux plus beaux lacs et rivieres a l'eau bleue, aqua ou turquoise, bref a tout ce que vous pouvez penser de plus beaux et mettez les tous ensembles, c'est ca les paysages magnifiques, l'ideal pour des photos a encadrer.... quelle ironie qu'on ait perdu la camera!

New Zealand Part 3!

2008-05-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Clarification: We did get the bag back that we lost when we flew in the Christchurch NZ. I forgot to mention that. We picked it up the in the airport the next day so that's why the $63 NZ was "bonus!"

We've been so bad at staying on top of this blog that I don't even have an idea what dates we were where at this point.... We'll try to be better in the future. We were staying at a campground for almost one and a half months so we had no internet. Anyways, back to NZ!

We jumped in the car to head to the West Coast and see the glaciers. The views are supposed to be spectacular on the entire stretch of road up the west coast, however as we realized in New Zealand the views are spectacular everywhere, you just need to weather. Since the west coast gets truly obscene amounts of rainfall (5-15m) we didn't really get to see much since it was completely clouded over and raining our whole way into Fox Glacier. We spent a day in the Fox Glacier area, had a nice dinner at a restaurant, and wandered up to see the glacier. It was strange to see a glacier in a temperate rain forest! We, of course, ignored all warning signs and wandered out in front of the glacier. We were smarter than most of the tourists though and stayed away from the face where it could collapse. There are a lot of stupid people that really feel the need to touch the unstable constantly crumbling bottom face of the glacier.

I wanted to touch the glacier, but went about it in a much smarter fashion... I found the trail that the tour guides take customers up to walk on the glacier! We headed up that past many signs about how it was illegal for us to proceed, and passed a few tour groups with guides who really didn't care about the fact we were on the trail except to stay out of the way as their large groups passed, which we did. They claimed the trail was private property, although we were in a national park. Weird... Once we reached the where the trail descended to the glacier, I ran straight out on it up the stairs that were conveniently chopped into it. Good thing those guides made it accessible to me in my running shoes! We snapped a few pictures of me on the glacier (Nath was too scared to go out on it for some reason) and then headed back down to town. It was my first time on an real glacier (as far as I know)!

The next day saw us heading back south to the trailhead of the Copeland Track. 18km of uphill hiking leads to a beautiful alpine meadow in the mountains, and some hot springs! However, the entire trail, until the last few hundred meters, is completely enclosed in trees and ferns and you don't get more than one or two nice views during the entire hike. As a result, we didn't pull out the camera much at all and we blitzed the trail passing many people despite having left very late, and had plenty of time to hop in the hot springs. Unfortunately, the hot springs aren't nearly as cool as they sounded. They are barely past knee deep, full of silty mud that is easily stirred up, and sand flies like to chow down on any exposed skin. We enjoyed it for about 30 or so minutes, but as soon as the sand flies really figured out where we were as the sun headed down, we were out and back in the hut. Bad weather was predicted, and sure enough came in and pounded us the entire way out. I learned that if you're hiking in NZ, you WILL get wet! There were warnings about how if it rains too hard there are two impassible rivers. We made it past the first before it swelled, but the 2nd river was going pretty good. Since our shoes were already soaked, and the car was only 200m past the river, there was no way I was going to hike the extra 1 hour or more to the flood bridge. I just looked at Nath and said, "grab my elbows" and did the same to her. We quickly barged through the icy river in about 2 minutes, and it was actually pretty fun! Once back at the car, we cranked the heater on and tried to dry out a little.

The next day was Franz Josef Glacier. We didn't spend too much time there, but it was enough for me to lose my camera which had almost all the NZ pictures ranging from Castle Hill, to the Routeburn Track, to the glaciers and hot springs. True bummer. Having walked on Fox Glacier, we didn't even do the slog all the way up to the glacier. We did some short hikes from which you could get great views, and then headed out for warmer dryer climate up on the northern part of the south island. Our next destination was Westport.

Westport was a rather nice climbing area. It was a sea cliff with huge swells rolling in constantly. Luckily we were there at low tide or I'm sure we would have been soaked on at least one of the climbs. It traversed out to a where a massive boulder is resting against the cliff, and as the swells rolled in they would explode in a massive spray. The routes there were interesting feature granite trad climbing. It was really enjoyable climbing, mostly due to the setting. I played on a few easy routes, then did one harder route in the 22-23 range. Nath just followed that day since she hadn't been leading gear routes for a while. It was fun because you could see pods of dolphins off in the ocean, and seals playing in the water from the top of the cliff. There were supposed to be penguins there, but unfortunately we didn't see any, despite it being one of Nathalie's goals while on our trip. Luckily there would be more opportunities...

When we were done with Westport, we headed to Takaka where the weather, camping, and climbing is all great! The sun was definitely appreciated, although since fall was getting on it still wasn't hot enough to swim for long in the beautiful swimming hole. The camping is at Hang Dogger Camp. Some guy created a camp ground less than a kilometer from the climbing area at Takaka. The camping area is hippie central, with people from all over the world there to just hang out and climb. There is a huge fire pit, refridgerators, a shower, it's only $5/night, and everyone was friendly (although we decided they were a little too hippie for us). The climbing area, Paynes Ford, is on shist, like in Wanaka, but the climbs were a little more varied and interesting. It consists of a cliff down near the river that stretched for a couple kilometers and had predominantly bolted sport climbing. Both of us had fun watching our strength return as we climbed there for 4 days with one rest day in the middle. We had both lost strength in NZ from where we were at when we left Thailand. As I got stronger, I started onsighting up to 24 again (5.12a) and managed many grade 25 climbs on the 2nd try. One of them "require" a stick clip, which I didn't have, but I managed to climb it anyways. Quite scary doing 5.12a moves about 15' off the deck with nothing clipped! I took a few nice whips, since some of the routes were a little runout, but it was all good fun! Nath worked on her leading a little more and was redpointing 22 by the time we left.

On the last day of the climbing I managed to send a spectacular route called Mea Culpa graded 27 (5.12d) on my third try at the end of the day. It was a great route with the tiniest of holds up a slightly overhung face. Many of the hardest moves were using microscopic sidepulls, perfect footwork, and dynamic moves. I was destroyed by the time I got to the top, but I did it! It was a perfect last climb in NZ!

Between the 4 days of climbing, we took a rest day up at Abel Tasman National Park and hiked about 16km of the Abel Tasman Great Walk. Its a beautiful hike following the coast line and wandering up through hills linking beautiful sandy beaches and picturesque bays. We had to time the hike properly since part of the hike is only passable at low tide. The water recedes for kilometers out of a bay leaving a muddy sandy shell filled crossing. The tide at Abel Tasman rises and falls 6m (20ft)!!! We hiked to our pickup point (we had arranged a "water taxi" since it was cheap and we could see more without backtracking) and then went for a quick swim in the ocean before boating back to the car.

The day after we finished climbing we moved on to more touristy things. We headed north and saw the world's clearest water and a massive spring that rises out of the earth creating a beautiful river, saw Farewell Spit, the northern most peninsula of the south island of NZ where there was an amazing number of birds. Just west of where we saw Farewell Spit is Whareriki (I probably misspelled that) Beach. It's a beautiful beach with sand dunes, beautiful rocks, and seals! I was most interested in the sand dunes where I played around jumping off the top and eventually doing back flips!

Once we were done playing in the sand, we jumped in the car and headed to Mussel Inn. It's an amazingly quaint little restaurant with reasonable priced really good food, and amazing beer! The seating was really nice, and they even had an enormous tire swing if you felt so inclined. Apparently they didn't like cell phones, since there was a beam there will many different cell phones nailed to it! I was amused. They have local bands (we missed this) and it was just a nice place to be. Meg had recommended it to me with the line "You haven't been to New Zealand if you haven't been to Mussel Inn."

After seeing the far northern tip of the island, we headed off east to Nelson and the Marlboro area where there is more excellent wine tasting and beaches! We picked up our favorite Pinot Gris we could find, and the next day found us day hiking out the Queen Charlotte Track for an hour or two til we found a nice beach we could picnic on. We cooled the wine in a creek, ate, and played chess. It was a great day...

Next up was Nelson. We headed into the city with a huge list of things to do, like sell books, tent, etc, some of which we got done and some of which we didn't. A lot of stuff was closed, since it was Easter! We had no idea... We ended up having to take a bunch of stuff all the way to Melbourne to sell. If we had more time, I definitely would have done a bone carving class, but we didn't so we moved on.

The rest of our time in NZ (a day or two?) was pretty uneventful. There was some more bad weather, some camping, some driving around finding out that stuff was closed, and eventually we found ourselves back in Christchurch. In Christchurch, the funniest thing that happened was while we were packing our bags to go to Australia. I was tossing stuff out of the car onto a lawn in a park so we could pack, and turned around and SMACK! The hatchback won against my forehead. I was bleeding like mad and had to get "steri strips" to hold the wound closed. They're great for first aid, by the way. I didn't need any stitches since I had those things! We finished packing, and stayed our last night in NZ in the airport since our flight to Melbourne was so early in the morning.

In the end, we put 4000km on the car, and learned a lot about ourselves and travelling from New Zealand. If you want to do NZ, do it on a bigger budget or stay in one spot and don't expect to see it all. It's really hard to travel from a car when you don't have the $70-$90/night for hostels. New Zealand is REALLY good at sucking money out of touists to the point of taking away from the experience. Hiking for the sake of hiking isn't fun anymore after rock climbing. But, most importantly we learned there are free showers in the Christchurch airport. :)

Next stop, Down Under!

Le 28 fevrier 2008: Nouvelle-Zelande / 2e partie

2008-04-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

Prochaine destination: Queenstown, soit en route vers le sud. Ici on conduit a gauche. Josh avait deja conduit a " l'envers" lorsqu'on est alle en Irelande l'ete passe. Pour moi c'etait la premiere fois. L'adaptation s'est faite rapitement, le plus melangeant ce sont les essuis-glaces et les clignottants qui sont inverses... ou pire l'eau chaude et l'eau froide des robinets!!! Comme on se rend vers le sud-ouest, la temperature commence a se gater (et oui, ca nous a pris un instant pour comprendre qu'ici il fait plus chaud au nord qu'au sud!).

Donc il pleut a notre arrivee, mais ca va, notre plan est de se "payer la traite" au resto. Meg, une amie de Josh, nous avait fortement recommende "Fergburger". Un excellent resto: Hamburger d'agneau, de boeuf ou de chevreuil, hmmmm!!! Pour 10-12$, le sandwich etait si gros qu'on pouvait se le partager. Qu'il est bon de manger de la bonne viande, meme en hamburger! On y est retourne pour essayer un de chaque. A l'epicerie, ici l'agneau est souvent moins cher que le boeuf. Faut dire qu'il y a 10 fois plus de moutons que d'habitants dans ce pays. On en achate donc parfois pour cuire sur mon petit rechaud au propane (eh oui, mon vieux p'tit rechaud que mon pere m'a donne quand j'ai commence a faire du camping il y a environ 15 ans, qui aurait dit qu'il ferait un jour le tour du monde avec moi!). On avait maigrit beaucoup en bout de ligne apres la Thailande avec tout l'exercice a chaque jour et le riz blanc. Mais on se reprend bien ici, en quelques jours on reprend tout le poids perdu!!

Queenstown est aussi la Capitale de l'aventure. Ils sont fous avec toutes leurs activites touristiques a sensation forte ici: deltaplane, saut en parachute, bongi, 'swing' sur corde, rafting, descente de riviere, etc. Certains vont meme payes pour descendre une colline enferme dans une grande boule... Moi ca me rappelle les idiots qui sont morts a essayer de descendre les chutes Niagara dans un baril, je n'y vois pas trop l'interet. Mais on est ici et on s'est promis de se payer une activite. Josh choisit le "sledging". Il pleut, mais on y va quand meme. Wetsuit, palmes, gilet de sauvetage et 'boogie board' (la petite planche, pas celle de surf, mais l'autre beaucoup plus courte que tout le monde a a la plage, j'sais pas comment ca s'appelle en francais!). L'idee c'est d'utiliser cette planche pour descendre les rapides, comme du rafting, mais sans le bateau!!! On a gele, l'eau etait froide, mais on s'est bien amuse. On a meme fait du surf sur place sur l'une des rapides. Josh et moi sommes les seuls du groupe qui ayont reussi a attrapper la vague :)

C'est maintenant le temps pour notre premiere randonnee. On va marcher le sentier "Routeburn". L'un des plus beaux sentiers. On a deja repousse notre reservation a cause de la pluie, mais les previsions meteorologiques ne s'ameliorent pas. On decide donc d'y aller pareil, sinon on ne fera jamais rien, il s'accumule de 5 a 10 metres de pluie par annee ici! On s'ennuit deja du soleil de la Thailande. Toutefois, le sentier Routeburn est parseme de chutes d'eau, et avec toute la pluie qui nous tombe sur la tete, les chutes sont majestueuses. J'en ai jamais vu d'aussi grosses et d'aussi puissantes! Par contre, pour les vues, bien evidemment que des nuages. On arrive au refuge trempes de la tete au pied. Nos bottes sont rempli d'eau comme des lacs. Mais moi je suis allee a la vieille ecole. Je m'etais bien preparee avec mes sacs de plastiques dans mes bottes (comme quand on allait a la peche sur la glace avec mes parents), Josh riait de moi, mais ca m'a permi de garder mes pieds au sec pour la majorite du sentier. Mais apres 6h de marche dans des sentiers qui ressemblent a des ruisseau, des p'tits trous se sont formes et agrandis dans mes sacs et l'eau s'est finalement infiltree. Au moins le refuge etait chauffe au poele a bois. On s'est rechauffe, on a mange, on a rencontre d'autres randonneurs... et on a dormi sur un vrai matelas! Apres 3-4 nuits dans la voiture, quel confort!! Mais le lendemain matin c'est moins drole. On doit remettre les vetements et les bottes mouilles et repartir. Normalement les gens marchent ce sentier en 3-4 jours. Mais apres il faut payer pres de 200$ chacun pour prendre l'autobus qui nous ramene au stationnement (ils chargent des prix de fous pour tout ici). C'etait hors de question pour moi de payer autant d'argent pour aller 'marcher'. On a donc decider de marcher l'equivalent des 2-3 premiers jours, soit 21 des 30 km, en une seule journee, puis de revenir par le meme chemin. Ca a ete tout un exercice de cardio, on a presque pas arrete, on devait se tenir au chaud. Par chance, la pluie a arretee la deuxieme journee et quelques eclaircis nous ont permis de voir autour. Autre que les chutes d'eau, j'ai ete grandement impressionnee par les forets "beech". Des fougeres gigantesques et de la mousse verte fluo tout partout, un paysage magique et plus beau que dans le "Seigneur des Anneaux".

On se rend maintenant a Milford Sound ou l'on magasine pour la croisiere la moins cher. Encore une fois c'est juste incroyablement beau. On a deja pris des centaines de photos... que malheureusement nous n'avons plus. Mais mis a part la pluie, l'autre probleme ici ce sont les "sand flies". De petites mouches grosses comme des bruleaux qui piquent comme des maringouins. Elles sont partout, c'est detestable. Pas moyen de s'asseoir dehors. Non seulement on dort dans la voiture, mais on mange aussi dans la voiture. On reste une couple de jours dans la region. On va faire de l'escalade au Chasm, puisque la roche est en surplomb, on est protege de la pluie. C'est un tres bel endroit, mais on ne peut pas grimper trop tot le matin, car il fait trop froid, ni trop tard l'apres-midi, car les mouches sortent...

Puis on remonte la route en direction de Wanaka. En chemin, on arrete dans quelques vignobles pour des degustations devin. C'est ma plus grande joie dans ce pays, hihihi. Ils ont de tres bons Pinot Noir dans la region. Chaque fois qu'on prend la route, on arrete a un ou deux. Nos meilleures maisons sont: Bannock Brae, Chard Farm, Felton Road et Peregrine. Arrives a Wanaka, il fait soleil!!! C'est un petit village au centre de l'ile ou le temperature est un peu plus chaude et ou il pleut moins, car les nuages sont retenus de l'autre cote des montagnes. On est tout heureux de pouvoir manger dehors... jusqu'a ce qu'on s'apercoive qu'il vente tellement ford qu'on ne peut pas faire fonctionner le bruleur et que tout part au vent, c'est miserable. On mange encore dans la voiture, puis on dort encore dans la voiture. Cette fois on se fait reveiller au milieu de la nuit par un agent de securite. Trop pres de la ville, on doit conduire 5-6km et trouver un autre endroit ou stationner. Pas toujours facile les vacances. Le probleme c'est que les campings sont tous gros (style familial) avec des tonnes d'installations (parc pour enfant, piscine, etc) qu'on n'utilise pas, situes loin des parois d'escalade, et cher, environ 35$/nuit. En plus, la plupart du temps on n'installerait meme pas la tente a cause de la pluie ou du vent. On dort donc dans la voiture, c'est tres populaire dans ce pays. Sinon y'a les auberges de jeunesse, mais encore c'est minimum 70-80$/nuit. On y pense meme pas. Si on etait ici en voyage pour 2 semaines c'est peut-etre ce qu'on ferait, mais dans notre cas c'est trop cher. Et tout le reste est 3 fois plus cher ici a cause des couts d'importations, c'est loin la Nouvelle-Zelande. On paie deja pour l'auto, l'essence a pres de 2$/litre, la nourriture (a l'epicerie, car au resto y'a rien en bas de 30$/repas) et tous les extras imprevus par-ci et par-la car il faut payer pour tout ici, ils vivent vraiment de l'industrie du tourisme. Bref, notre seul moyen d'economiser temps et argent c'est de dormir dans la voiture. Au moins ici a Wanaka l'escalade est bien et la temperature un peu plus ensoleillee. On se fait des amis a l'escalade le lendemain. Ils nous invitent a leur camping secret (evidemment illegal, mais c'est tellement vaste la Nouvelle-Zelande, y'a souvent pas d'habitant autour, donc c'est facile de camper un peu partout): un terrain gazonne et une riviere a meme l'une des parois d'escalade. C'est le bonheur! On y reste 2-3 jours...

More New Zealand!

2008-04-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Mt. Cook is a truly beautiful mountain. Nath "fell in love" with it as we drove down it's valley and it came into view. She won't stop talking about how she wants to climb it now, so she may end up mountaineering when she gets back to San Diego....

We rolled in somewhat late, which was perfect. A fellow traveller told us about a star show at the Hermitage Hotel. There was a guy out there every night around 9pm with a 3 meter homemade telescope! We saw Saturn with its rings, and 3 moons! There were beautiful Nebulas we saw, and impressive star clusters. Truly a beautiful night out under the stars.

The next morning we woke up early and headed for the DOC office (Department of Conservation). We asked them about hikes, and I was going to attempt the easiest mountaineering route in the area (Grade 1) but weather was on its way. Instead, we did an amazing day hike up the mountains to the left of Mt. Cook for ever increasingly beautiful views of the mountain and then headed back down to the car for the next adventure!

The next leg of the journey involved difficult hiking, important route finding decisions, and the ability to perservere in the face of adversity - WINE TASTING! Yes, we hiked from the car to the door, choose good wineries most successfully, and managed to keep going after the first (and worst) place we stopped.... Central Otago is apparently perfect for Pinot Noir due to its location on the 42nd parallel. I'd definitely have to agree, although the best wine we found was a unique Reisling at a small out of the way winery which was our favorite.

Next stop - Queenstown the adventure capital of the world! You can do anything there! Rafting, bungee, skydiving, paragliding, whitewater boogie boarding, caving, cave rafting, and so much more. Due to exhorbitant prices, I picked one "adventure" - white water boogie boarding. The idea of riding a standing wave backwards was irresistable. Apparently, we picked a bad time with the amount of water running down the river, but Nath and I were still the only two in the guided group to catch the wave! Neither of us was in it for super long, but it was still fun and I can say I did it! After the standing wave, we finished the trip with some class 4 rapids. As a climber, it was overall rather tame, but fun nonetheless!

After the whitewater, we opted for some solid ground. 40km of it to be exact. We wanted to hike the Routeburn Track which is a NZ "Great Walk." It is supposed to be one of the better hikes in the world. It's 32km, with huts you can stay at and dry out along the way, but the bus ride back to the starting place takes 5 hours and costs over $100. We opted to blast the first (and best) 20 km of it in a day, then hike back out the way we came to end up back at the car. The terrain changes the entire time on the trail, from high elevation alpine, to rainforest beech groves, rivers, endless waterfalls, and, so it seems, endless rain. I believe they received a few inches of rain just on our hike in. I've never hiked in such a constant downpour, but it was fun. The trail was a creek, so I was glad I didn't bring any heavy hiking boots since they would be soaked anyways. A few times I turned to Nath and said, "I've never seen so much water!" When we got to the hut, we hung our stuff out to dry, which it didn't, and hung out and met other travellers. It was good times. On the way out, there was much less rain, and felt like a different hike altogether. Especially because we could actually see the mountains around us much better!

Once back in Queenstown, we hit "Fergburger." A constantly packed burger joint known well by the locals. They have amazing burgers with lamb, deer, beef, and more, with interesting sauces like mint chutney which turn out to be quite mouth watering. I'd definitely have to say that it's a can't miss if you're in the area.

After Queenstown, we headed south for the Milford Sound area. It's techincally not a sound, but a fijord, and it's damn beautiful. Huge mountains rising 5000' up out of the water, waterfalls everywhere, and seals lounging on the rocks. We did a short cruise through the area and once done with the touristy stuff we headed for the rocks. The area was The Darrens, the cliff was called The Chasm. It was beautiful concave granite outcrop that slowly went from slabby to massively overhung at the top with many routes up to 200+' long. What made it unique, was the fact that since it was in the Milford Sound area, which receives up to 9m of rain a year (30ft!!!!!) there is a constant stream of water falling off the top of the cliff. When it is nice weather, like we had, the water streamed off in droplets which you had to run through to get to the climbs, and it fell down behind you the whole time you were climbing, blown by the wind in different directions. It was absolutely gorgeous to climb there. Spectacular alpine settings could be seen in the distance behind the beautiful curtain of water constantly streaming down. We managed to find the cliff using the worst climbing guide I've ever seen and I promptly got lost on lead. Luckily, I had brought a set of nuts and managed to protect what I thought was a sport line and we managed to work our way over to an anchor and rappel. That was enough since the day was ending and we headed to find a place to sleep vowing to come back the next day and do a better job of knowing what was where! The next day, the climbing went much better and we successfully found the routes described in the guide and we managed to climb quite a few. They were quality mixed gear and bolted lines on beautiful featured granite. We missed out on climbing the "best" climb in NZ for a number of reasons. It's located high up in the alpine area of the Darrens, in the enormous glacier carved mountains near the Milford Sound. It's called Labrith and is a multipitch granite outing up a large alpine face. Unfortunately, I had tendonitis from our hike on the Routeburn, we didn't have the two ropes to get down, and the guide book we had didn't even have a picture of the route to follow or direction of how to get there! I was still tempted to give it a try, but with all of those factors together, it just didn't happen.... so we headed north again back through Queenstown toward another climbing area.

As we passed through Central Otago again, we stopped for more wine tasting! We tasted until we had to stop and play drunken chess and drink tea to sober up and continued on our way to Wanaka, a great little climbing area on Shist.

In Wanaka, we enjoyed beautiful weather and a very peaceful climbing location. We were there mid week, and there aren't many NZ climbers to begin with, so we had many of the crags to ourselves. Luckily though, we weren't totally along and we made a new friend along the way - Derek! He was a North Islander travelling the south island in his campervan. We enjoyed the strange edgy climbing on the shist rock sport climbing, and I managed to onsight up to 26 (5.12c) although it was probably a little soft for the grade. Nath worked on her leading trying to consolidate at the 22 (mid 5.11) range. There was a beautiful little place to camp right next to a river (at the riverside crag) that we stayed for a few days and just relaxed in the sun when not climbing. We hadn't had a lot of good weather to date, so it was quite nice there! Derek was a really cool guy, and we made plans to meet up at Araplies since he was going to be ending up there right about when we were! When we felt done with Wanaka, we jumped back in our little car and headed out...

Next stop - the west coast which combines glaciers and temperate rainforest, something found almost nowhere else in the world!

Le 22 fevrier 2008: Nouvelle-Zelande / 1re partie

2008-04-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

C'est parti pour la Nouvelle Zelande. Un tout autre monde nous attend; encore plus beau et plus difficile qu'on l'imaginait. On a un mois puisqu'on devait acheter a l'avance notre billet d'avion pour l'Australie afin d'obtenir le Visa d'entree pour la Nouvelle-Zelande. Faute de temps et d'argent, on se contentera de visiter l'ile du sud...

Et ainsi va un autre 17h d'avion. A vrai dire, on commence a aimer ca! Les sieges sont confortables (surtout compares aux autobus et aux lits durs de la Thailande) puis on mange, on mange et on mange meme bien!! On est parti de Bangkok en apres-midi, le ventre deja plein. On a eu un premier souper dans l'avion, puis des collations, puis un dejeuner. On change d'avion a Sydney (Australie), puis on a droit a un autre dejeuner et encore des collations. J'vous le jure, on en riait tellement on n'arrivait pas a manger tout ce qu'ils nous apportaient. On a meme eu de la creme glacee Magnum (semblable a Hagen Daaz!)!

Arrives a l'aeroport de Christchurch (Nouvelle-Zelande) ils ont malheureusement egare l'un de nos bagages. On doit donc passer la nuit en ville. On prend d'abord possession de notre auto de location. Une petite Mazda hatchback appelee 'Familial' qui me rappelle la 323. On paie 25$ par jour puisque c'est une voiture usagee (~100 000km, merci Karine et Felix!). Le responsable de la location etait super gentil. Il nous a tout explique, donne les cles, cartes routieres, info touristiques, prete un cellulaire et un cooler! Il nous a aider a telephoner a des auberges de jeunesses, mais tout etait plein. On se rend donc en vitesse chez KMart acheter une tente a 59$ et trouver un terrain de camping. Tout un terrain de camping, 35$ pour y mettre sa tente, j'espere qu'on ne payera pas ca a chaque fois. La bonne nouvelle: ils ont retrouve notre bagage le lendemain et on a eu 60$ de dedommagement, quel adon, ca a paye la tente!! Le cote comique: la tente est supposee mesurer plus de 2m de long, mais en fait elle est trop petite pour Josh qui mesure 6 pieds... on doit dormir en diagonal, hihihi, par chance je suis petite :)

Puis le meilleur moment de notre 1re journee: une douche chaude!!! Ah que ca fait du bien. Nettoyage en profondeur, ca a bien du me prendre 1h et je me suis meme fait secher les cheveux! Pour souper on mange un Kebab dans un restaurant Turque. Oh la la, le meilleur kebab de ma vie; du vrai bon mouton a l'interieur. Je realise qu'on est bel et bien en Nouvelle-Zelande!!

Le lendemain on se rend a Castle Hill, l'endroit le plus repute du pays pour le 'bouldering', i.e. de l'escalade sans corde sur des rochers de moins de 5m de haut. Malheureusement, j'etais trop petite :( Eh oui, je n'aurais jamais cru pouvoir me sentir comme ca encore aujourd'hui. Pareil comme quand on allait dans les maneges avec mes cousins Mailloux et que moi je ne pouvais pas embarquer parce que j'etais trop petite. J'etais tellement triste! Toutes les voies d'escalade commencaient avec un surplomb (c'est-a-dire qu'il faut agripper deux prises avec ses mains et se lever sans rien pour ses pieds), mais les deux prises de depart etaient bien trop hautes pour moi, je n'arrivais pas a les attrapper meme en sautant. Toute la journee on s'est promene et je n'ai pas pu grimper une seule roche. Au moins l'endroit etait vraiment beau, mais vraiment vraiment beau avec tous ces rochers photogeniques. J'en ai donc profite pour m'amuser a prendre des photos dans toutes les directions. Des que je me tournais la tete, c'etait toujours encore plus beau et je prenais une autre photo encore meilleure. Donc de tres belles photos... que malheureusement on a plus. J'ai aussi beaucoup apprecie respirer le grand-air (non-pollue!) et reposer mes oreilles au calme de ce grand espace vert. Le soir on va au camping gratuit (ye!). On se rencontre de nouveaux amis, tout le monde la-bas est la pour grimper. Le seul hic a cet endroit ce sont les 'Kea' (prononcer 'qui-a'), des perroquets bruns en voie de disparition qui s'amusent a detruire souliers, tente, etc. juste pour le fun. On doit donc tout ranger dans la voiture a chaque matin. Josh a crie en plein milieu de la nuit pour faire peur a un qui s'attaquait a notre tente, ils sont tres vilains!

Deux jours plus tard, on prend notre premiere route paronamique pour se rendres au Mont-Cook. Ici toutes les routes sont paronamiques. En fait, y'a qu'une route principale qui fait tout le tour de l'ile. Ils l'appellent une autoroute, mais c'est plutot un long rang qui tourne, qui tourne et qui tourne. Y'a vraiment pas de route droite ici. Le pire c'est que la limite de vitesse est de 100km/h partout, ce qui est pratiquement impossible a atteindre!! Ce qui m'a fait le plus rire, c'est de prendre une courbe a 35km/h et qu'a la sortie de la courbe on annonce de prendre la courbe suivante a 70km/h, comme si on doit tenter d'accelerer sur moins de 100m pour prendre la prochaine courbe, ils sont fous ici!! Les panoramas ce sont les collines, les montagnes, les lacs, les rivieres, la verdure, les arbres, les fougeres, les fleurs, les rochers et les sommets enneiges. J'ai pour la premiere fois compris l'expression 'des paysages a en couper le souffle'. WOW, j'ai apercu Mont-Cook au loin, j'etais certaine que c'etait la bonne montagne, la plus haute montagne de l'Oceanie. Elle est tellement belle, j'en ai vraiment eu le souffle coupe. Je consuisais autour d'un lac, vue sur Mont-Cook, mon coeur battait vite et j'en avais de la difficulte a respirer. J'vous dis, un vrai coup de foudre! J'voudrais tellement me rendre sur ce somment. J'pense maintenant a faire mon cours de 'mountaineering' a mon retour l'an prochain. Qui sait, peut-etre que je reviendrai un jour bien preparee avc plus d'experience en escalade de glace.

Pour l'instant on a du se contenter d'une journee de randonne dans les forets avoisinantes avec vue sur Mont-Cook et les autres sommets autour. On voulait marcher deux jours, mais ils annoncaient des vents de plus de 100km/h le lendemain. Donc plutot que de dormir au refuge en montagne, on passe notre premiere nuit dans la voiture dans le stationnement de l'Hermitage, un gros hotel avec vue sur les montagnes. Je met le cadran, pas question de manquer le lever du soleil! Josh a une idee brillante: on monte au derniere etage de l'hotel et sort sur le balcon pour prendre de parfaites photos... qui resteront dans notre memoire. Par chance, un ami rencontre a l'escalade les jours precedant nous avais donne tous les trucs: comment entrer dans l'hotel par la porte d'en arriere, ou trouver le sauna et la douche 'gratuite', l'internet gratuit sur un ordinateur au 10e etage, etc. On commence a apprendre les trucs de 'backpackers'! Ah oui, et un spectacle d'etoiles (aussi gratuit si on arrive par l'exterieur plutot que d'acheter un billet a l'interieur). Le responsable invitait tout le monde autour a essayer son immense telescope qu'il a lui-meme fabrique, il nous a explique les constellations de l'hemisphere sud, on a vue des galaxies... et meme Saturne avec ses anneaux!

2-27-08 New Zealand

2008-03-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

Well, here's the post finally. I started typing it less than 10 hours before we left the country. New Zealand was definitely different, for so many reasons, than Thailand. Not just the culture, but the way we interacted with it. Anyways, here goes our NZ story!

The plane ride to NZ was GREAT! We ate so much food, and since we were so deprived of anything but Thai food for so long it was AWESOME! On one of the flights we even had ice cream! We drank wine with our meals, and the carts wouldn't stop coming! There were all the movies we could possibly want to watch "on demand," as well as ridiculous games we could play (Nath got hooked on a bad version of Tetris for hours).

When we got off the plane, we promptly realized that we were missing a bag when the carousel kept spinning and our bag didn't come out. It was, of course, the trad climbing gear... :( We went over to the Qantas desk, where they promptly gave us about 63 NZ dollars! Bonus! We called our car rental company and someone picked us up in minutes with our new home!

Since it was peak season, EVERY hostel was full in all of Christchurch so we went to KMart and bought ourselves a budget tent - only $60! So far we had already landed a free tent with 3 dollars left over! We found a "Top 10 Holiday Park" to camp since we had no idea what else to do, and learned about a recurring theme in New Zealand: everything is prohibitively expensive!!! It was about $35 to CAMP! Yes, they have extensive facilities at the place, but all we needed was 2 x 1.5 meters for the tent. Nath did some quick math and pointed out that if we were to camp there for a month, that would be over $1000!!!

We headed into Christchurch in the morning, and continued our shopping for our ourdoor gear. We picked up some sleeping pads, and after visiting a few out door stores realized that while our tent was too small and the cheapest thing I've ever seen, there's no way we would buy anything else due to the fact they started around $300 and quickly went up from there! That made me happy to sleep in our little tent where my head and feet both touched the walls... We might have been able to find a cheaper tent at one of the stores like the army surplus store, but there was another trend to our trip we discovered: Everything closes early in New Zealand. It was Saturday, and by 5pm the city was dead! We ended up rushing around in order to purchase the last few things we needed before everything closed. We grabbed some some kebabs at a Turkish restaurant where Nathalie finally realized what people were talking about when they said the lamb here was good, and then we were off!

That night we cruised out to Craigieburn where there is some free camping right next to the world famous Castle Hill! Castle Hill was amazingly beautiful. I wish we still had the pictures. The rock formations are something that could be out of a modern art exhibition, but huge and beautiful. We rolled in late at night and ended up meeting a bunch of climbers who were still awake and planning on heading to Flock Hill, one of the lesser climbed areas near Castle Hill. They invited us, and we packed our backpacks since they wanted to stay the night, and off we went in the morning. We hiked into the beautiful playground in the morning, and then at somepoint dropped the packs and started searching for things to climb. There's no guide to Flock Hill, so you just look around for things to climb. It was a blast! I'm sure nothing was a first ascent, but everything had that feel since we didn't know how hard stuff was, and we had to figure out how to do all the moves without seeing chalk on all the holds. The rock is limestone with beautiful curving rounded features carved into it by wind and rain. If you want to see pictures of the area, do a google image search for "bouldering castle hill" for an idea of what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, all of the problems are "reachy," and Nath was completely shut down by essentially all of the boulder problems that we found. Power and technique only gets you so far if you can't even reach the holds!

We stayed the night, got rained on in our tarp that we had brought up, and woke up to more rain. We decided to hike out, and after we got back to the campground the day cleared up quite nicely. I wanted to get one more day of exploration and bouldering in since Nath wanted to leave, so we headed to the world famous Quantum Hill and Flock Hill where most of the developed climbing is. It took me a few hours of wandering around (literally) to be able to spot a line since the rock is much less featured, but by the end of the day I found an area where I went on a rampage bouldering and soloing everything I could find. It was a spectacular 2-3 hours by myself while Nath worked on writing her blog for Thailand. The bouldering there is truly world class, but in a league of its own. The routes are predominantly slopers and big pockets, and no other climbing I've ever seen could get you ready for it. The moves are always reachy, but at my height that wasn't a problem. I'd say it's worth visiting if you're in the area, but if you're not a hard core boulderer, then it's not a destination in and of itself. That said, it's probably the highest quality climbing on the south island that I saw, and I went to most of the best places.

Eventually, at the end of the day, we hopped in the car and headed off for our next destination: Mt. Cook!

Photos de THAILAND Pictures!!!!

2008-03-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

We FINALLY have the pictures up for Thailand at the following location!
Unfortunately, Josh's digital camera was lost in NZ and so we lost most of our pictures from NZ.... On the bright side, we should be able to finish uploading NZ quicker as a result! We'll start working on the NZ blog ASAP. We fly to Melbourne, Australia in the morning.

http://nathalieandjosh.smugmug.com/

Nos photos de la Thailande sont FINALEMENT la!!! (Cliquez le lien ci-haut). Ca en a pris du temps... Mais profitez-en, car malheureusement la camera de Josh est disparue avec la majorite de nos photos de la Nouvelle-Zelande... Plus de nouvelles bientot!

Nath and Josh

Le 21 fevrier 2008: Bye Bye Thailande

2008-02-28T01:19:00.000-08:00

Et oui, toute bonne histoire a une fin. n quitte Tonsai, en partie le coeur gros car la vie est belle ici, mais surtout souriant a l'envie de visiter la Nouvelle-Zelande. Je n'ai pas grimpe ces derniers jours. Le plus que j'ai grimpe des voies difficiles (ma premiere 5.12a de ma vie!!) le plus que la pression et la force est sur le bout de mes doigts plutot que reparti sur mes mains ou mes avant-bras. Mon corps n'est pas entraine a ca. Bref, repos force. Josh va grimper avec des amis et retourne s'amuser au 'Deep Water Soloing'. Moi, je vais a la plage, mais apres un couple d'heure j'en ai assez, il gair trop chaud et humide ici! Sinon je lis et on a achete un hamac, ye, c'est mon prix de consollation!! Mon petit paradis perdu se transforme tranquillement en trou perdu... ou il n'y a rien a faire a par l'escalade. L'apres-midi c'est desert ici, tout le monde est parti grimpe. Et le soir, au retour de Josh et de nos amis, bien je n'ai simplement rien a dire et s'en est frustrant d'entre les histoire d'escalade de la journee de tout le monde. Tonsai restera dans ma memoire un paradis d'escalade en 3D (normalement on grimpe en 2D sur un parois/roche devant nous, mais ici y'a souvent un stalactite derriere nous qu'on doit utiliser), mais je dois avouer qu'apres quelques jours a me 'reposer' (ce n'est pas comme si j'etais fatiguee de travailler!) l'ennuie me prend. J'ai bien hate d'aller visiter un autre coin du monde...

C'est donc parti, on quitte nos amis, entre autre Matt et Sarah qu'on reverra aux EU. On prend notre dernier bateau 'long-tail' pour se rendre a 'Ao Nang', puis on embarque dans la boite d'un pick-up pour motre dernier taxi vers Krabi. Le tout a pris moins d'une heure. On fait le plein de bonne bouffe, c'est bon d'etre en ville et d'avoir de la diversite. Les dumplings au porc (ressemble a une pate, mais a plutot la texture d'un pain), les biscuits et les gateaux, hmmmm! On fait aussi des provisions puisqu'on va prendre l'autobus de nuit (4pm a 4am) pour se rendre a Bangkok en sauvant des sous. C'est beaucoup moins ches en autobus qu'en train ou en avion, et au sauve l'hebergement pour la nuit. Sauf qu'on a entendu tellement d'histoires de touristes qui se sont fait voler leur bagages de la soute ou leur camera a meme leur main lorsqu'ils dormaient. A la recommendation de Sarah, on prend des billets deuxieme classe. Encore une fois c'est moins cher et meme plus comfortable que la 1re classe ou les bus VIP puisque c'est pour les locaux. Donc c'est aussi moins risque qu'il y ait des voleurs, quoiqu'on ne prend pas de chance qu qu'on emporte tout l'equipement d'escalade avec nous dans notre 'lourd' bagage a main. Et bien voici l'histoire de notre aventure...

On donne nos bagages qui vont dans la soute et le gars qui s'occupe du bus nous dit: "Vos places sont a l'arriere". D'accord, defa qu'acheter nos billets ce n'etait pas facile, peut-etre qu'on a des places assignees et qu'on ne comprend pas les numeros, alors pas de probleme. On prend la derniere rangee qui comporte 4 sieges. Y'a aussi un grec qui s'assoie vers l'avant, puis tous des Thailandais, mais le bus n'est qu'a moitie plein. Un peu plus loin, d'autres Thailandais embarquent et fixwnt du regard Nikos, qui deviendra plus tard notre ami grec. Le gars dubus lui demande de changer de place. Comme si les autres ne pouvaient pas s'asseoir ailleurs. Et comme Nikos se dirigeait vers un autre siege, le gars du bus lui cri: "Va a l'arriere, tout a l'arriere", jusqu'a ce que Nikos s'assoie au fond avec nous. Mais ce n'est pas tout! A un certain point, le bus s'est rempli et de temps a autre une personne Thai devait s'assoir avec nous. Ils agissaient tous pareil, ne bougeaient pas, ne parlaient pas et ne nous regardaient pas. Jusqu'a ce qu'une place se libere a un prochain arret, et la le gars de bus venait chercher la personne en s'excusant et en lui reassignant une nouvelle place parmis les autres Thais!!! Josh dit qu'il s'est senti comme un noir dans le sud des EU dans les annees 50. Pour ma part, j'ai trouve ca tres drole, surtout que les sieges a l'arriere etaient plus grands et qu'on avait un siege supplementaire pour s'allonger a tour de role et meiux dormir.

Mais a part cette mesavanture, qui fera partie de nos memoires comme dit Nikos, on arrive a Bangkok sans pepin. On suit Nikos, un jeune grec de 21 ans, mais qui a beaucoup a nous apprendre su l'economie en voyage! Il reussit a dinicher un autobus qui nous coute 15Bahts, puis une chambre d'hotel a 180Bahts. Ca c'est du cheap!! On passe donc 2 nuits et une derniere journee a Bangkok. On visite un autre temple et on se promene au centre-ville et on mange, on mange, on mange! Ah oui, on s'est paye un film au cinema. Section VIP: grosse causeuse avec couverture prealablement chauffee. On y va pour la totale. Un film asiatique sous-titre en anglais. Oh lala, du kung-fu a son meilleur. Qu'on a bien ri et meme ri jauna lorsque l'adversaire le plus puissant de la vedette, une enfant autiste, etait aussi un enfant autiste... Le cineme etait gigantesque, de quoi insulter les Gouzos! Sans compter qu' apres les previews, tout le monde se leve, car c'est l'hymne national, comme avant une partie hockey, et ca se termine avec une grosse image du roi et de la reine sous-titre: "On aime le roi". Josh et moi on se retient pour ne pas pouffer de rire. Personnellement ils sont aussi fous ici avec leur roi (vous devriez voir toutes les images de la famille royale dans les rues, posters, cartes postales, etc. et sans compter que tout etait ferme pendant plus d'une journee parce que la soeur du roi est decedee) que les americains, pour ne pas dire Bush, avec leur "God bless you". Mais bon, je ne m'embarquerai pas dans un debat politique ici.

De retour a l'aeroport pour un autre 17h de vol. On quitte la Thailande, mais on sait qu'on reviendra encore deux fois au cours de ce voyage. Je vais m'ennuyer des Thailandais souriants, mais pas des arnaqueurs; de l'eau chaude de la mer, mais pas des residus d'huile et du bruit etourdissant des moteurs des bateaux 'long-tail'; des currys et des desserts, mais pas de l'inquietude de tomber malade a boire de l'eau ou manger; du soleil bien sur, mais pas de la chaleur et de l'humidite; de l'escalade avec ses stalagtites, mais pas des tendinites; de notre petite stabilite dans notre bungalow, mais pas de la salete... ni des rats!!!

2-21-08 Thailand: The last few weeks

2008-02-16T04:50:00.000-08:00

Well, we're now on our way to New Zealand. I'm sitting in Bangkok right now at our hostel where we're staying for $6/night. It's an amazing place with travellers from Sumatra, Saudi Arabia, Greece, EVERYWHERE! We've managed to go the rest of the trip in Thailand with only one more sickness episode, but it was mostly Nath with a pained stomach while we rode the "2nd class bus" to Bangkok. We were on there with all locals and one Greek guy. The Greek and us were forced to the back. The bus would stop and pick up passangers and drop them off. Anytime the bus was full the bus worker would apologetically have a Thai local sit with us and move them as soon as there was room farther forward. Every time the Thai local looked like a deer in the headlights to have to sit with us white people. I felt like I was in the segregated south! It was pretty funny. We heard that sometimes people will hide in the luggage compartments of the buses and steal valuables from your backpack while it's driving so we carried all of our valuables on the bus. That meant that we had 4 bags with us on the bus due to the climbing gear. Luckily we had already ditched a rope in Tonsai for anchor replacement since most of the anchors consists of rope equalized between about 4 points tied to a huge steel ring. It's a pretty slick and replacable anchor system since a lot of the points are tie offs. Our rope was toast anyways due to all our climbing!

Speaking of which, I know some of you want to know about the climbing.... it's simply amazing! Beautiful pocketed faces, stalagtite stemming, huge roofs over the ocean where at high tide you remove your climbing shoes as you're being lowered into the water, tufa pinching, caving during spectacular multipitch, and more! I've pulled on monos, dynoed to stalagtites, and laybacked tufas. There are multipitches that overhang the whole way, caves through crags 400' tall so you can climb on one side in the morning, wander through with a headlamp, then climb the other side. Nothing is more than 40 minutes from "home" so you just head home in the middle of the day for more water, refresh by jumping in the ocean and grab some lunch before hitting the crags again. This place has it all for limestone! I wish we were a team of 3-4 sometimes to get more climbing shots. Instead, we have more scenery shots than anything else....

Being the motivated climber I am, we went crazy with the sends. Nath was climbing 6a (5.10b) when we arrived, and has since redpointed 7a+ (5.12a). We took few rest days, and have done up to 13 pitches in a day. Most people wake up late and are happy with 5 climbs, but we're up with the sun every day. It took me a while to get used to the rock here, but now I'm on an onsight rampage. I haven't gone for any project style climbs, but have just been ticking off climb after climb in the 5.12 range with onsights up to the 7b+ range (5.12c). I've completed almost every recommended single pitch climb in the entire guidebook through 7a+ (5.12a) and I think I've done about 150 pitches of climbing. Nath is probably at around 100 pitches, and has been onsighting up to 6c (5.11b). She improved her ability to crank on overhang and as of yesterday can now do 4 pullups! I can still only do 10..... :( A week or so ago I was up on Lord of the Thais, the well known amazing 7b multipitch for the redpoint, and on the Tonsai beach next to the bar I climbed all of the classic overhangs that Jess Downer recommended which are considered "bouldering with a rope." One day we even teamed up with our new friends from Arizona, Matt and Sarah, and climbed Humanality, a 5 pitch 6b+ (featherbag 11a) at night by headlamp! It was amazing since the bar below luminates the massive wall with a spotlight due to it's beautiful stalagtites, one of which you climb during the crux (hardest) pitch of the route. You climb up the wall until the holds disappear, and you look around for a while finding nothing wondering how to proceed up ward. Only when you look completely behind you and see the stalagtite do you realize that you have to climb with a hand and a foot on the main wall, and use opposition forces of a hand and a foot on the stalagtite. As you stem up the feature, you have hundreds of feet of air between your legs. It's a spectacular route to do at night, although I did get lost twice and have to reverse quite a bit of climbing as a result...

Our last day, I managed to pull off the improbable. I heard that The King and I (Lord of the Thais bigger brother) 7b+ (5.12c) was great and that the crux third pitch was crazy hard for the grade from some friends. It is also on the Thaiwand Wall next to Lord of the Thais, the beautiful wall that looms over all of Railay West. Nath wanted to do the first two pitches since there was a cave mid route that some Brits recommended to her and the climbing wasn't too difficult (she was nursing some injured fingers) Well, we headed up the first two pitches with a friend's rope to get down, and while we were sitting in the cave I decided to give the 5.12c pitch a go. I'd found countless bail biners already and could easily retreat from any point, and I had two ropes for the 40m sustained pitch looming above. I pulled out the roof with two ropes tied on and the insanity started instanly. I looked above at the pitch, which I couldn't see from the cave, and it was intimidating. It involved 30m of overhung climbing with an overhang of about 25'! I pulled through crux after crux until I started to tire. I saw the angle was starting to become less steep ahead and the holds bigger about 18m into the pitch, and the holds looked potentially bigger. This spurred me to make a desperate leap to a hold above with about 300' of air under me. Luckily, since the fall would have put me so far out in space I would have had trouble getting back on the wall I grabbed the hold for a beautifully dramatic finish to a beautifully difficult pitch. The climbing wasn't over, but it eased off toward the end that I just took my time for an amazing onsight. In atypical limestone fashion, the pitch even featured a 10m runout to the anchor past the lip of the overhang! Full value climbing.

We've made many friends already. Callum from Toronto, one of the friendliest guys we've met. He was kind enough to let us use his rope a few times for rapelling from multipitch, and let us use his belay device after I dropped mine into the jungle due to an unfortunate circumstance. He also went on his visa run with us. We met him on the white board in Tonsai looking for more people to do the full day trip to Malaysia in order to get a new 30 day visa for Thailand. It was a great trip, if for no other reason that we slept a lot in an air conditioned car on a much needed rest day.

Matt and Sarah, who we hung out with the most from Arizona. We did multipitch together, ate dinner together often, and just had a lot of fun with. Nath and Sarah had similar philosophies about saving money while travelling and both complained about how much Matt and I ate (although Matt can eat me under the table any day).

There were the Americans, Nate, Matt, Blake, and Chris with great American pride and upbeat personalities. They were great to climb with and fun to hang out with. Not only that, but due to amazing circumstances, Matt is now the only person I've ever met who has been shot in the head!

There were the Australians, from Melbourne who we are going to potentially visit and hopefully they'll cook for us since they're apparently both high end chefs.... :)

Last night we went do downtown Bangkok and rode the "sky train" and watched a crazy Thai movie. It was a bad kung-fu/kickboxing movie with subtitles. We paid a little bit more for a seat in one of the sofas in the back with a heated blanket. We had to stand for the tribute to the King (what a different culture!) and then the movie started. It was a bizarre story line that consisted of a high functioning autistic girl whose turned out to be a master of the martial arts. I started laughing when one of her toughest opponents was another autistic kid! We were looking for a non-american movie at the time we arrived and boy did we get one! Oh yeah, the theater was so big we got lost and had to ask for directions! Tavelling rules!

Now we're preparing for New Zealand. We're planning climbing, hiking, kayaking, and learning about the little things like tent protection from evil birds who while peck through your tent for kicks.... I have to go pack up to move our of our cool little hostel now. No more playing Chess with Nikos our Greek friend from the bus at night....

Josh and Nath

Le 9 fevrier 2008: L'escalade au quotidien

2008-02-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

Deja un mois de passe, que ca va vite. Ici, bien que la vie soit differente, le train-train quotidien s'est installe. Ca fait du bien, on apprecie chaque journee. On a pas rechange de Bungalow, tout va bien de ce cote. Je n'ai toujours pas ete malade, touchons du bois. Josh dit que c'est parce que je me suis fait des anticorps lors de mon voyage au Maroc. On s'est fait des amis, qu'on croise a chaque jour un peu partout, c'est petit ici! On a maintenant nos restos preferes, le staff nous reconnais, et on mange bien (je suis plus en forme a grimper tout le temps, mais je ne crois pas avoir perdu de poids!). Pendant les jours de repos, on passe nos matinees a la 'kitchenette' a jaser avec des amis qui passent un apres l'autre dejeuner puis diner. J'me dis que ca doit ressemble a ca quand mon pere va prendre son cafe a la Tete de Pioche!!! Malgre qu'on passe la majorite du temps a l'ombre, on bronze lentement, preuve de notre long sejour ici. Puis, on grimpe, on grimpe, et on grimpe encore, et encore plus haut, et encore plus fort :)

Plus en detail, nos journees commencent tot. Au plus tard 7h du matin. Et oui, j'ai bien changee! Il y a deux raisons: le leve du soleil, on veut etre les premiers sur les parois d'escalade; et ma nouvelle alarme, c'est-a-dire Josh qui est incappable de dormir le matin! Faut dire qu'on en reve, non seulement on en mange de l'escalade, mais on passe nos nuits a rever aux nouvelles routes qu'on veut grimper le lendemain. On se reveille donc mourrant d'envie de retourner grimper. On est devenu addict a ce point. Deux fous mordus d'escalade ensemble dans un endroit reve comme ici, c'est pas drole!! Meme nos amis grimpeurs ici disent qu'on grimpe comme des machines!!! La seule chose qui nous ralenti ce sont nos muscles extrement endoloris... mais y'a une solution a ca: les massages thailandais. Pour 7$/h, c'est le meilleur massage que j'ai eu dans ma vie, ca fait mal quand ils te marchent dessus, pressent dans ton dos avec leurs coudes a cause de leurs petits os asiatiques, ou quand ils te craquent le coup comme chez le chiro, ou encore lorsqu'ils te font une prise-en-quatre (ca vous rappelle des souvenirs?).
WOW, ces p'tites dames n'ont l'air de rien, mais elles sont fortes, en forment, et nous remettent sur le piton, pret pour grimper encore plus. Bon, je derape la...

Donc nos journees se commencent avec un bon dejeuner. Wous me connaissez, evidemment le culinaire a une grande place d'importance. La plupart des restos offrent des dejeuners de type americains, avec des Cornflakes humides (impossible de garder quoi que ce soit de sec avec la temperature ici), des oeufs et des toasts carrees de pain blanc tranche. Vous savez comme je n'aime pas ca! Mais c'est ici notre meilleure trouvaille: la 'kitchenette'. Les trois memes sympathiques employes a chaque jour et des dejeuners imbattables! D'abord, un excellent pain multigrain meilleur que celui de chez Premiere Moisson. Meme leur pain dore est meilleur que le mien :) Quoi qu'ils n'ont evidemment pas de syrop d'erable ici, que du miel, hihi. Le tout, accompagne d'une montagne de fruits frais, muris a point et impressionnament sucres: bananes, ananas, mangues asiatiques, papayes et melon d'eau. En alternative, on peut aussi surmonter les fruits d'excellent muslix maison et de yogourt. Hmmmmmmm, quelle belle facon de commencer la journee du bon piend et de faire le plein d'energie pour aller grimper.

Aussitot rassasies, on traverse du cote de Railey. L'idee est d'etre assez tot pour se rechauffer sur les voies faciles avant que les guides, qui donnent des cours d'escalade aux touristes, arrivent vers 9h. Puis, on va sur les parois plus difficiles. Comme Railey est beaucoup plus touristique et donc plus dispendieux, on s'amene des collations. Bananes (elles sont si bonnes et ne coutent presque rien 5Bahts/chaque, on en mange tellement que les Thailandais se moquent gentiment des grimpeurs en nous traitant de singes!), ou un demi-ananas tranche, tout pret a manger pour 20 Bahts (rappelons que 1$=~30 Bahts), ou un delicieux pain aux bananes pour 50 Bahts. Ce qui nous permet donc de continuer a grimper encore plus fort pour un autre 2h.

Ce qui nous mene dons a l'heure du lunch. On revient du cote de Tonsai. La c'est le poulet BBQ qui nous attend. Avec riz et sauce sucree-epicee au chili ou salade de papaye blanche aussi epicee. Ou en alternative, on retourne a la 'kitchenette'. Leur sandwich au thon de deux pource d'epais avec fromage, mayo, choux, tomates, etc. est le meilleur que j'ai mange!! Puis pour dessert ou collation d'apres-midi, y'a les smoothies, les crepes thailandaise tres mince farcie de fruits frais et arrosees de syrop au chocolat, ou le meiller, le riz-collant a la mangue: soit une demie mangue asiatique tranchee, servie sur un lit de riz le tout arrose d'un lait de coco sucre, j'en salive!!! Ah oui, ou bien une noix de coco fraiche avec une paille! Ca me fait penser a un fait aleatoire: apparemment mourir assome d'une noix de coco qui tombe d'un arbre est l'une des principales cause de deces, facile a croire lorsqu'on entend le vacarme que mene juste une toute petite!

Apres une courte pause a la plage (si le temps le permet ou si nos muscles le reclamment!) c'est reparti pour un autre apres-midi d'escalade. On s'ameliore si rapidement. On grimpe jusqu'a 10 voies par jour, 2 a 3 jours en ligne avant un jour de repos. J'en suis rendue a travailler sur des 5.11c/d et 5.12a!!! On a pas mal fait le tour de toutes les voies faciles, par chance je peux maintenant grimper les plus difficiles. Les vues aux sommets depuis les grottes sont magnifiques, avec les stalagtites, les plages, l'eau couleur emeraude, les bateaux, etc. J'ai vraiment hate que vous voyez les photos... Donc en fin de journee, lorsqu'on en peut plus de grimper, lorsque nos muscles font trop mals, et avant que les moustiques sortent au coucher du soleil, on revient a la maison. C'est le temps d'une bonne douche froide, on se veti de notre seul pantalon et t-shirt propre et c'est le grand moment de la soiree: le souper! Mais avant, parlant de vetement, on en a si peu, c'est ridicule, on porte reellement toujours la meme chose, mais durant les jours de repos, on envoit nos vetement 'au lavage'. WOW, les memes p'tites dames qui donnent les massages. Je crois qu'elles lavent a la main avec une planche comme dans le temps de nos grand-meres. J'aimerais que ma mere voit mes shortes blanches devenir brunes apres 3 jours dans la jungle et revenir d'un blanc impeccable du lavage. Le tout plie, pour environ 1$ le kilo, c'est le paradis! Ils ont meme reussi a faire partir une vieille tache de colle de sapin....

Bon, pour en revenir au souper, disons que c'est la qu'on se rassasie pour la deuxieme fois de la journee. Il faut bien compenser pour toute l'energie depensee a marcher dans les sentiers abruptes de la jungle, de Tonsai a Railey et de Railey a Tonsai, et de l'escalade. Josh et d'autres amis en sont rendus a commender deux mets chacun pour souper, un plat de riz et un plat de nouilles. Pas besoin de vous dire que les Thailandais sont decourages mais trouvent ca bien drole de voir ces Americains manger autant!! Au menu du soir: poulet (pour faire changement!) ou boeuf (mais le boeuf n'est pas tres bon, tres nervures pour ne peut dire) avec riz frits ou nouilles de riz et sauce soja. Et les currys, la je n'ai pas encore compris toute les subtilites: curry au coconut, curry vert, curry rouge, curry rouge au coconut, curry rouge epais, etc. Franchement, ils sont tous a base de lait de coco, epices et bons, mais j'echouerais un test a l'aveuglette! J'ai bien hate de prendre mes cours de cuisine l'ete prochain pour comprendre les differences. L'alternative au souper c'est le 'BBQ Tonight!'. Le poisson frais peche du jour et grille: Barracuda, Mali, 'King fish' et requin. Tous servis avec une excellente sauce (evidemment epicee!), salade et patate au four. Tout ce qui manque, c'est un bon verre de vin! Mais l'alcool est chere (prix comparable a Montreal) et de qualite horrible, prevoyez un immense mal de tete et d'estomac par verre le lendemain!! On ne boit donc pas, ca regle le probleme. De toute facon, apres souper, on meurt de fatigue, on ve directement se coucher, vers 20h, a moins qu'on ait un peu d'energie pour de la lecture ou une pertie d'echec (Josh m'a appris a jouer, j'ai perdus toutes les parties pour deux semaines, mais la je commence a gagner!). Une autre nuit d'environ 11h de sommeil pour reparer nos muscles endoloris, et l'histoire recommence...

La seule exception, c'est le mardi soir. Notre resto prefere, Paasook, organise des jeux et des tirages: t-shirt, biere ou vin. Le bar a salade est gratuit avec le souper, ainsi qu'un dessert thailandais different a chaque semaine. Les employees ici comme tous les autres Thailandais sont toujours souriants, heureux et amicaux. Mais encore plus droles ici, ils ne ratent pas une opportunite de rire de nous! Donc le mardi soir 'on sort', c'est-a-dire jusqu'a 21-22h!!! On joue a la chaise musicale, limbo, ballons d'eau, etc. C'est ca la 'grosse' soiree de la semaine. Mais l'ironie, c'est qu'on s'amuse vraiment et qu'on a hate a chaque fois au point qu'on en compte les journees jusqu'on prochain mardi soir!

Finalement, notre vie et nos soucis a Tonsai se resument en deux questionnements quotidiens:
- Ou est-ce qu'on va grimper aujourd'hui?
- Qu'est-ce qu'on mange aujourd'hui?

Desolee pour ceux qui sont au travail :)

2-1-08: Life in Tonsai

2008-02-01T02:28:00.000-08:00

Where do I start... it's just so different here. We're cut off from the mainland by the massive cliffs that make climbing here so wonderful. The only way in and out of Railay and Tonsai is by boat. There are no roads or even footpaths to the surrounding cities of Ao Nang or Krabi. While this results in inflated prices, it is very isolated and has a high density of international climbers. The beaches are spectacular (especially at high tide) and the climbing amazing.

The heat and humidity never ends. Nath and I wake as the sun comes up since we don't party much and go to bed early, but when the power shuts off in the morning it wakes most other people up since their fan turns off. We sweat unendingly, but you get used to it. We either jump in the ocean to cool off, or jump in the cold shower which I've come to love! Sometimes it's the only way to get the body temperature down to a reasonable level and stop sweating after a hard day of climbing and hiking!

We wake, and the hardest thing we have to do during the day is find out where we want to climb. Climbing location is dictated by sun exposure and tides. Railay is often our desination in the morning since it get's good shade all day, and we return to Tonsai in the afternoon sun leaves the crags on that part of the peninsula. Some areas have sun in the morning, so if the tides don't cooperate, they are unclimbable. We figured out the tides pretty quick when I got online and wrote down the tide chart for a week. It helps us plan the day a lot and after having it for a week, we don't really need it any more luckily since we are more in tune to it.

We've slowly figured out where the good places are to eat. Some make great food, and some just don't. Some places are full of happy energy, and some have bad attitudes. We eat breakfast at the same place every morning, pretty much, and when we try something else it never stands up to the gold standard of Sawadee Cafe. There are some street vendors that sell delicious BBQ chicken, mango stickey rice, rice with sweet and sour sauce, and papaya salad for cheap down near the beach at Tonsai. We often eat lunch there, or maybe at the jaw droppingly beautiful Pra Nang beach where there are people preparing food right on the beach. You can buy a banana filled doughnut for a dollar, and some BBQ chicken for about 65 cents. Our favorite dinner place has games and drawings for beer, wine and other stuff once a week on tuesday. Last tuesday found us playing musical chairs and a balloon stomp game, but we didn't win. Nath stomped my balloon.

The people are super friendly. You smile, they smile bigger. They are for the most part all friendly, awesome, happy people. I doubt we'll find this in other countries we travel, but who knows!

All in all, life is good here. We're about 3 weeks in and I couldn't be happier about our decision to bail out on our jobs for year.

:)

1-25-08 Deep Water Soloing

2008-01-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

I was looking forward to Deep Water Soloing (DWS) since I learned what it was. You climb extremely steep rock over extremely deep water. You fall, you're fine! No ropes, no hassles, you're only limited by two things. Your fear and your imagination. Wee's Climbing School was doing a trip the day after my birthday for 600 baht ($20) so we signed up. The tide was high at noon (ideal) and so there was no better time.

We woke up, grabbed breakfast, lounged for a bit, then headed to Wee's. We chose some shoes that had two criteria - smallest holes and best fit, from the supply they had to offer and we were off! We jumped into the longtail boats and headed out to the islands you can see off the coast out in the ocean. As we headed out, I found out that one of the younger kids on the boat was trying David Lama's route from the movie First Ascent, a beautiful line that has a crux around 20m off the water rated 8a+ (13c). Apparently he was consistently touching the final hold, only to whip off into the air for a long, long fall to the ocean below.

This was our first stop, and there were a few easier options for sissies like me. From the longtail, you take a kayak over to a stalagtite. You climb a rope ladder and then head off up the large stalagtite to a ledge above. From here there are a few traversing options, I took the harder one traversing along the lip of a massive roof for about 60' until it turns a corner. Most of the traverse is 30' off the water, but it trends downward, and I was rewarded with a stalagtite I could climb down onto to jump off. It was my first DWS, and it was awesome!

Nath went with me next time, and she attempted the traverse I had just completed. A large step across early in the traverse to a stalagtite stopped her, and she opted to jump off. I traversed a bit more, but having done it already I just chucked off myself. It was so fun!

I did one more easy problem and jumped off, while Nath stayed in the boat. While we were there, the kid pitched off the last moves of the 8a+ twice to take the roughly 60' fall to the water below. Inspiring to watch! Eventually we all jumped back in the boat and rounded the corner of the island we were at to find a spectacularly idyllic beach! We ate some lunch, Nath and I did some snorkeling and skin diving to see fish, a beautiful giant clam, and I even saw a little squid or nautilus (not sure which one). After that fun, we headed back to the cliffs. The cliff on the side of the beach offered unlimited traversing potential, which I took advantage of until I pumped out and pitched off a few times. I rounded a corner and joined some of the other participants at the areas main section.

There were many features to climb, and you could go almost anywhere you wanted. I followed some Brits up some easy features to about 35' and we came to a blank vertical face with a few pockets. The moves involved matching in a sloping pocket while smearing your wet shoes on less than ideal feet. A true challenge at that height! The first Brit made it, the 2nd fell, and I managed to follow successfully. My heart was racing and I jumped off shortly thereafter from the easier territory I was on. The Brit returned later to continue to about the 45' height where he continued traversing on good holds until he made a huge reach out to a stalagtite and dropped off.

I felt rather scared above 30', and I wanted to push my mental limits. I knew I couldn't really be hurt from 45', so I went for it. Nath took pictures from the boat and got some pretty good ones. I repeated the tough blank traverse and gained some larger horizontal shelfs that were easy climbing. From there, I had to move up and right on ever shrinking holds, until I was about 3-4' from the stalagtite. I hiked my feet way up, and made the huge reach. It was hard, but soon I was dangling from the bottom of the beautiful feature victorious. I looked down, steeled myself, and let go for the plunge into the ocean below. The whole thing took so long, that I was the last one on the rock, and I got back in the boat for the return trip feeling like I got exactly what I wanted. I was challenged mentally, but I succeeded and attained my goal!

Nath did a little bit more DWS before we left, but it just wasn't her thing. She prefers the soft catch of a rope to the splash of the ocean. I've run into someone who may be headed out again, and I look forward to trying this awesome aspect of rock climbing again in the future!

Le 25 janvier 2008: Vivre selon les marees

2008-01-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

Josh va enfin mieux et la routine reprends de son train. Il fait bon de vivre au meme endroit et de ne pas avoir a se soucier des tracas du voyagement.

Les plages et villages de Tonsai et Railey sont l'une a cote de l'autre. Tonsai c'est l'ou on habite, Railey est plus touristique, meilleure plage et plus dispendieux. Quant a nous, ce qui importe c'est que le matin c'est mieux de faire de l'escalade a Railey, et l'apres-midi, l'ombre est du cote de Tonsai. On fait le trajet a chaque deux jours environ, et a chaque fois c'est different.

A maree basse, on passe par la plage, autour des rochers. A maree haute, on prend un petit sentier par la jungle. Il y a aussi un sentier plus long qui mene du cote est de Railey, qui est moins abrupte, mais ou il y a plus de moustiques. Sinon, pour rester du cote ouest, y'a d'autres possibilites lorsqu'on laisse aller son imagination. L'autre jour, on n'avait pas l'equipement d'escalade avec nous, la maree etait haute, on est revenu a la nage :) Aussi, un soir, apres l'escalade, on etait pris a Railey a cause d'un orage. Oh que ca tombait, un vrai orage tropical, rien a voir avec la petite plus de San Diego! On pense a payer les bateaux qui circulent a maree haute, mais ils ne naviguent pas sous la pluie. Habituellement on est trop cheap pour cette option. On prefere marcher 30-45 minutes plutot que de payer 80 Baths pour un ticket pour prendre le bateau. Passer par la jungle serait beaucoup trop glissant et donc dangereux. Apres une meilleure investigation de la maree, on decide donc de rentrer a pied, entre les roches, l'eau au genoux, trempes sous la pluie; mais avec des amis et une lampe de poche c'est bien amusant!

Pour l'escalade ca depend aussi des marees. Certaines parois sont accessibles qu'a maree basse. Par exemple, il y a des voies d'escalade sur des iles ou dans des grottes ou l'on peut s'y rendre a pied a maree basse. Il faut donc ajuster nos horaires. La derniere fois on a un peu tarde et on a du revenir a la plage, l'eau a la hauteur de la taille, equipement d'escalade au-dessus de la tete, c'etait un peu lourd, mais encore une fois bien drole!

Al'oppose, a maree haute, on a eu la chance d'experimenter le 'deep water soloing'. Il s'agit de grimper les paroies rocheuses d'une ile (qu'on atteint en bateau, puis en kayak), sans corde, puisque l'idee est de tomber dans l'eau. Josh qui n'a peur de rien a evidemment adore. Pour ma part, je prefere grimper avec une corde!! J'ai eu beaucoup de plaisir, une belle esperience, mais ce n'est pas mon sport. J'avais trop peur d'attrapper un 'flat' en tombant dans l'eau, et je ne pouvais pas grimper rien d'interessant, que des trucs facile, car je ne voulais pas aller si haut. Josh a terminer la journee en beaute en repoussant ses limites. Il a grimpe jusqu'a un stalagtite qu'il a pu agripper avec ses deux mains et s'est laisse tombe a environ 15 metres de haut!!! C'etait impressionnant. Tout le monde dans le bateau l'ont applaudi. J'etais bien contente pour lui, moi j'en ai eu assez avec quelques metres de haut! Cote impressionnant, il y avait un jeune garcon avec nous sur le bateau qui a comme projet de grimper la voie du film 'First ascent' (difficulte 8a du systeme francais, soit plus de 5.13 selon le systeme americain). C'etait beau a voir...

Le 19 janvier 2008: Le revers de la medaille

2008-01-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

Eh oui, les problemes commencent! Josh est malade, mais vraiment malade. Le classique quoi: maux d'etomac, crampes, vomissements, diarrhee, etc. Repos force pour quelques jours. Il fait pitie a voir. Par chance moi je vais bien. Ca me rappelle quand j'etais malade dans le desert au Maroc, malheureusement pas que de bons souvenirs!

Mais non seulement ca, on vient de passer la pire nuit de notre vie dans notre nouveau bungalow: infeste de rats! Oui, oui, de vrais gros rats. Il vivent dans le grenier, et apparemment on decide de descendre dans notre bungalow pendant la nuit pour attaquer mon paquet de gomme. C'etait juste horrible, pas juste un ou deux rats, mais un grand nombre. On pouvait entendre leurs cris, suivre leur parcours lorsqu'ils marchaient autour du lit, et s'inquieter de les entendre gruger pres de nos sacs. Le pire est lorsqu'ils descendaient par la tete de lit, ah, j'en tremble encore juste a y penser. Il y en avait tellement, qu'on a finit par laisser la lumiere ouverte toute la nuit pour reduire le nombre de rat dans le bungalow. La nuit d'avant on pensait que c'etait les ecureuils. Josh avait donc accroche tous nos effets personnels au mur. Mais cette nuit, avec la lumiere allumee, je pouvais voir leurs ombres sur le mur... J'ai adore Ratatouille (le film) mais les vrais rats partout dans notre petit bungalow ce n'etait vraiment pas drole. Le matin enfin arrive, je repars a la recherche d'un nouvel endroit ou habiter. Josh reste au lit, il est trop malade pour aller ou que ce soit. Apres une couple d'heures de recherche (a revenir au bungalow chaque 30 min. pour m'assurer que mon pauvre Josh s'en sort) on a deux options. Je suis tres selective cette fois dans mes visites. La premiere option est le plus cheap des bungalow, 300 Bahts par nuit (~10$) pour un bungalow de bamboo, mais juste une epaisseur de bamboo, pas de grenier, tout ouvert. Comme ca au moins personne d'autre que nous peut l'habiter! Et on a notre moustiquaire pour le lit, donc pas grave si les moustiques peuvent y entrer. La deuxieme option est de payer beaucoup plus cher, 800 Bahts pour un Bungalow de bois, ou 1200 Baths pour un bungalow avec de vrais murs (en platre ou en chaux). Ca me fait tellement penser a l'histoire des trois petits cochons. On opte donc pour la maison de pailles (le cheap bungalow en bamboo) qui risque de s'envoler au vent s'il y a un tsunami !!! Si ca ne va pas, la nuit prochaine on demenagera encore.

Josh a donc passe la journee entre le lit et la salle de bain. Je me suis occupee du demenagement, comme vous le savez, j'ai beaucoup d'experience de ce cote! J'ai donc remplis les sacs a dos, demenage un par un au nouveau bungalow, reinstalle le tout, et retourner chercher Josh, qui a du utiliser tous ses efforts pour marcher jusqu'au nouveau bungalow...

Tout est bien qui finit bien. On est ici depuis quelques jours maintenant, et c'est le meilleur bungalow qu'on a habite! Un peu plus eloigne en haut de la cote, donc plus loin de la rue, mais beaucoup plus tranquille. On a l'electricite de 5h du soir a 8h30 du matin plutot que de 18h a 6h (je vous dis, la fanne le matin pour dormir un peu ca fait toute la difference!). Faut comprendre qu'il n'y a pas de 'vraie' electricite ici. Tout fonctionne sur generatrice. Notre salle de bain a la meilleur des douches, on avait pas encore eu autant de pression d'eau depuis notre arrivee en Thailande. Evidemment, pour ceux a qui ca ne viendrait pas a l'idee, l'eau est froide, y'a pas de chauffe eau ici. Mais tant que je prends ma douche avant le couche de soleil, ca va, il fait chaud dehors. Le soir la temperature descend un peu, ce qui est parfait pour dormir. Ah, quel bonheur, on a dormir 12h et on s'est reveille au chant des oiseaux.

Je repense aux rats, et si j'en avais pas mal dans le coup a avoir ete crispee et stressee toute la nuit d'horreur, je serais certaine que tout ca etait un cauchemar. Chaque fois qu'on passe devand l'ancien bungalow, y'a de nouveaux locataires. Je me demande si je devrais les avertir...

1-15-08 Tonsai/Railay

2008-01-23T19:56:00.000-08:00

We're here! One of the major destinations of the trip. We're on beautiful world class beaches surrounded by endless beautiful limestone formations waiting to be climbed! Our life is glorious right now!

We got in, and promptly looked at every affordable bungaloo at Tonsai. As soon as we had seen them all, and failed at bargaining since it was high season and many were full, we chose one that was about 400 baht/night ($14) and thought it would be alright. Once we dumped our packs and settled in a little, we quickly departed to find some FOOD!

Within 15 minutes we ran into Neil Simpson from the Vertical Hold climbing gym! It was hilarous. Here's this sweaty guy jingling back in the dark covered in climbing gear just finishing up with some nighttime rope soloing, and it was a friend from San Diego! Neil ended up being VERY helpful getting us settled here at Tonsai, and we ended up climbing with him for the next few days as he showed us everything from a tour on how to get around to a beautiful secluded tidal lagoon that is only full at high tide.

The evening we went to the tidal lagoon, we were stuck in Railay during a heavy rain at night and we were supposed to meet some friends in Tonsai where we were staying. There are 4 ways to Tonsai - longtail boat, walking across sharp rocks at low tide, a trail through a short bit of jungle with some scrambling connecting the two beaches, or a very long small trail up through behind the beaches through the jungle. We were close to the beach crossing, but the tide was coming in. We decided to brave it with a single mag light between 4 people and we waded through the ocean over the sharp limestone boulders while it downpoured on us. We were laughing the whole time and showed up late and soaked for dinner. It was a fun little adventure!

As the first two days passed, we became unhappier and unhappier in our bungaloo. It turned out that the shower didn't work, so we had to fill a bucket thing and pour it over us. Power is limited here at Tonsai, so we only had electricity from 6pm to 6am. Our bathroom was enclosed, so all day we referred to it as the "dungeon" since you had to descend concrete stairs to enter it, and the water from the shower didn't drain properly. We needed out....

Luckily, Neil was on his way out of Tonsai, so we just jumped into his bungaloo. Andaman (recommended to us by others) was where he was staying, and they have cheaper bungaloos that are pretty good. They were full, but Neil sweet talked them and we jumped ahead on the waiting list since we were there and had money in hand to give them. Soon we were unpacking and happy with our new home for 500 baht/night ($18).

We went climbing the next day, and the next, and were loving it. Nath was working her way up to leading 6b+ (5.11a) and I managed to onsight a 7a+ (5.12a) that was wildly steep. We were having fun trying street vendor mango sticky rice, and swimming at the beautiful beaches between climbs, but that all came to an end on our third night in Neil's bungaloo....

On the way home that night, I felt a little funny. Was I hungry, or sick? I wasn't sure, so I ate! Oops... I was sick! We went home as the sun fell, and I immediately went to bed. However, that didn't last long as the stomach cramps set in as did the frequent trips to the bathroom (which luckily wasn't the dungeon anymore). I won't give you horrible graphic details, but it was the worst night of my life. By the end standing was extremely difficult, and I almost passed out a few times. To add to the nightmare, since we were awake at night for the first time, we found out our bungaloo was infested with rats! It was a complete horror to lay there sick hearing them scurrying all over the entire room all night. After two hours we turned the light on, but that didn't even work! Nath saw one, but for the most part they just stayed out of view but they were all there and there were many of them! One almost ran across Nath's head through the mosquito net at one point.

In the morning, Nath went to work finding us another bungaloo. She visited all the others with openings, including the more expensive ones while I laid in bed, sicker than I'd ever been. She would check in on me and try to get me to eat and drink and did a wonderful job all day taking care of everything while I tried to survive. In the end, Andaman told us that the 300 baht/night bungaloos were full until Nath told them about the rats. Then suddenly they had one free! Surprise surprise.... Nath packed all of my stuff, and hers, and then moved us into the bungaloo carrying loads while I slowly staggered up the hill to our new, hopefully better, home.

It turned out that while cheaper and smaller, the new bungaloo was paradise! It was farther from any sounds, no enclosed attic area for rats to live, just as nice as the last one although a little smaller, and had great water pressure in the shower! We were set! After 2 rest days, I was feeling better, although it was 4 days before drinking water didn't hurt my stomach.

Soon we were back to climbing hard every day and enjoying the beach. We did amazing climbs day after day, saw monkeys, and pretty much worked ourselves into destruction. After a few days of climbing limestone, you're ready for a break! So, we called the next day a rest day and went to sleep. I woke early, and went for a run, only to return to Nath in bed with the closest thing she could find to cake since it was my birthday! I had totally forgotten! We lounged on the most beautiful beach I've ever seen for a few hours that day, swam, I cliff jumped, and we ended the evening with dinner at a "nice" restaurant ($7/person!) that we really like and drank a little cheap Thai rum on the beach that night with some friends. It was awesome!

Le 15 janvier 2008: La plage de Railey

2008-01-20T01:16:00.001-08:00

Les plages et villages de Tonsai et Railey sont tout pres l'une de l'autre. Le matin, c'est mieux de grimper a Railey et l'apres-midi l'ombre est du cote de Tonsai. On fait donc cette route a chaque jour et a chaque jour c'est different. A maree basse, on passe par la plage, autour des rochers. A maree haute, on prend un petit sentier abrupte dans la jungle... ou on nage! Il y a aussi un sentier plus long, mais moins abrupte qui mene de l'autre cote de Railey. L'autre jour, il y a eu un orage en apres-midi, oh que ca tombait, du vrai tropical! Pas moyen d'aller dans la jungle, trop dangereux de glisser. Les bateux qui font habituellement le trajet a maree haute ne naviguent evidemment pas sous la pluie, et de toute facon on est trop cheap pour payer le 80 Bahts, soit environ 2.60$. On decide donc, accompagnes d'amis, d'y aller a pied, par la mer, l'eau au genoux, c'etait bien drole...

Sinon, comment dire. La plage est magnifique, sable blanc, beaucoup de touristes par contre a Railey. L'eau est tellement chaude, plus chaude qu'un bain, c'est impressionnant. La jungle, avec ses immenses arbres et ses cordes de Tarzan, encore une fois va falloir prendre des photos pour mes fieuilles. Et l'escalade, ah que c'est beau. Je n'ai jamais rien grimpe de comparable. C'est drolement amusant de grimper autour et au-dessus des stalagtites. C'est plutot apic par contre, pas beaucoup d'option pour les pieds, va falloir que je me fasse des bras! Il y a aussi des grottes un peu partout, jusqu'a present on en a visite qu'une. Et les singes!! Ah oui, ils sont egalement partout et grimpent beaucoup plus vite que nous :)

Le 14 janvier 2008: Escalade a Tonsai

2008-01-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

Aujourd'hui, c'est l'escalade qui nous attends. On prend un bateau vers Tonsai, une toute petite plage, habitee que par des grimpeurs, puisqu'entouree de parois d'escalade. C'est magnifique, le sable blanc, l'eau verte, le ciel bleu, les bateaux et la roche avec ses surplombs et ses stalagtites... j'en oublie les poissons et j'ai vraiment hate de grimper!

Il fallait d'abord trouver un bungalow ou habiter pour les 4-5 prochaines semaines. Et oui, on ne bouge plus pour un p'tit bout! Malheureusement, pas mal tout etait complet, et on a pas eu de chance avec notre premier bungalow. La douche ne fonctionnait pas, la 'salle de bain' (disons plutot un trou un ciment qu'on a surnomme le 'dongeon') ne se drainait pas et sa commencait deja a sentir la moisissure (de quoi me rappeler l'appart sur St-Kevin avec mes cousins!)

Par chance Josh tombe sur un ami de San Diego qui quitte dans 2 jours. Il nous montre tous les bons endroits (il a deja passe un mois ici) et on prend son bungalow! Enfin une douche, que de luxe!! On installe notre moustiquaire au-dessus du matelas... et voila notre lit de princesses :) Sans parler de notre balai de sorciere, Oceane va aimer les photos! Donc pour 500 Bahts par nuit, soit environ16$, j'crois bien qu'on va rester ici...

1-9-08 Ko Lanta

2008-01-20T00:43:00.000-08:00

After arriving at Ko Lanta, we had the bus drop us off at the recommended Lanta Divers. They were very helpful and we soon had a bungaloo on the best beach on the island (longbeach) and a free ride there for a mere $23/night. Upon arriving, we grabbed dinner at a local restaurant and promptly passed out. It had only been one day, so the time change still had us in it's grasp. In fact, it was a few days before we stopped waking up at 5am and passing out as soon as it was dark.

One crazy thing about Ko Lanta are the bugs. They screech like crazy right at sunset and sunrise. Nath was terrified, I laughed and told her they weren't mosquitoes, they were probably more like grasshoppers. I was right.

We woke up in the morning and went diving, me at Ko Ha and Nath in a swimming pool. I was diving in an island paradise two hours off the coast with Deep Water Soloing potential, while Nath was studying her books and learning to dive. Ko Ha was awesome, but they wouldn't let me climb the rocks for "insurance reasons". Next day, I wandered the town while Nath took her class and I tried to figure out what I wanted to do on the 12th. There was a trip supposedly going to the "best diving around" but the depth started rather deep, mostly 18m (60ft). It's just not fun to dive there if you aren't Advanced certified. I decided to be efficient, and start working on my Advanced cert and dive there at the same time! I just had to pay 800 baht more (~$24) and I had my own dive master/instructor to dive with, and we were headed to a depth of 30m (100ft) at the best diving at Ko Lanta!

I boarded the boat for the 4hr ride out into the ocean, Nath was finally headed for Ko Ha, the place where I did my first dives and was out of the pool. As we approaced Hin Dang/Hin Muang we geared up. My instructor had given me a series of tests that I was supposed to take at 30m to see the effects nitrogen on my system. Nitrogen causes "nitrogen narcosis" and bad things can happen to some people as they experience side effects similar to drinking. We jumped in and promptly descended 30m to take the tests. Once we found a sandy spot (so as not to disturb the coral) I deflated my BCD to be negatively boyant and stood on the ground while I took the tests. I quickly realized that while I felt fine, I could forget details very quickly and the tests took, on average, 50% longer than on the surface! After that, we proceeded to slowly work toward the surface for the next 30-40 minutes. Once we reached a height of 5m for the "safety stop" of 3 minutes to let the nitrogen out of the system the currents were so strong that we grabbed on to a lifeless piece of rock with two fingers and the most amazing thing happened. Right in front of us a 10+' manta ray came gliding past, and started hovering about 2 meters from where we were! It sat there for the entire 3 minutes before finally moving on. It was amazing!

We hopped on the boat after the dive, ate and relaxed, but quickly someone pointed out there were mantas just under the surface at the new dive site! One of the workers grabbed his snorkeling gear and jumped in, and I quickly followed. I dislike snorkels, so since I couldn't breath efficiently anyways, I just started skin diving. The mantas were EVERYWHERE! I would hold my breath and swim down 7-10m and they were RIGHT THERE! If it weren't bad to disturb the wildlife, I could have easily grabbed on for a ride!

I boarded the boat, geared up, and we dove again down to 30m and slowing worked our way back up. This time the mantas would drift by regularly out of the dark depths, and at one point one turned toward me and I ducked instinctively and I could have touched its stomach as it glided past. It the best diving I've ever done! The location lived up to its reputation and Lanta Divers lived up to Lisa's recommendation. They were AWESOME.

The next day Nath and I both went to Ko Ha again. Her for her last day of class, and me for more "fun dives" as they call them. It was another day in a natural aquarium with beautiful corals, fish, and this time snakes! I saw 4 banded sea snakes, apparently very deadly but they can't get their mouth open enough to actually inject their venom in a person.

Our last day on Lanta we rented a motor scooter for $5 and found a cave that was on our map. Our funny guide lead us up through the jungle to the cave into huge rooms, small crawl-throughs, and a room full of bats. It was a good way to spend a few hours. Then we rushed back, packed, and caught the 1:30 express boat to Ton Sai! Off to the climbing mecca of Thailand!

Le 9 janvier 2008: Nager dans un aquarium a Koh Lanta

2008-01-20T00:38:00.000-08:00

Apres une autre nuit reveilles a 4h du matin, incappable de dormir a cause du decallage horaire (sans parler de la chaleur et de l'humidite qui me rappellent l'ete a Montreal) on retourne a l'aeroport. Un jour plus tard et ca parait deja comme une semaine... l'annee va eter longue :)

Vol en retard de deux heures, on manque le bateau pour l'ile de Koh Lanta. On doit donc s'y rendre en mini-van: 4h assis tasses, pas d'air climatise et 2 traversiers a prendre. Encore ici la qualite de l'air est epouvantable, non seulement le gaz du bateau, mais ils laissent tous fonctionner leur moteur de voiture :( Partis a 5h du matin, on arrive a Koh Lanta a 17h30.

Enfin, les efforts commencent a recompenser. Notre bungalow de bois, la plage, les iles, tout est paradisiaque. Encore une fois, vous pourrez en jugez vous meme par les photos! A notre grande surprise, les moustiques se font plutot rares. Mais a l'aube et au coucher du soleil, oh la la, c'est la cacophonie, je me cache a l'interieur. Pour environ 20 minutes, tous les insectes sortent pour se nourrir, sans blague, le bruit si intense se compare a celui d'une tondeuse!

La bouffe thailandaise est delicieuse et evidemment cheap. Pour l'instant, je ne me tanne pas. Riz, riz frit ou nouille, avec poulet ou boeuf, c'est pas mal ca. Mais les portions sont minuscules, surtout comparees aux portions americaines!!!

Koh Lanta est une ile petite mais interessante. Il y a beaucoup de scandinaves ici. J'ai passe 4 jours a faire ma certification PADI, et Josh a faire de la plongee sur un autre bateau. On ne se voit pas beaucoup! On se leve vers 6h30 du matin (juste apres la cacophonie des moustiques!), un 'taxi' (c'est-a-dire la boite arriere d'un pick-up!) vient nous chercher et nous amene au bateau. Lors de mes cours, la theorie s'est tres bien passee, mais je n'ai pas tellement apprecie ma premiere plongee dans la piscine. J'avais l'impression de respirer dans une paille avec le nez pince!! Mais un fois dans l'ocean, WOW, c'etait comme nager dans une aquarium: autout des coraux; avec des etoiles de mers blanches ou bleues; et des poissons tropicaux de toutes les couleurs. J'en ai vite pris gout et oublie ma 'tank' d'air. J'ai hate d'aller plonger avec Josh eventuellement...

Le 8 janvier 2008: Arrives a Bangkok

2008-01-20T00:31:00.001-08:00

Enfin, ca y est! Apres avoir perdu notre premiere negociation de prix pour le taxi, on arrive a notre chambre a 2h30 du matin, apres avoir apercu notre premier elephant dans la rue. Les taxis chargent le double du prix et ne veulent vraiment plus negocier, apparemment ils ont le pouvoir...

Le lendemain matin, malgre la fatique, on va visiter un premier temple "Wat Pho". C'est magnifique (vous en jugerez par les photos), un enorme bouda couche en or d'environ 50 metres, et les toitures, etc. Le tout suivi d'une heure de massage thailandais pour 320 Baths, soit environ 11$ et d'un succulent curry pour souper pour environ 1.25$... mise a part la pollution atmospherique, c'est un vrai paradis!

Le 7 janvier 2008: L'aeroport de Tokyo

2008-01-20T00:26:00.000-08:00

Le premier vol s'est bien passe. 11h30, lecture, film, mon premier Suduko (j'ai fini avec ca, c'est stupide a la fin, faut juste faire toutes les possibilites sur une autre feuille et trouver celle qui ne fonctionne pas, j'suis donc pas adepte!) et encore des preparatifs! Notre transit a Tokyo nous donne un avant gout: tout est ecrit en japonais! Les toilettes valent la peine d'etre visitees: totallement futuristes avec leur telecommande et fonctions electroniques telles que "bidet", je n'ose pas essayer!! Je regrette seulement de ne pas avoir ma camera avec moi. Apres une marche a travers l'aeroport, pour se degourdir un peu les jambes, on repart pour un autre vol de 8h. Celui-la on a passe vite, on a dormi, il etais deja tard a l'heure de San Diego...

1-8-08 A Day in Bangkok

2008-01-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

We woke up extremely early due to jet lag and didn't have much to do but get an early start on the day. We threw on our money belts, grabbed the long pants and shirts so we could enter temples and headed out. It was funny, at first we were so scared to eat anywhere for fear that we might get sick that we were only looking in the Lonely Planet guidebook to Thailand for places to eat. The one we tried opened late, so we pretty much didn't eat until lunch and we went all the way back to the same place! We even ate their twice that day since we didn't want to risk it anywhere else. It was ridiculous how paranoid we were!

We wandered the streets of Bangkok looking for the recommended temples to see, typical tourist stuff, and the locals could tell... They all descended on us telling us this lie or that lie, or maybe bending the truth to convince us that the temples we wanted to see were closed and their friend could take us to some other temples that were "just as good!" Yeah.... right.... Well, Nath had read "Read This First - South East Asia" and was ready for it. We knew the scam and kept walking.

Eventually we figured out that the King's sister really did die, and that some of the temples were closed at least part of the day, but the ones we wanted to see weren't ALL closed ALL day like all the scam artists were trying to tell us. We managed to find the temple of the reclining Budda, containing a 150' golden budda lying down. We did the mandatory walk through and snapped a few shots, but outside of the temples were equally beautiful and I'm sure we ended up taking way too many pictures of the place. While we were there, we indulged in our first thai massage since in the back of the temple the local massage school has set up a place for the students to practice their art. We had a 1 hour massage for about $11 a piece. Spectacular! We didn't do too much else that day, except wander a little, and we slept early due to jet lag and the fact that we had to wake up at 4am or so to make our plane in the Bangkok Internation Airport to Krabi

We woke up, caught another overpriced cab, and were soon waiting for our plane to take off. It was late, but not too late, and we were in Krabi before we knew it. After a few bus rides, we were on the paradise island of Ko Lanta (Ko means island in Thai). While on the bus, a local shared with us that you don't have to barter for cabs, you just get it and order them to use the meter and they are required by law to use it! You live you learn. We'll put that trick to use when we pass through Bangkok in the future.

Le 6 janvier 2008: Depart de Los Angeles

2008-01-20T00:17:00.000-08:00

Et c'est parti!! J'ai peine a y croire, les preparatifs qui n'en finissent plus s'etirent jusqu'au matin de notre depart. Il est 6h, on imprime les derniers documents, sacs a main et sac a dos, on s'en sort avec 95lbs total (dont au moins 1/3 est l'equipement d'escalade!). En chemin vers l'aeroport, on fait nos derniers appels, etc. Apres avoir manque notre vol en revenant de Montreal la semaine derniere et passe une nuit a l'aeroport Newark (voir les photos!) je croyais qu'on avait appris notre lecon.
On part donc 3h d'avance, mais ce n'est apparemment pas assez. Non seulement l'aeroport de LA est immense, mais c'est bonde de monde. S'il y a un vol qu'on ne veut pas manquer, c'est bien celui pour Bangkok! Evidemment tout ce qui peut arriver arrive. J'oublie mon tout nouveau canif suisse dans mon bagage a main, confisque :( ; je suis choisie aleatoirement pour fouille (inscription SSSS sur ma carte d'embarquement), y'a pas de femme disponible, je dois attendre... Par chance, tout est bien qui finit bien, on embarque de justesse, pas meme le temps de remplir nos gourdes d'eau.

1-6-08 On the way to Thailand

2008-01-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

Thinking it was enough, we showed up to LAX two hours in advance of our flight to Bangkok. Let's just say that isn't a good idea, and we spent the next hour and fourty five minutes stressed about whether or not we'd make the plane. It takes over two hours to check into your airline! Luckily, after Nathalie was randomly stopped by security for searching, we did, in fact, make the plane and we were off. Amazingly enough, the 12 hour flight over wasn't too bad. I read some, watched some bad immemorable movies, and Nath and I played some Sudoku from the airline magazine.

We had a layover in Tokyo, which was definitely unique. Almost everything was different, from what was sold in the airline shops, to apparently the toilets (Nath said I missed out on seeing the crazy electronic gadets). What was the same? Starbucks of course!

We stayed there for about 3 hours and we were off to Bangkok. We slept a lot on this 7-8 hour leg of the flight and showed up feeling OK even though it was almost 1am local time when we arrived. We bartered the taxi down to half price (still paying to much we found out later) and soon we were asleep in our hostel.

The Itinerary!

2008-01-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well, here's the current plan for the year off. It may change. In fact, it will probably change based on the number of revisions that we've made already, but here goes!

We flew to Bangkok on Jan 6th, arriving on Jan 8th. We'll be in Thailand for 6 weeks in the south east Krabi region scuba diving on Ko Lanta and climbing at Railay and Ton Sai beaches. We are very close to the area where they filmed "The Beach" and it is truly beautiful here.

Feb 19th we fly to New Zealand, mostly the south island, where we'll spend a month hiking, climbing and exploring.
March 18th we're off to Australia for climbing and to see Josh's brother Peter and his wife Annette. We'll be "down under" for about two months, including a trip to Tazmania where Josh hopes to climb The Totem Pole.

May 13th is a detour to Fiji for two weeks of relaxation and more scuba diving.

May 27th we head back to NE Australia to explor Darwin and scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef for a couple of weeks.

June 10th we head to Singapore to sample the local cuisine which we heard is spectacular. Nath may take a cooking class there.

June 17th we're off to Malaysia where our passtimes are still TBD. Maybe we'll repeat Scotty's route on the Dragon's Horn if we can work it in!

July 5th we head to Cambodia to see the world famous Ankor Wat, the beautiful temples overgrown in the jungle.

July 15th back to Thailand. We may meet up with Charles at this time. We'll be climbing and taking cooking classes in the Chaing Mai area in the north. It'll rain a lot, but oh well... it will be fun!

Aug 5th will see us heading to Vietnam for some deep water soloing in Ha Long Bay and other explorations. We currently plan on staying primarily in the north of the country due to recommendations.

Sept 2nd we're off to China where we'll take a month to trek across the south of the country from east to west starting in Hong Kong and ending in Dali with a stop in Yangshuo a beautiful climbing destination.

Sept 30th will find us in the Himalayas of Nepal trekking. Maybe we'll go to Everest Base Camp, or the base of Annapurna. We haven't decided yet.

Oct 28th we'll fly to India. We're currently undecided about what we want to do in India, but we'll be there for a month!

Nov 25th we'll head back to Thailand for a final 3 weeks of climbing in Scuba, probably again in Krabi region.

Dec 16th will find us headed back to LA with too many pictures and stories to tell. When we get back we plan to spend Christmas in Montreal with Nath's family and about a week in AZ with Josh's parents.