A One Way Trip Of Indefinite Duration

[coldclimb]

This has been in the works for some time, and it has been a great struggle for me to refrain from posting here in advance and getting people ready for it, but I figured a post without pictures isn't much of a post at all. Now I have pictures, so I have to start the thread. :D

We left home Saturday night and enjoyed a full day of flying, napping, and driving to make it to Bend, Oregon, where my parents have reserved some condos for a family Thanksgiving. Morning (er, afternoon...) on Monday found us rolling out of bed with a nice view of some of the rest of nature's south-bound travelers. Signs in the snow indicate some parts of the golf course may be better fertilized than others next spring. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Bend/Edit-02/723391716_9SUU6-L.jpg



Tracy's mom and sister-in-law also joined us, and her mom brought along her old dog too. The light dusting of snowball-perfect snow in this part of Oregon is great fun!
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To pass the time and spend as much as possible with Tracy's mom, sister-in-law, and nephew, we headed out today for a walk along the Deschutes River in Tumalo State Park. The trail isn't much to speak of, but it was enough to tire out Ryan, who enjoys a bit of a break from all this walking.
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Tracy has my point-and-shoot for this trip, and she's working on learning to use it to record her perspective on life. Things are looking up! :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Bend/Edit-09/723394032_oRKYF-L.jpg



So that's the beginning. Not much to look at so far, but December 1st we head to Beijing, China with a one way ticket and a plan to head south and bounce from country to country, hitting as much territory as we can between China and New Zealand. Hopefully somewhere along the line we'll be able to pick up some work and make enough money to live and move on to the next destinations, and eventually home! The trip is very loosely planned with an emphasis on the ability to do whatever we want along the way, and we've got an indefinite timetable, but we hope to be home again in six months or so!

We still have seven days in Oregon, so stick around for a few more updates before we head overseas. :D

[Cuong]

A start of an epic journey. Look forward to all your adventures.

Cuong

[coldclimb]

Thanks Cuong! :D

Today was spent touring the Metolius climbing gear factory in Bend. We did a few other things too, but for a climber, this is like a little kid visiting a theme park. :D Pretty awesome!

Here's a rack loaded with strips of cam lobes, freshly milled and ready for individual separation. If you're unfamiliar with climbing equipment, which I assume most of the world is, these cams can be found completed here: http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/power_cam.html
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Bend/Edit-11/723386739_P5RPL-L.jpg



Here a tumbler loaded with small rocks smooths out the rough edges of the freshly milled metal, taking off the burrs and such. These devices shown are wedged or cammed into cracks in the rock while climbing and the rope clipped to them to stop a fall.
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This machine was equally cool... new and old gear alike are tossed in this vibrating ring full of small balls of metal and a polishing fluid. The bouncing action rolls and rotates them for a while, and when they come out they're bright and shiny!
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Here's a jumbled bin of Metolius curve nuts. These blocks of metal are slotted into small constrictions in cracks while climbing, and believe it or not they can safely hold a LOT of force! They've saved many lives. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Bend/Edit-19/723388853_Lrppm-L.jpg



Each carabiner is inspected at least three times and tested to half its rated strength. A certain number are tested to complete failure, a process which didn't happen to be going on while we were touring, sadly. :rofl
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I still feel like a kid that just had the experience of a lifetime. Call me a climber I guess. :rofl Tomorrow our plan is to head out and hit the rocks at Smith Rock State Park, so stay tuned!

[kres]

Most awesome. {Love the 'beaner shot...}

:lurk

[coldclimb]

Thanks Kres! :D

Today was uneventful, but I've got some shots still from yesterday for you all! Tracy and I headed out to Smith Rock State Park to aim for a route I tried five years back and never completed. At the time I got lost on the rock, went off route, and climbed another route that was equally good, but didn't make it to the top of the formation. This time, armed with better beta, we followed the right track and topped out after five pitches on "Wherever I May Roam" 5.9. Here's Tracy on the third pitch.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Bend/Edit-24/724231316_UL9c6-L-1.jpg



And again topping out on the last hold of the route, with the Crooked River heading off into the distance far below.
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This is I believe a 47 image stitch of most of the park from the towering top of the main Smith Rock Group. A majority of the climbing centers on the walls on the right side of the rocks at the base of the picture, but there's routes all over every feature in the area! Climbers come from all over the world to climb here, so we feel pretty blessed to be enjoying some warm sun at the top of these massive columns. Tiny in the distance just left of center and almost reaching the horizon line of the hills in the background is the Monkey Face Tower, atop which I proposed to my now-wife Tracy two years and two days prior to this shot! :D
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A climber works through the moves high above the ground on "Moondance" 5.11c, spotlighted in the last rays of sunlight to strike this wall this evening. I cheated and cloned out another climber below him. :D
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We rapped off as the wind picked up and weather went a bit sour, wrapping up another wonderful day at Smith Rock. My last shots of the evening are Tracy following me down to ground level again.
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Hope you enjoy the shots! :D Not sure when I'll have more, but we'll try to hit the rocks again before we head back to Portland and catch our flight overseas.

[kres]

I laughed out loud on this shot:

http://www.morffed.com/2009/Bend/Edit-27/724232222_gVrjf-L.jpg

:rofl

Love it. The pano's were incredible. The detail is to die for. What kit did you use on the 47 shot stitch?

[ian408]

Looks like another fun trip :thumb

The trip to Metolius factory would be cool. I do a little metal polishing of small parts using walnut shells. The same thing you'd find at a gunsmith for polishing brass shells. Amazing what they will do for small parts--makes them look brand new regardless of what's on them.

[coldclimb]

Stepping out of the airport hits me hard with the impact and seriousness of this trip. By the time we make it through customs it's already dark, none of the signs make any sense, the locals don't understand what I'm saying, and we have pretty much no idea where the hostel we want is located. These are the immediate problems alone, to say nothing of the fact that we're halfway around the world without enough money to get back, or really even to get very far on the track we're currently on, and our itinerary is a loose sketch with a lot more questions than real plans. I'll admit I feel a bit like turning around and running home with my tail between my legs, but a few promises from the Bible and maybe a bit of stubbornness keeps us going forward.

We catch a shuttle into downtown. Not that we know where it winds up or where we are going, but having been directed to three different buses by helpful locals, we picked one and went with it. Shortly after disembarking on the side of a road in a dark Beijing we learn to settle on a price before taking a bicycle ride when a local wants 50 American dollars for bringing us to a hotel that is not where we wanted to go. I talk him down considerably on both his price and the room at the hotel, but it's not a happy compromise. We settle in for the night in a comfy room at least, a blessing after the day's long hours of traveling.

The next morning finds us wandering the streets of Beijing, walking several miles with our fully loaded packs and reinforcing the previous lesson about the perceived value of a bicycle ride before we finally find the hostel we are looking for.

This place is sweet! Check out the Wangfujing Youth Hostel if you ever stay in Beijing! Can't recommend it enough.

So this brings us up to yesterday, when after all our walking we decided we weren't done yet and headed out to see the Forbidden City. Some indefinitely huge period of time ago an emporer built this entire walled city with a moat around it for his palace, blocking access to the rest of the world and making everything inside really really awesome. Must have taken quite an ego, but the results are pretty impressive. These days the Forbidden City has been turned into an enormous museum and flocks of people both foreign and Chinese alike line up at the gates to check the place out.

http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-37/731050710_kkBpv-L.jpg



Stepping through the massive gates of the forbidden city, we find ourselves inside a huge courtyard with a small stream flowing across the middle. In the distance on all sides are more high walls blocking line of sight to the rest of the palace, so we figure we'll take one wall and follow it around the whole place, seeing everything.
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The construction of this place is really impressive, with incredible details adorning everything down to the rafters. The size of these doors is amazing too, with an opening large enough to drive a city bus through.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-38/731441816_C4XL3-L.jpg



The museum is filled with relics and artifacts of ancient China of all sorts, from weapons to sun-blockers to astronomical instruments and board games. It takes us several hours of examining all this stuff to realize that we haven't touched a fraction of what is here, and that to see it all would take far more than an entire day.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-41/731443452_ww7Cn-L.jpg



We're on the third enormously massive courtyard lines with rooms of museum artifacts when we come to this realization. We scope out the other end of the complex and decide to skim over most of the stuff here to go see a few things we're interested in.
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A massive botanical garden filled with all sorts of flora and giant limestone blocks fills us with awe, especially considering that the effect it has right now is massively tempered by the cold of winter. To see this place when it's actually GREEN has to be AMAZING. We wander through and set our aim back toward where we began as the sun starts sinking lower in the sky.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-47/731450293_osqJz-L.jpg



One disappointing factor about Beijing is the amount of smog, always present in a city of this size. As evening drew on, it seemed to get thicker, denying any chance at having a blue sky in my shots. :dunno Here, ancient China meets the smog of the modern metropolis.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-49/731452176_wSwmR-L.jpg



There's more uploading, I'll pause here for a bit and post again shortly. :D

[coldclimb]

My cheap laptop is horrifically taxed by stitching, and the connection here is slow, so getting photos edited and online is WORK! :rofl Anyway, continuing our first full day in Beijing:

The throne room at the Forbidden City is pretty spectacular, but visitors can't get in and walk around so this is the best photo I got. Stuck with the light I had I'm afraid.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-50/731910549_CZXzw-L.jpg



Heading out of the Forbidden City having only seen a fraction of what is inside, we stepped out in front of Tienanmen Square and scoped in a few sights we've seen quite a number of times in world media. Soldiers stand at guard over the moat with Chairman Mao perpetually watching overhead.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-57/731480101_43EVh-L.jpg



Our last stop of the day on the way back to the hostel was the strip of local vendors serving all sorts of foods, and some things that may not really be food. Giving in to temptation, I ordered up and again paid way too much for a bit of snake meat and a starfish. I'm convinced every person in Beijing is out for every dime you have. One guy at our hostel was taken for over 2000 yuan (something near 300 American dollars) for a cup of tea in a popular local scam. We're looking forward to leaving the city and finding places where people are real!
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-59/731895475_i7Lq2-L.jpg



Got more uploading still, this time of the Great Wall, so those will hit the forums sometime! :D
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[coldclimb]

Alright we've got some downtime today so I'll post again!

We picked up a tour from our hostel for a fairly decent price to head to a portion of the Great Wall and check the place out. It's a cheaper tour than others, so instead of starting in one town and hiking the wall to another, we're just driving up and wandering a portion of the wall in the mountains of Mutianyu.

We drive for a few hours before we make it out of the city, and in no time at all we're in the mountains and stopping at a parking lot a thousand feet below the wall itself. Catching a faint glimpse of the blocky parapet high above strikes a bit of excitement, and we start off hiking up to the wall. Most of our group chose to use the tram to get up and a toboggan run to get down, but that seemed a bit wrong to us. :rofl The locals say you're not a man until you've climbed the great wall, and I can't call it climbing unless I do it myself! Besides, the path up to the wall is beautiful, wandering through the trees and overlooking the valley below.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-62/731449688_xwmn6-L.jpg



Having reached the Great Wall of China at last, the top priority is obvious: get a picture climbing it! :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-65/731452729_pVLtM-L.jpg



We quickly find out that the great wall is comprised mostly of millions of stair steps taking us up and down along the mountainous ridges that formerly separated China and Mongolia.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-72/731459494_gELLe-L.jpg



Every few hundred feet along the wall stands a guard tower, which contains a couple hallways and an empty room.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-75/731897820_Kni6Z-L.jpg



A window in one of the guard towers looks out over a steep sided valley where you can see the wall ascending the other side and moving off along the mountain tops.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-76/731471853_4JWvq-L-1.jpg



Of course a trip to the Great Wall wouldn't be complete without a nice self portrait of Tracy and I to go on the wall. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-78/731475010_6RLuX-L.jpg



A steep brick stairwell leads visitors into one of the guard towers on an uphill section of the wall.
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Tracy descends some steps toward the entry to another of the guard houses.
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A little leaning gets you this magnificent panorama from the wall. The left portion heads over that knoll and drops into a steep saddle before ascending another peak, and the right side wanders over to the ridgeline you can see there, then descends it into the valley and can barely be made out ascending the opposite side just left of center to a small saddle, after which a few guard towers can be made out as it takes off along the mountaintops.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-84/731914859_jD8jY-XL.jpg



Canon emplacements are permanently aimed out over the ridges and valleys below the wall, ready to face an enemy that never came.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-87/731919565_uGphT-L.jpg



Tracy ascends the narrow stairway accessing the rooftop of a guard tower.
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While the wall isn't really all that tall, it's easy to see that it would be a nearly insurmountable obstacle to an invading force, especially given the advantages the defending army would have over those trying to get over the wall from below.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-94/731955713_tKgPR-L.jpg



I can't help but have a tiny bit of regret that we're visiting this place in the winter rather than when everything is green, but it's an awesome experience either way!
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-97/731963924_D2L4i-L.jpg



You're caught up now, so we're off to have a few more adventures worthy of sharing! :D Looks for us again in a few days.

[Nikonic1]

Awesome. I am extremely excited to follow your journeys and photo journal. Thank you so much for sharing the trip as you go. Really great shots so far.

[ian408]

Wow! What a trip!

[kres]

http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-78/731475010_6RLuX-L.jpg

This is the kind of image that will be with you a lifetime. Excellent.

[Jeremy Winterberg]

Epic, me and my roommate are planning on doing a trip like this someday. Definitely going to keep reading and looking forward to more images!

[coldclimb]

A sincere thanks to everyone who responded, and Jeremy: don't put it off forever! :D Save yourself some money and make sure you DO it! (The money is optional, we're riding on prayer ourselves. :D )



Well to be honest, Beijing kind of isn't much fun. The Wangfujing youth hostel is absolutely awesome, and the people we've met who WEREN'T trying to royally rip us off were really cool, but overall the experience is a bit lame. So we pondered and prayed and picked Chengdu for our next destination, and got some tickets. Tracy hasn't ever been on a train before, so what better introduction than spending a day and a half on China's cheapest sleeper? :D

We pack up our stuff and kill as much of the day at the hostel as we can before we introduce ourselves to the Beijing subway, which it turns out is quite a simple, efficient, and CHEAP way to get around. Too bad we missed that earlier when trying to find our hostel... Anyway, we eventually find our way to Beijing's West train station, which gives an impression more of a castle than an international transportation hub. We squint through the heavy smog, and yes indeed, it is a train station.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-0104/735234178_yKaaZ-L.jpg



Dropping our bags off in the lockboxes rented there, we kill some more time wandering the narrow hutongs (alleyways) around the station. This is where we've found all the down-to-earth culture that we've wanted while we're here. Here a woman sells a positively enormous pile of fruit in quantities which if it were handed out one piece at a time to every person in sight, would still leave plenty left over. :huh
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-0099/735231528_q2zZB-L.jpg



A steaming pot of what I know is delicious food sits in an open window along an exceptionally narrow hutong.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-0101/735232686_PzBva-L.jpg



Even December's chill hasn't necessitated a place indoors for some of the more intrepid street people. This lady maintains her abode in a highway underpass.
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Eventually driven inside by the setting sun and progressively colder temperatures, we settle in to wait for the train. The hustle and clamor of this station cannot be captured in a picture, but I gave it a shot. Imagine if you will one hallway providing a transportation hub for the world's most populated country in one of the world's most populated cities.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Beijing-China/Edit-0106/735235453_uL3fq-L.jpg



More to come momentarily, I believe....

[coldclimb]

We roll out of Beijing and wake up the next morning watching the gloomy slums roll by. I'm still a little depressed at the representation I've seen so far of China, but maybe our adventures will lead us to the great stuff we know has to exist somewhere in this huge country. Squinting through the smog gives us such misery inspiring views as this:
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-0107/735236625_GtCcK-L.jpg



Rolling along for a day and two nights doesn't give you a lot of pictures of the countryside, but you didn't miss much. :scratch Eventually we broke into a mountainous country though, and things started looking up. Brief views between dark tunnels looked up towering cliffs and inspiring waterfalls, brought us over winding rivers and small farms on the steep hillsides, and even saw a distinct lessening of the smog. As night falls again, we climb into our top-story (the cheapest) bunks and wait for morning.
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Early hours find us rolling into the Chengdu train station, where it's fairly simple to catch a taxi with a driver who takes us on a speedy adventure dodging buses and pedestrians and drops us off with a few jabbering words that I can't understand, but I take to indicate that he can't find the hostel we're looking for, but the map on our pocket brochure says it's around here somewhere. We thank him, and our brief prayers are answered shortly thereafter as we walk right up to the alley where we'll reside for the next few days. Incredibly painless compared to finding our place in Beijing! Prices are cheaper here than Beijing too, and a promise to not use the Air Conditioner gets us an extra 20 yuan off our room's price.
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We hit the shower and grab some delicious and cheap food, and then head out to see what we can find. First off, a miraculous thing called a "Panda Card" which costs only 20 yuan (about $3.00 American) will get us into a number of local attractions for free, including the temple just up the road. We head there first, noting that for the first time since landing in China, we're able to see the blue sky overhead.

The Wu Hou Temple proves to be the relief we've been hoping for. We're immediately awed as we enter a system of courtyards around a small pond where locals are performing martial arts routines, or simply walking around enjoying the peace.
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Winter hasn't hit as hard here, and the flowers are still blooming on this bush.
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We're continually awed as we wander around the temple complex, which largely consists of beautiful trails winding through a large variety of gardens and greenery. Locals stops us and ask to take their photos with us, and the place is, on the whole, worlds different from Beijing. I think we'll like it here. :D
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In the entire day, nobody has pestered us to buy anything, and we haven't been ripped off yet. We're stoked.
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A bright star backlights the leaves of a Ginko Biloba in the courtyard of a small museum building.
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An entire garden holds hundreds of artfully sculpted living masterpieces, thoroughly convincing Tracy that we'll have to grow a few of these ourselves, someday. I contemplate the climate controlled and moose-defended environment it would take to do that in Alaska, and agree completely. :D
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The yellow leaves of this bonsai (never did learn the Chinese term for these tree sculptures) shed gently in front of a small pagoda.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-0126/735250109_CfAAW-L.jpg



So to summarize this post, based on our very limited experience, if you ever go to China, try to stay out of Beijing. :D You've got to visit the great wall of course, but now that we're hundreds of miles away, everything seems to have gotten loads more enjoyable and easy to bear. The smog has lifted, the people have stopped hassling and ripping us off, the scenery so far is amazing, and we're just generally relieved to have changed areas, even though the city we're in now still holds four million people.

And on that happy note, we're out for a bit. Hope you're all enjoying the pics! :D

[ian408]

I am constantly amazed by your wanderings John. Over the years, you've taken us to many great places and taught the value of travel vs. tourism. Thank you for that!

[Jeremy Winterberg]

Yeah, we want to go soon, maybe in a couple years, maybe not haha!

We want to start in Thailand and work our way over to Europe. skipping the middle east of course... don't want to get caught in that mess. We have a friend that lives in China, so we are definitely gonna meet up with her. I can't remember where she's from in China off the top of my head though. She's been teaching us Chinese. Ni Hao! (Hello!) Yep, I'm already fluent.. haha jk

Keep the photos and narrative coming! :thumb

[Cuong]

I'm enjoying every post of this thread and looking forward to the next one.

Cuong

[wandaling]

Please keep us up to date with your journey, it's one I know I will never do
now, except through other peoples eyes.
I was in Hong Kong and Macau last year and briefly crossed the border into China, but for health reasons probably won't fly again, so I eagerly awaite your postings and pictures, have a great journey.

Wandaling.

[Prezwoodz]

Great stuff John! No pictures of the martial arts?!


Heading out here today so I can finally look at your thread again ;) heh

Glad to see you guys are getting so much fun in!

[coldclimb]

Great stuff John! No pictures of the martial arts?!


Heading out here today so I can finally look at your thread again ;) heh

Glad to see you guys are getting so much fun in!
Nah I felt a little awkward taking pictures publicly of an old gray-haired grandmother working out with a giant sword. Perhaps another time. :D Looking forward to seeing your shots as well.

Thanks again for the wonderful comments everyone! :D

Our hostel here in Chengdu is fairly decent, with delicious meals feeding both Tracy and I for less than three US dollars. The whole place seems to be completely empty of heaters, however, and with temps in the forties and fifties it's a bit chilly to sit down and eat dinner. The locals don't hassle us much except a little begging, and everything is generally more relaxed.

Yesterday we went and toured the local panda breeding research facility, which contains a whole zoo of both Red Pandas and Giant Pandas. That's all the pictures I've got this update, so here's some cuddly cuteness that's slightly lacking in narrative! :D There's a bunch more on my galleries starting here if this isn't enough: http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/10581090_RtaJr#736745863_ByPUg


A red panda sits on one of the perches in its massive enclosure.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-132/736749137_WyYUB-L.jpg



These guys pretty much never sat still, and in the low smoggy morning light it was really hard to get a decent shot without motion blur. :huh
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-134/736752476_zVehe-L.jpg



Luckily we had plenty of time, so we sat and fired off a few hundred frames so we'd get a couple sharp ones. :rofl
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The red pandas in their wanderings would walk right up to the wall we were on, but they'd glance at us and never hold still for a second! I guess I should have cranked to 1600 ISO, but I was just hoping for some good shots regardless. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-140/736837372_aWQN8-L.jpg



These little guys' tree climbing ability is interesting. They go both up and down the trees headfirst, although coming down seems a little awkward for them sometimes.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-144/737033551_QyN7H-L.jpg



The giant pandas didn't do much moving of any sort except with their jaws. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-145/737034474_ptiNi-L.jpg



Their method of downclimbing their perches is quite similar to the way little kids go down stairs sometimes. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-146/736853029_cPrSr-L.jpg



Caught a bit of a halfhearted and very slow wrestling match:
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-147/736854306_SySau-L.jpg



If only I had the energy to go get something to eat...
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-150/736866602_NZnMf-L.jpg



Eating is a panda's specialty of course. I got quite a few different showing shots of this guy.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-157/737050437_oSWro-L.jpg



And besides eating, there's napping....
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-158/737053176_UoSgM-L.jpg



Come to think of it, I'm not really sure what makes life in captivity so stressful for these guys that they have trouble mating. :dunno
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-159/737054702_9kSKs-L.jpg



http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-164/737061286_ZHvQE-L.jpg



:rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Chengdu-China/Edit-168/737066305_gK4G9-L.jpg



And on that note, we're packing up and heading south again, this time to Yangshuo. More photos to come sometime! :D

[Nikonic1]

I'm in awe. Thanks again for sharing. The panda photos, narrative or not, are great!! Looking forward to more!!!!

[leaforte]

I am considering a similar trip. Bounce back safely, and nice photo blog. Thanks for sharing.

[coldclimb]

Thanks again for the wonderful comments everyone. :D Probably the biggest thrill of taking pictures is showing them off, so I'm glad you like them.



It's warmer here in the south part of China, and we're losing track of the days - a personal mark of success I've noted in life. :D When it doesn't matter anymore whether it's Saturday or Monday and life only revolves around the rising and setting of the sun, things always seem most interesting and fulfilling. Some few days back found us once more the only white people in a vast, dirty, and clamorous room of people speaking a different language. We board a train that we think takes us to our destination, and as daylight fades we fall asleep in lightly bouncing bunks eight feet high and six feet long. Six feet is two inches shorter than me. :rofl

Sometime the next morning we pull off onto a passing track and let a freight train go by.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-169/740443732_TQdVK-L.jpg



Our aged and faded train stretches around a corner as I lean out the window for a shot from the outside.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-170/740450545_J8xMC-L.jpg



As the day wore on we skimmed our map of China, unable to find any of the small towns and villages we were passing along any of the rail lines marked. One of the locals riding along with us points to an area near Chongqing, which is alarmingly closer to Chengdu, our departure point, than it is to Guilin, our destination. We wonder whether we're stuck on the train for another night, and it's a relief that apart from the monotony of vibrations, tunnels, and passing scenery, it doesn't really matter. We roll on.

Then out of nowhere and accompanied by the screeching of tortured metal the train slams to a halt from its cruising speed, tossing passengers into their bunks and handrails. After sitting still on the tracks for a bit I lean out the window to check out our situation. Zooming in, it's evident that there's a large dump truck filled with bricks stalled on the tracks just ahead of the train. :huh The importance of a good engineer and perhaps guardian angels is suddenly made prominent, although nobody around me seems too surprised. Folks scope out the LCD on my camera with "Ahhhs" of enlightenment, and then go on about their business, waiting to get somewhere else.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-171/740455675_uKk8g-L.jpg



Kelsey and Shasta gave us a bit of a translation book from English to Mandarin, which became a popular attraction once Tracy pulled it out. The locals had a lot of fun pronouncing English and taking on the impossible task of teaching us Mandarin in one sitting. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-172/740461384_gqtPe-L.jpg



We arrive in Guilin as the sun goes down, and by the time we leave the station and walk half a block it's quite dark outside. Instead of trying to find and catch a bus to Yangshuo in an unfamiliar and blackened town, we pull out the pamphlets for hostels in Guilin that we had nabbed for just such a situation, and wander under the tracks and past a few shops in the direction the little dotted arrow indicates on the small map. Shops in China seem to be supplied according to whichever part of town they're in, and along this road we wander past at least a dozen selling identical automotive parts until we finally reach the gate leading us down a darkened winding street to the Wada hostel, a welcoming and accommodating place I'd recommend to anyone visiting Guilin.

Morning found the hostel staff walking us out to a bus where we handed over our money and began driving through some of the coolest terrain on earth. Massive "karsts" loom out of the landscape all around us and shoot straight to the sky with steep limestone sides covered by vegetation. Mixed with this splendor are the Chinese B-movies showing constantly on the bus' television, to temper the awesomeness some.

We make it to Yangshuo something like two days after leaving Chengdu, and are immediately accosted by vendors. No I don't want a postcard, and persistent bothering is not going to make me buy one. We shoulder our packs and brush past dozens of locals offering us lodging, wandering around until we locate a hostel recommended to us by a fellow traveler. This place is hideously commercialized, but at the same time, it has the best selection of loot to hand out to our friends at home that we've seen yet. I've still got a sort of mixed feeling about the town, since it's undeniably incredible in the scenery department, but also heavily commercialized to a point comparable to Las Vegas. Overall though, the pros outweigh the cons, and once you get good at saying "Tsein tsein, boo yaw," (thank you, not interested) to every local you pass by, the place is really quite cool.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-174/740471186_GYgd2-L.jpg



One edge of town borders the Li River which, amid offers from boat operators to take us out for a tour, quite nicely exemplifies the incredible scenery. I have noted with a bit of disappointment that direct sunlight has been distinctly lacking since we landed in China, however.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-175/740475216_9VBDx-XL.jpg



A weaver works on a piece for her shop shelves in the main street containing most of the shops.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-177/740484535_3rq7Y-L.jpg



China's ever-present smog lightly obscures a looming karst over the heavily signed streets of Yangshuo.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-179/740493764_NxbHJ-L.jpg



We find the local climber's hostel after spending one night in a more drinking-and-partying oriented haven and quickly determine that this is the place for us. Prices are roughly $7.30 USD per night for a room with a double bed and a shower, and the girl at the desk points us to a sweet unglamorous noodle shop where a delicious meal that stuffs both of us lightly touches our tiny pocketbook at $2.30. With a bit of restraint (and not counting buying souvenirs for all our friends at home :D ) we should be able to live cheaply and quietly amid all this glitter and noise.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-182/740584623_QMCaF-L.jpg




Wandering out after dark this evening is another disappointment for a calm-loving couple from rural Alaska, with lights flashing and loud music everywhere. Bars and dance clubs with brilliant neon signs jump out from places we've walked by a dozen times in daylight, and never noticed them at all. The music pulses vaguely through the walls of every building on this side of town, and we're told that this is nothing compared with the busy summer season when it's impossible to sleep before the bars close at 2am. Maybe it's a good thing we're here in the winter in spite of the cool temps and cloudy skies.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-183/740587799_sVUnq-L.jpg



Tomorrow the plan is to head out of town and sample some of the local limestone climbing opportunities, which are known among climbers worldwide. :D For now, a bit more rest!

[coldclimb]

Well yesterday's climbing plans were doomed from the start when we woke to the sound of heavy rain falling outside. Unfazed, I promptly leapt into action and immediately set about going back to sleep. :D

Eventually rolling out of bed, we enjoy a leisurely breakfast and set out to see if we can hike anywhere in the wet and cold weather. Lily at the hostel points us downtown to the park, where we stroll up a worn and broken down limestone staircase and find a heavily polluted and vandalized pagoda at the top of a small karst tower overlooking downtown Yangshuo. The views are scenic, and the light rain has put a damper on the perpetual smog, revealing towers miles away to the horizon that couldn't be seen before. This hike is a bit disappointing however, so we wander along to the base of an even taller tower and finding a staircase leading partway up, set off into the jungle following some faint evidences of mankind's passage up the steep limestone buttress. We pull our way from tree to tree up the face, pausing briefly to stare down at the trail we had just hiked up the other tower, where a small pagoda offers rest for the weary about halfway up.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0188/742412359_gKbJ9-L.jpg



We reach the top of the tower, this one much less littered than the other with only a few food wrappers and cigarette butts half buried in the leafy debris. It's nicer here, the honking of cars and the annoying repetitive music of the theme park is much more distant. Maybe I've been spoiled by growing up in Alaska's practically untouched wilderness. :scratch The town of Yangshuo stretches away to the Li River, and we sit high above the hustle enjoying a bit of relative peace.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0189/742413883_bJAKG-XL.jpg



The next morning we rise to dry weather and set out to find some climbing. A woman who's been relentlessly offering us bicycles finally gets a piece of our wallet and we ride out of town on two well worn examples of said items. Local traffic really makes much more sense than the staunch rules of America, and we quickly adapt to just riding wherever we want on the highway, as long as something bigger and faster isn't competing for the same terrain. :D It just works, and we flow through a roundabout as a van flies past us on the left, swerving slightly to attain a trajectory less convergent with a car moving in from the right.

It's a bit of a ride to the crag, and we roll past farmer's fields, smaller villages, roadside stands, and quite a number of the huge limestone towers before finally turning left down a dirt path across a rice field, just opposite a gigantic butterfly affixed to a cliff face, for some reason. :dunno We ditch our bikes and make our own path to the wall before we find the trail that leads right to it, and a few climbs and hours go by. Eventually our solitude at the crag is broken and we're joined by another climbing couple. Here's Chris partway up Slack, a 5.10b.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0191/742417759_p657s-L.jpg



Following Chris is the lady accompanying him - I forgot her name shortly after learning it. :rolleyes
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0195/742425941_NkGUe-L.jpg



My favorite shot from the day, as she reaches a nice sized ledge and pauses briefly to chalk up.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0196/742426933_Ft9im-L.jpg



Our plans at this point are fairly open. We've scoped out some cheap tickets to the Philippines in January though, and we may just be able to afford getting there and then back to the mainland in Bangkok, so we might be in town for a considerable amount of time. This means for at least this part of the trip, a lot of our photos will probably just be climbing. :D Hope you're all still enjoying them!

[ian408]

Keep posting :thumb

[kres]

Just lovn' it. That shot of the city intermingled with the pillars is fantastically surreal.

This is an odd comment coming from a stranger, but I'm really proud of both of you for this total immersion. That pride comes from the memory of struggling to do it on a considerably smaller scale - so the compliment is both heart felt and from (limited) experience.

I think the picture of Tracey sharing the translation book with the other passengers is what brought that thought out for me.

:lurk

[Jeremy Winterberg]

Simply amazing. The pano in this last post is really cool. That's one thing I'm really looking forward to when I go to China, to see all the crazy mountains everywhere.

My roommate and I are planning on doing a trip similar to this in aprox. 3-4 years.. That way school will be out of the way, and we can take our time.

Keep the photos coming!

[coldclimb]

Thanks for the comments guys! I was kinda bummed on the shots from the towers, but probably just because the first tower we climbed was like a landfill with all the trash and vandalism at the pagoda at the top. Kinda dropped my enthusiasm for the place so I could hardly see a good picture when I looked out at the view. :dunno The second tower relieved that a bit, since it was hardly traveled at all with no trail, but still there was trash and old clothes rotting away in the brush. China is really polluted in many ways, it's rather disappointing. But I try not to focus on the ugly aspects of course. :D

Lately we're not doing much but climbing, so here's a couple climbing shots for you all!

Yesterday brought us miles down a dirt road to a wall overlooking the Li River. The place is covered in dust from the passing traffic, but the features are awesome so they rather make up for it. We just did one climb, a 5.10 with a rather inappropriate name, evidently the first ascent party didn't like it as much as we did. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0201/743917310_gqjT3-L.jpg



This climb was a bit dirty of course, but one interesting thing was the softness of the rock. The dust Tracy is covered in is from the rope rubbing over the limestone on the tufa and actually carving away the rock itself. It won't take too much traffic on this route before the holds are polished smooth.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0204/743925605_RBB8i-L.jpg



Our view is magnificent from the anchors, of course, with the Li River providing an alternative avenue of transportation for other travelers, and China's heavy smog blurring the distant features of the landscape.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0206/744585251_oYS4e-L.jpg



Today our bike ride brought us down a winding path through a couple villages and to a wall overlooking some farmland, away from anything remotely resembling hustle or bustle and quiet for the entire day, with only ourselves for company. Tracy's hand peeks out on a good hold as she tries to negotiate a roof in the middle of this 5.8.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-209/744591440_XkKvh-L.jpg



And here's the rest of her one move later. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-211/744594549_WHFzx-L.jpg



Every topout on this wall rewarded me with an awesome view, and with solid rock and decent temps and nobody else around, the day's climbing was very fulfilling. I climbed every established route on the wall before the sun went down. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-212/744595665_3RJYY-L.jpg



As light fades on another day, we walk our bikes back across the rice fields to the road and wander on back into Yangshuo. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-213/744597397_PuSaW-L.jpg



We've secured some tickets to the Philippines in early January, but for now there's still no plans to do much but climb ourselves into tiredness, rest, and repeat. Hope life is treating all of the rest of you as well! :D

[Nikonic1]

Thanks for the updates. It looks like you guys are having some fun. Looking forward to more. :clap

[coldclimb]

Well I've racked up a significant amount of photos since my last post, so I'll try to break this up a bit and see where it gets us.

The cheapest way for us to get around in Yangshuo is by bicycle, which we can rent for just under a dollar a day. I have really come to enjoy the way Chinese traffic works, as it's every man for himself and drivers, riders, and pedestrians whiz by in all directions and wherever they need to be in the road to get there. It's practically a giant video game, with the mind judging vectors and velocities and pairing associated masses, and then gauging proper course redirections to attain collisionless travel to the destination. :D Giant roundabouts just add flavor to the situation.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0215/746377463_NVScJ-L.jpg



Our riding a few days ago led us to Moon Hill, a popular tourist attraction and climbing area at the top of one of the small local mountains. Old ladies come RUNNING as we pull up, trying to get us to buy things or offering to get us into the park for a lower fare. We evade them and pay our tiny entrance fee, and head up to the rocks.

The guidebook for the area isn't at all clear on the exact routes, so I start off on one that I think is 5.12b, a rather hard grade that is currently either at or past my limit of ability. Steep climbing gets me to the anchor without a fall, but my celebration is short lived when I scope things out closer and find that the route I climbed isn't IN the guidebook. Not only that, but it's not in any of the revisions and hand-drawn updates at the local climber cafe, so I don't know what I climbed. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.11 though. Tracy follows me to clean the draws with Moon Hill's famous arch framing a village far below. Believe it or not, there are actually climbs directly up the underside of the arch, and all the way out and up to the top!
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0216/746431494_eLqSr-L.jpg



My other photos of the area are simply scenic and not too spectacular, as I quickly hit my limit climbing and cheating my way up a 5.12a nearby and we leisurely spent the rest of the day wandering back to town.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0220/746393213_yjzjc-L.jpg



A parting glimpse of Moon Hill as we turn our back on the really hard climbing here and ride off into the sunset.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0222/746451760_yhxTb-L.jpg



Anything resembling authenticity in Yangshuo is purely accidental and quite rare. The entire town is based on tourism, and positive hordes of people are out to profit from the money of visitors to the area. Here a local relaxes after a day of rafting up and down a small portion of the Yu Long River with tourists.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0224/746461207_kBSzU-L.jpg

[coldclimb]

Starting another day and feeling intensely the effects of climbing beyond my limit the day before, we decide to go for a simple bike ride. Our hostel owner points us to an intriguing sounding "Dragon Bridge" with the directions to "Go down this street to the gas station and turn left." Fortunately I eyeball the map and see that there's another turn or two in there, and we take off to see the country.

Our biking leads us to the end of the road, where a large group of rafters are hanging out awaiting customers beside the Yu Long River. Riding back and forth eventually reveals a dirt path that looks well-traveled, and we take it, past another group of raft operators huddled around a game of Chinese Chess. This path seems to do what we want, traveling alongside the river and off the road system out into the farmland, where water buffalo graze and the people are fewer and friendly.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-225/749210901_Q2oHD-L.jpg



The scenery is awesome, and not really even tempered by the heavy smog always present here. Our path leads across a small stone bridge, and we stop to shoot the view:
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0228/749224564_C2PRq-L.jpg



Tracy rides ahead across the vast farmland that stretches from horizon to horizon between towering the mountains.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0229/749225476_zaz86-L.jpg



An elderly Chinese gentleman leads his carabou across the fields.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0231/749227379_spPMA-L.jpg



A small portion of the Yu Long River's raft traffic poles along through the smog.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0232/749228128_skr3y-L.jpg



Our trail eventually brings us back to the road system and we seem to be rejoining civilization. The riding is pleasant and the experience is well worth any work involved.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0233/749229375_QkMJa-L.jpg



We pass by several fish ponds with small huts adorning their shores.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0234/749673444_F5zEW-L.jpg



A large quantity of local construction utilizes baked mud bricks, and stacks of the thin ceramic shingles can be seen alongside roads near new construction.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0235/749676957_kycsF-L.jpg



The bamboo rafts that are used all over the place around here are a very simple construction, but seem to be incredibly buoyant.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0236/749679746_MB8YQ-L.jpg



At length we reach the Dragon Bridge, which is so boring I barely edited one shot of it and I won't post that. :rofl Both of us agreed the ride was more than worth it though, and while relaxing there we were joined by two guys from Holland who had made the ride from Yangshuo via the highway and were looking for the trail back along the river for a more scenic route home. Starved for friends, we agreed to head back the way we came to show them the very subtle trailhead that would lead them across the farmland. (This is NOT the dragon bridge.)
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0238/749685341_tc49L-L.jpg



The trip back to town is just as scenic and enjoyable as our first passage through this terrain. Here a seldom-used bamboo gate blocks entry to a residence's backyard alongside the trail.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0239/749687966_8JTgJ-L.jpg



While waiting for the others to catch up, I paused to snap a shot of a local woman, showing her years in her gray hair and stooped shoulders and yet still carrying double buckets of something to someplace far away. The Chinese definitely do not have a lazy culture. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0240/749690859_m9Ujs-L.jpg

[coldclimb]

When next we went out adventuring, it was to climb out a small wall of relatively easy routes at Butterfly Spring. This "spring" is some sort of huge tourist attraction which has its entrance on one side of a giant limestone tower. Visitors walk into a cave underneath a colossal concrete butterfly affixed to the wall of the cliff, and from there we're not sure what happens, but eventually they come out the other side of the tower on a suspension footbridge to the accompaniment of what sounds like very loud church bells, a strange flute copying the rhythm of the bells, and a local holding a large flag and talking into a megaphone. The footbridge leads them into another cave in another tower nearby, where presently the sounds of very loud drums and some sort of monotonous scream drifts out, introducing a very loud song sung to the intense beat of the bass drums. Experiencing all of this from the outside convinces me completely that there is no need for us to go see what happens inside these caves. :rofl Tourists will pay for ANYTHING evidently...

Anyway, we worked a few climbs under the noise of the bells and drums, but the hanging belays discouraged photography, so I only brought the camera up the last one, a 5.9 with an unknown name.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0241/749694010_jQdwF-L.jpg



I led and Tracy followed, making her way up a slight overhang and past a few bulges to the anchor.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0245/749706368_XAEhf-L.jpg



The rock, carved by millenia of exposure to the elements, is awesomely featured and very pleasant to climb and photograph. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0247/749712673_mG429-L.jpg



Our climbing complete, we return to the hostel where our host Lily has arranged a dumpling cooking lesson as a sort of Christmas party. A group composed of climbers staying at the hostel comes together and enjoys the camaraderie involved in making dumplings.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0249/749718619_akDTG-L.jpg



Some dumplings are crafted with more care or skill than others, so when they're served back to us randomly out of one pot, questions of "Who's making these giant footballs?" are elicited. :rofl Martin from South Africa (Pictured above) fesses up. Here a fellow American from Colorado forms the seal on a dumpling.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0250/749724472_Ga6Vk-L.jpg



More than four nations come together to enjoy dinner on Christmas eve at a climber's hostel in southern China.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0251/749727288_gxnGm-L.jpg

[coldclimb]

Christmas day comes like any other day here, and we grab our bikes and head out looking for a certain crag. It turns out much harder to find than it would seem though, and after riding around for a few hours and experiencing teleportation through what could only be a rip in the space-time continuum, we suddenly found ourselves at Moon Hill. This is entirely in a different area of the countryside from that which we were exploring.

A tiny cat wanders the street in a small village somewhere in an interdimension.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0253/749732378_uuajT-L.jpg



Unperturbed, we wander over to the nearby Thumb Peak and climb the first pitch of Paparazzi Pete, a relaxing 5.9. Evidently when this route was first put up in the early days of climbing in Yangshuo by a fellow named Pete, the strangeness of the ascent stopped traffic and caused an impressive horde of onlookers along the highway below the climb.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0257/749741994_kCrFG-L.jpg



Tracy works through an overhanging section as the climb traverses around the steeper stuff above.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0258/749799600_XKj4B-L.jpg



The banana trees at the base of this route are Tracy's first introduction to the growing of the fruit. It's rather strange really, the heavy oblong fruits grow in an UPWARD direction in their clusters, rather than the downward droop that most uninitiated would assume.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0262/749806801_ZNuLQ-L.jpg



The ascent marks our peak of excitement for this year's Christmas day, and we leisurely head back to town to enjoy wonton soup and rice before staying up late editing photos.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0264/749808988_MKF74-XL.jpg



Our time in China is drawing to a close in a few days, but we'll have more for you before it's over. That is assuming that the present heavy rain diminishes sometime and lets us back outdoors! Enjoy! :D

[ian408]

I'm simply amazed by the sights you've seen (and the smog. i didn't know it was that bad).

Thanks so much for sharing and here's to a Happy New Year!

[coldclimb]

I'm simply amazed by the sights you've seen (and the smog. i didn't know it was that bad).

Thanks so much for sharing and here's to a Happy New Year!

Thanks Ian! We should spend our new year trying to get on a plane to the Philippines. A life of leisure has no holidays. :rofl

The haze in China really is amazing. I try not to let it get me down, really. The whole culture has an acceptance of littering that is just appalling. It's perfectly okay to throw your trash wherever you want, out the window of the train, into ponds, on the side of the road, it's not even frowned upon here. Evidently that ethic extends to the skies as well. I'm sure it'll change someday, it's been talked about already, but one of the recurring thoughts in those discussions is that it's probably already far too late. :cry

I haven't really been a lot of places yet, but I've seen the same thing in other countries like the Philippines and Mexico, and to an impressive extent the foreign-influenced portions of the U.S. (Laredo TX anyone?) and it really lets me appreciate that no matter how much ranting there is about pollution in America from the liberal left, they really have done a great job at keeping America aware and fairly clean. Whether they think so or not. :D

A quick google search of "China Smog" will dampen your spirits plenty with numerous dark photos including a bunch of satellite images like this one, taken from NASA's "Visible Earth" site. (http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=20252) This is China in September 2005, over four years ago.

http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/20252/chinahaze_tmo_2005253.jpg



And yes, speaking from a small room in south China after traveling the length of the country, it really IS that bad.

[ian408]

I've known it's bad in major cities but you'd have thought the country side would be clear. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. From Sequoia & Kings Canyon, you should be able to see the 7 ranges to the coast. That's not always possible.

[Prezwoodz]

They have the same garbage ethic in Morocco, quite crazy to me. I don't know how "dump all your garbage in the river" is ever a good idea no matter where you are...


Your right this dueling of the travel posting is fun! I'm working on the next one now ;)

Oh and Moon Cave is somewhere I always wanted to go. I want to climb harder first hehe but I want to go there.

[coldclimb]

They have the same garbage ethic in Morocco, quite crazy to me. I don't know how "dump all your garbage in the river" is ever a good idea no matter where you are...


Your right this dueling of the travel posting is fun! I'm working on the next one now ;)

Oh and Moon Cave is somewhere I always wanted to go. I want to climb harder first hehe but I want to go there.

There's one 5.9 and a couple harder tens and elevens, but the bulk of the climbs are between 5.12 and 5.14d. :rofl

Happy birthday Shasta!

[ian408]

Happy birthday Shasta!

OK. I'll say it too :bday

[Cuong]

It's a shocking experience for my kids, and most Americans in general, to witness how people in other developing and 3rd world countries handle trash and personal waste. It's normal when you grow up in that environment, unless you're educated and exposed to a different way of thinking. I'm glad I had that chance.

Cuong

[coldclimb]

Tonight is our last night in China. There are no celebrations of course, but we're also glad to be moving on to another step in life's adventure. We'll sleep tonight on a bus headed to Guangzhou, and then we're off to the Philippines for a visa's worth of days making friends there.

But first, we leave our mark on Yangshuo with a gift from the frigid north to the Climbers Inn! :D Kelsey's reputation has now officially preceded him to China.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0265/753622777_kBmgx-L.jpg



We haven't been doing much lately with a few dismal and chilly rainy days, but yesterday found us at the rocks again, so here's Tracy on "Lazy Days", a 5.9.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0268/753635503_3BAKt-L.jpg



There are of course a few more climbing photos, but they all start blending together when they're all of Tracy following me. We don't have a lot of stuff, including clothes, so that just adds to the similarities. :rofl If you're interested, the Yangshuo gallery on my site is here: http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/10644029_eZsdp



One crazy cool aspect of the climbing area we chose today was its caves, numerous and massive. Routes wound their way through this towering monolith, twisting and dropping, shrinking and blossoming, and all-around confusing explorers. One tunnel I crawled found me sitting on a ledge on the wall of a vast cavern with light filtering in from somewhere I couldn't see, but subsequent hours of wandering the darkness never did find us in the same cavern again. The route pictured above finishes in the mouth of a tunnel leading us gently back down to earth and out again at ground level.

Here's Tracy following me through a bit of a tight spot.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0271/753645407_KLUFu-L.jpg



We made our way entirely through the tower, and back again by way of a couple other save systems. The entrance to one is lit intriguingly from above, and just screams for us to come in and explore. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0273/753649486_aGuWE-L.jpg



Faint light finds its way some 93 million miles through space, deflects and spreads through a layer of clouds and dense smog, and drops straight through a small opening in the earth to lightly illuminate Tracy as she goes even deeper under the surface. (Compression is pretty serious in these for some reason)
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0274/753650563_RFapq-L.jpg



There is much evidence of habitation in these caves that leaves you wondering just how many generations have taken shelter from the weather inside these impenetrable rock walls. Some of the exterior openings are walled with rocks and mud and complete with windows, narrowing the entry point to a simple door, while other openings high above the ground in the cliff face itself are also walled off in a sort of balcony that would rival a king's palace. This room pictured here is probably close to the center of the tower, and features a massive gravel pile on one side obviously made by man and forming a flat platform quite usable for a bed. Around this platform in the walls and features are carved dozens of niches and flat areas for candles, one of which I used to get high enough for my gorillapod to latch onto a wall feature. I'm fairly certain that with the ancient history of civilization that China boasts, people have probably been using these caves for centuries.
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0277/753655745_oDMYg-L.jpg



And on that note I'll leave you pondering some choice food items as we pack up and hit the road again. If I don't see anything amazing between here and the Philippines, this will probably be my last photo from China. :D Not sure what kind of internet access we'll have in the islands. So long for now!
http://www.morffed.com/2009/Yangshuo-China/Edit-0278/753658024_gSsDR-L.jpg

[Jeremy Winterberg]

zai jian China :wave Can't wait for the Philippines - My uncle is from there!

[coldclimb]

Ahh Manila - the smell of the Philippines hits you when you step off the plane, and if you stay long enough, you'll never forget it. It's a unique blend of the tropics, heat, humidity, pollution, and some intangible local flavor that can't be found anywhere else. To truly give you an experience of the Philippines, I'd have to bottle some of this up and send it to you. Serve at around ninety degrees fahrenheit. :D

And now for some backstory:

Our church in Alaska, combining efforts with a few others across the US, has worked closely with locals all over the Philippines doing missionary work, so I've been here twice before. The Filipino people that I've had contact with through these efforts are some of the best you will ever meet, willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make your life better, regardless of the meager means they have at their disposal to do it. Finer people cannot be found.

We made contact before arriving with Alex, a local Brother who retired after decades of military service and is now devoting his life full-time to helping his countrymen. He oversees a lot of different missionary efforts here, not the least of which is a search and rescue operation based out of a military hospital and reaching all across the Philippines to provide aid in emergencies to anyone and everyone. In the latest typhoon to pass through just a month or two back, hundreds of people lined up in waist-deep water to receive a meal and bundle of medical supplies, as the rains and floodwaters covered one of the world's most densely populated urban areas. Filipino victims of foreign sex slave operations have been greeted warmly at the airport and supplied with clothes and necessities in a culture that coldly shuts them out for their shame. An elderly gentleman instructed by his doctor that he had less than one day to live was given a lift back to his home to be with his family at no charge for anyone. These are just a sample of the things this operation does to help the Filipinos, and the work continues every day. (The old man mentioned above, by the way, is still living today after being prayed for when he was brought home.)

The operation has not escaped the eyes of the government, and has been not only supported, but relied upon especially by the military to bring aid in many ways to the people in need. The many individual stories I've heard in just a day and a half are really awesome, so maybe I'll let a few pass on to you all in later posts. :D It's rather humbling to leave American society where all is so concerned about schedules and success and see people that are doing so much to help others when, from a mainstream American perspective, they have so little to offer. It shames me really, I wish we did things like this back home.

But FIRST we have to get back to leaving Yangshuo! :D

We snag the overnight sleeper bus from Yangshuo to Guangzhou, planning on giving ourselves ample time to find the airport in a large Chinese city. Our flight leaves at 22:00 on the 1st of January 2010, and the bus gets to Guangzhou at 06:00, so we're confident that we'll be able to get to the airport in time. We sleep occasionally at the very back of the bus, between bounces that launch us completely off our cots, and it doesn't take long to realize there may be a reason why the beds at the back of the bus were open. Oh well, it's a great experience, and 06:00 on January first finds us hopping off the bus in the dark in a town we think is Guangzhou. We set out to try to find and get to the airport.

At 06:30 we're at the airport. Drat. Our day of trying to reach our destination in time to check in has been shortened to a simple and completely painless 30 minutes. We sigh, settle in, and take on the twelve hour wait until our ticket counter opens up for us to check in. :rofl

The trip goes without a hitch, except we had to figure out how to pack a bunch of heavy climbing gear in our carry-ons to make the weight for checked bags, and security stole our convenient little bottles of hand sanitizer. All in all, an international travel experience with nothing to complain about! Stoked, we cruise through customs in Manila and head out to the sidewalk to find Alex.

It's about two in the morning in Manila, and Alex isn't here.

We wait... we wander around the places he might be... we wait some more... we spend a few bucks on a phone card, and once we find out how to use it we get no answer on his phone. After two hours, we wander through the dark streets to a local McDonalds and consider our options. Eventually we settle on trying a room in a hotel, and with brochure in hand we catch a taxi. A run-down looking street sports a dinghy looking joint with a man outside holding in his hands a very serious shotgun, and on his hip an accompanying automatic pistol. From what I've seen the majority of businesses in Manila warrant such precautions, which may enlighten you some about our feelings of walking the streets at night. :D

We shell out a bit more than we wanted, but we're happy to get some rest. A quick e-mail to Alex, however, is immediately responded to with a ringing phone. Somehow the man is up at 04:30 and immediately gets in touch. "I know that hotel. Get some rest, I'll pick you up at noon!"

Spirits lighten significantly, and with our armed guards outside, we sleep well. :D

Now it's two days later, and I've barely taken any photos. Sorry! But the experience was a great one, and the pictures probably would have been dark and blurry anyway.:rofl Today is Sunday and we got to go to church, an experience which China denied us entirely. After church we had a quick lunch with Alex and family while the dozens of children present each got a little treat of their own in the form of a small bag of assorted candies:
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0281/756164070_AXeT3-L.jpg



The Military camp where the closest church to home is located doesn't allow foreigners in anymore after what I gather was a sour experience with journalists and cameras, so on this morning we headed an hour down the road to another local gathering, and after service we split quick to run back home before the traffic built up. As we leave, I nab a quick shot of the church. Coincidentally this is one of the last shots that will be taken of it; the group is moving to a new location and this lot is set for demolition this week.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0282/756164214_HyKRU-L.jpg



A little American money goes a long way here, and since we pulled an enormous wad of cash from an ATM, we had to play with it a little. :rofl This money is for a purpose though, it'll come into play later on and I'll tell you all about it. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0283/756164300_kqgpQ-L.jpg



Gradually getting the hang of things in the area, we caught a jeepney and headed down to the Ali Mall to get some supplies. If you've never heard of a jeepney, acquaint yourself with Wikipedia's page on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeepney), they're really a unique and neat way to get around a huge town. They're everywhere here, and nowhere else, so it's a special experience to travel by jeepney. We shell out our 14 pisos (30 cents USD) and are dropped off on the steps of the mall, a giant shopping complex reminiscent of metropolitan America and inspired and funded by Muhammad Ali after he fought Joe Frazier in the nearby sports dome.

Our errands done, we snagged a tricycle to get back home, and I failed to set the price before we start off. A common error on my part, but this time it didn't cost me much, and I shell out forty pisos willingly. That's a nice taxi ride for two plus groceries for just 86 American cents. :rofl Passing a few people on the street I tried to catch some culture.

I think raising two beautiful daughters in a city like Manila would be enough to turn any man's face into a permanent, dark scowl of worry and watchfulness. :D The expressions on the girls' faces add enormously to this shot. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0284/756164369_9DZcr-L.jpg



Catching a panorama inside a moving vehicle is a bit tricky, but it gets you a little closer to being there. I had to do a few bits of touch-up, but the result is satisfying to me. Welcome to a tricycle on the streets of Manila. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0286/756164650_bYfeF-XL.jpg



So that's my text-heavy story on leaving China and getting to the Philippines. Hopefully in the future I'll have a few more illustrations to go with the words.

[Jeremy Winterberg]

awesome! looking forward to more text heavy + picture heavy posts on your story!

[DavidTO]

Fantastic. I'm so enjoying this thread.

[kres]

Fantastic. I'm so enjoying this thread.

+1 - Goes great with my morning coffee. :thumb

[coldclimb]

Thanks guys! :D That's why it's here.



We headed out yesterday evening for a walk down to a small strip mall for dinner, and along the way we got a closer feel for the attitudes of the locals. Contrary from being sinister, with suspicion and creepy feelings, the streets of this particular barangay in Quezon City are outright friendly and cheerful. I stand out like, well, a giant white guy wearing a bright orange shirt with a huge red curly mustache and an expensive camera, in a sea of black-haired, short, and well tanned people, so we turn heads along the entire walk Everyone greets us with a nod or a hello, and many of the locals are far more extravagant. :D These fellows are loading huge bags of recyclable plastics for transport to somewhere else, but they stopped and waved with huge smiles as we walked by and shot pictures.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0302/758345009_SfhfN-L.jpg



I don't believe I've mentioned it yet, but Manila is far less polluted than anywhere we went in China. It's even less polluted than last time I was here. It may just be the time of year or something, but it's sort of nice, even though there is still a definite haze and trash here and there. :D

This tricycle driver flagged us down and asked if we wanted to take his picture. Of course we did! :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0303/758345362_gGq7A-L.jpg



Even the street people were very nice and outgoing. These two obviously live on this sidewalk under the shelter of a large tree (that's a mattress on the left edge) but they smiled and waved and called us over, and laughed as we took our photos and walked on.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0304/758345648_LD3Ph-L.jpg



The area is definitely poor, but still bustling with business and overtly happy. These two are transporting some goods by tricycle, one of many common means of transport.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0305/758345886_MfykB-L.jpg



On the side street where we're staying, a jeepney driver takes the evening to relax as the sun sinks below the horizon and temperatures begin to settle into the high seventies.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0306/758346186_WGaew-L.jpg



A group of children playing along our street stopped to be photographed as we walked by. You might note the hand signal of the little guy with finger and thumb open under the chin in the same manner as the tricycle driver above. I noted this in about half my pictures, so I googled it and found one place that said this is considered a gesture of handsomeness or intelligence. :D Sounds good to me!
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0307/758346625_3SVJH-L.jpg



And lastly before we made it home we passed by this guy doing some computer maintenance outside his home. I didn't ask him what the problem was... maybe a cockroach in the fan? :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0308/758346942_xaBC3-L.jpg



We've got some downtime today before some business tomorrow, so we may wander out to the Ali mall again and see if I can't find a cheap haircut. Hope you enjoy these shots! :D

[coldclimb]

The jeepney is one item unique to the Philippines, and if you visit and don't try out this transportation system, you'll really be missing out. The long van-like jeepneys have one door at the back and benches along the sides, and it's not at all uncommon for them to be packed full enough that the only room left is hanging off the bumper.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0311/758701673_UoWGZ-L.jpg



Some of the things we often do in our missionary efforts in the Philippines are medical reliefs and childrens feeds. In our discussions with Alex, he told us that with ten American dollars, we can feed up to 300 children a good healthy meal, and with a paltry sum by American standards, we can sponsor a medical relief to give medicines to people who otherwise will not have them. This is one thing that we came here for, so we set it up. We may not have much money, but when our money can do so much for so many others who have even less, I think we'd be ashamed to keep it all for ourselves.

We head out in the morning to what Alex calls a mountain in the town of Antipolo. I can't see the mountain anywhere, but he says we're at the top of it, so I believe him. :D The area is very poor, which is shown clearly by the construction of the buildings providing homes for hundreds of families. Houses are simply pieced together from whatever trash and materials could be found for free. Alex tells me this entire area is owned by the government, and everybody who lives here is squatting and subject to displacement whenever the land is developed. Still, spirits are high in the locals, and they greet us kindly, if somewhat uncertain as to why we're there.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0313/759910489_9M5iG-L.jpg



A small creek, barely even a trickle, flows by, and one of the locals says during the recent typhoon the water in that creek was higher than the nearby homes. His home's foundation was washed out in a landslide, leaving the whole building dangling from uphill supports. His solution? Simply take all the rocks that washed away, and hike them back up to his house. It sounded like a lot of work, but given the alternative I suppose he had little choice.

The lack of money here certainly doesn't mean these people have nothing. Their need has simply been satisfied by a sort of ingenuity that we of the wealthier world seem to have lost somewhere. The yard of the home where we stopped is even decorated with lush vegetation of all sorts and sizes, arranged in a wide variety of hanging baskets and pots.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0315/759911151_Xwo9C-L.jpg



We sit by helplessly with our knowledge of only a single spoken language as Alex and Benny explain in Tagalog to the gathering crowd why we're here, and who we are. Mothers holding babies take seats in the few plastic chairs, and the family providing us a yard to work with brings out all their furniture from inside for folks to use.

My shirt and shoes may have holes in them and are definitely the worse for wear, but these feet have probably never seen socks, and have certainly never enjoyed the high-tech stickiness of climbing shoe rubber that protects the soles of my own feet.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0317/759911870_PTYRH-L.jpg



Introductions behind us, we get on with the meat of things. This fellow is the one whose home was almost wiped off the hillside. He's starting the process of cooking a huge pot of food to feed the children flocking around us. The stove is rather ingenious from an American fireman's perspective, but I'd guess the design is probably used in poorer homes worldwide, I had just never seen it before this visit.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0319/759912563_TVrNQ-L.jpg



Unfortunately for us with short notice and small funds we don't have a doctor with us who would be able to dish out prescription meds, but anything is good, and the kids and moms are stoked to receive even the general medicines we have to offer. They'll probably go a long way in a culture like this area's.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0320/759912723_qZGkG-L.jpg



When the food is ready, the kids line up out the entry of the yard and into the alleyway beyond. Each is served with a cup of soup, and when the line finishes up, they go through again, and even some of the younger adults around are invited to share in the feast.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0323/759913365_r8zVi-L.jpg



A young girl eyes her portion as it's scooped up, hot and fresh and probably delicious! :D (I didn't get any, this all went to the kids)
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0324/759913542_7Ma6f-L.jpg



This poor guy of about nine or ten had a single staff of bamboo for a crutch, and wasn't using his bandaged foot at all. Must have hurt quite a bit, although I never learned what was wrong.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0326/759913935_JchS3-L.jpg



As we left, a whole pile of kids stacked up for a picture. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0327/759914206_U8tia-L.jpg



And on a photographic mindset, my eye had scoped out a few of the alleyways as we traversed them on our way in, so I kept the camera handy on the way out and got lucky when a shy young lad following us hesitated while peering at us around a corner. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0328/759914453_uhy7B-L.jpg



Fortunately for the happiness of the world, poverty's threats are often wasted on children. :D These ones just go right ahead and have fun anyway.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0331/759915377_neTtt-L.jpg



And lastly, I may be the only one to find this as funny as I do, but I'll leave you with a parting glare from one of the few locals who didn't seem happy to see us. :rofl Maybe we should have brought a few cheezburgers (http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/)?
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0329/759914774_RRLxa-L.jpg

[Prezwoodz]

John your pictures are looking great. And your making me feel like I dont have any pictures of the people!

[coldclimb]

John your pictures are looking great. And your making me feel like I dont have any pictures of the people!

Well *I* don't have any awesome panos of world famous architecture! :rofl

[coldclimb]

Well Manila, being one of the world's biggest cities, isn't really our favorite place. There's just not much for us in the city life... we don't drink, so we don't hang out in bars or enjoy night life, and we're too poor to just shop all the time. :rofl We're working with the local church when we can, helping out with whatever they're doing in the area, but besides that we're killing a lot of time, and spending the rest just sort of walking around, getting a glimpse of the culture.

We're convinced so far that Filipinos are definitely awesome people. They're friendly, open, and resourceful, and everybody we meet goes out of their way to make our lives better. :clap It's a bit humbling, and just makes us want to do something in return!

Here's a few assorted shots from our wanderings on foot yesterday.



Cats have the run of as many alleys as they could ever strut.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0334/761416596_S5t7o-L.jpg



Trees and vines grow straight out of the concrete... where do they get the water to grow when it's all flushed down the storm drains?
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0335/761416686_EHV9r-L.jpg



Cats have got the hang of things. Sleep, eat, repeat.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0337/761416870_mppnZ-L.jpg



As we hung around a small corner diner, I had the chance to capture some passing characters.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0338/761416942_TVxBy-L.jpg



A chef fans his coals with his hat, while a few young girls wait for the food to finish cooking.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0339/761417048_5iVbZ-L.jpg



The cook at this stall immediately jumped out of the shot when I aimed the camera, but I got this anyway. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0340/761417622_rgQhX-L.jpg



If you've been here, you're probably familiar with the concept of "Filipino Time." Urban Dictionary defines it as: "things get done whenever they get done. Official Timing of The Phillipines." In our case, Filipino time means we're in a constant state of relaxation, even on the verge of boredom. Never in a hurry, never pressured, never under a deadline. It's relaxing, but sometimes we just wish we had something to do! :rofl

Hope you're all still enjoying our leisurely stroll through Asia!

[ian408]

Hope you're all still enjoying our leisurely stroll through Asia!
I am indeed!

And what a good thing you two are doing for the people of the Philippines.

[The_Fat_Zebra]

What a great thread, I'll keep coming back! I love the open-ended way of your traveling, though being a control-freak myself I couldn't ever do that. The pollution part reminded me of my travels through the Caucasus and Russia, very unfortunate what we're doing to our little planet.

[coldclimb]

Things are quiet for us lately, but here's a couple to keep your interest! :D

Yesterday while eating dinner on the side of the road, a couple locals started harvesting mangoes from a tree over the road. They saw us watching, and put on quite a show, laughing and going to great lengths to show off, so when we finished eating I wandered over and got some photos up close. They loved it. Very friendly people here. :D

The sun was already below the horizon, but the event was memorable enough to shoot in dim light.

http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0343/764407870_tNVaB-L.jpg



http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0345/764408469_v7USm-XL.jpg



Lately we've been spending a lot of time in our hotel room, which has led to at least one interesting discovery: We're not alone in here! In the quiet times, and especially when the lights are off, we hear noises and catch flickering glimpses of movement out of the corners of our eyes. It's never anything tangible, only the barest idea that someone or something is present besides ourselves, and always there's that little feeling that we're being watched!

So last night I set up a trap to catch this apparition in action once and for all and be clear of suspicion and doubt. A few minutes of setup and camouflage and a few blurry and barely recognizable shots later, and I had the proof that I wanted!

This is real, absolutely not photoshopped, irrefutable evidence that there really IS another being in our hotel room, watching us! :huh






http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0347/764420748_RFow8-L.jpg



:D

[tborland]

http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0347/764420748_RFow8-L.jpg



:D[/quote] Ewww, not sure I could stay in a place like that, although we have a little visitor in our house at the moment, put out some poison.

[coldclimb]

Well we leave tonight for Bangkok, Thailand, and we'll be doing our best to get onward from there as quickly as possible. No clues when we'll find internet next, but our efforts will probably be focused on finding work, hopefully in the neighborhood of Phuket or Krabi. :D Need to make a bunch of money so we can keep on going! This might take a while, of course, so stay tuned and hopefully we'll have a few months worth of adventures in Thailand coming at you very shortly.

For now, here's a parting shot of Manila, taken with the "Photojournalism" theme of the current photo contest in mind.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Manila-Philippines/Edit-0349/770326754_xSgeL-L.jpg



So long for now! :D

[ian408]

safe travels!

[Jeremy Winterberg]

yeah, have a safe trip to Thailand! :wave

[coldclimb]

Our departure from Manila was uneventful - this time we lost only a small pair of scissors and a yarn needle at the security checkpoint - and we arrive in Bangkok just past midnight. From one of the world's biggest cities to another in just a couple hours. We find a nice bit of floorspace in the airport and settle in for a bit of a nap until daylight comes.

With the rising of the sun, our adventures in Thailand begin. We plan on catching an overnight bus to Phuket, so we take off to find the bus station, and a taxi ride takes us directly there. Sweet, we'll get our tickets set up and then walk around some and check out the area. We head inside the terminal and up to the third floor where the ticket booth marked "Phuket" is empty. A local police officer says the bus is just about to leave, and rushes us downstairs to jump aboard, where we find our seats as the bus rolls out. We haven't even had breakfast yet, and we haven't taken the time to buy food anywhere along the way. Another planned long day of traveling foiled by accidental efficiency! We settle in and try to sleep to make the ride shorter.

Arriving in Phuket later in the evening, we make our way to a hostel we'd noted beforehand and shell out almost fourteen dollars for a room for the night. This is pretty spendy, especially on our rapidly dwindling budget, but it is the high season here. Our room is complete with cockroaches, a cold shower, and lots of mosquitoes. Overall an experience geared to move us onwards! :D

I apologize at this point for taking no pictures for the first few days. I guess the stress of travel and trying to make living arrangements got to me! :D

At any rate, the following couple days saw us moving across the island to Kamala Beach and arranging with a local dive shop to go through some more advanced SCUBA training in exchange for working for a few months. The divers are friendly, and we quickly begin settling into the routine. We're a pair of the poorest travelers there are, but what we lack in the way of money is more than made up for in the incredible blessings we've been given in life!

I'll pause for a moment here to invite anybody and everybody to come see us while we're here! :D I don't think I'll have to explain why it's a good idea.

http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0350/774499637_9PSEQ-L.jpg



Once we finally get ourselves out of the expensive hostels and into a nice cozy room off the beaten path (105 US dollars for a month!) the pressure lightens up a little, and on my first trip out on the dive boat I finally break out the camera. As we cruise up the coastline heading for our dive site, we pass the only competition in this small town with a load of their own customers headed for the same place.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0351/774501026_mCtFz-L.jpg



Cruising along at a good clip over small chop and against a slight wind, I somehow managed a bit of a pano. It took some photoshop and a little tight cropping, but it came together. :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0352/774501851_DvWMJ-XL.jpg



This is my second experience diving outside the cold and murky waters of Alaska, where heavy thermal protection is a necessity and the wildlife is much less plentiful and interesting. I have to say, this is probably much closer to why SCUBA was invented. The water alongside our boat is positively teeming with colorful fish, the seabed is visible some eight meters beneath us, and here I am too poor to buy any of the various bits of underwater camera equipment! This is very hard for me! :rofl I have to say though, it's got to happen one way or another!

I mean seriously. This is REAL. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0353/775320272_6k9vX-L.jpg



I made two dives, coming across a variety of critters such as barracuda, clownfish, anemonefish, butterflyfish, pennantfish, lionfish, oysters, lobster, and even a good sized octopus. Plus a whole lot more. There was ocean life everywhere! And there I was without a camera! :cry

Between my dives, Tracy headed out with the mask and fins and did some snorkeling with the rocky shoreline of Racha Island in the background.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0354/774504548_hPSqi-L.jpg



Tomorrow I head out for a few more dives, and for now we're still getting used to the area. Once we get ourselves established and find our income, it might just be hard to leave this place! The beach and town are a little crowded, but there's enough paradise left to make it a nice place to stay!

http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0355/774505527_fATQF-L.jpg



More to come! :D

[Jeremy Winterberg]

aahhhh.... Phuket. Very nice. So, you're going to work for this diving company? Are your going to be leading dives, or what? Either way... sounds like a most excellent time.

Get an underwater PnS. You can get a good one for around $130 USD, you might be able to get one really cheap over there.

I want this one - waterproof up to 10 feet: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/600944-REG/Fujifilm_15939983_FinePix_Z33WP_Digital_Camera.htm l

[coldclimb]

aahhhh.... Phuket. Very nice. So, you're going to work for this diving company? Are your going to be leading dives, or what? Either way... sounds like a most excellent time.

Get an underwater PnS. You can get a good one for around $130 USD, you might be able to get one really cheap over there.

I want this one - waterproof up to 10 feet: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/600944-REG/Fujifilm_15939983_FinePix_Z33WP_Digital_Camera.htm l

Ooh, ten feet wouldn't be enough for us! I've already borrowed the shop's camera and been convinced that I definitely need gear of my own, but alas the budget for that would be more than we had at the beginning for the whole trip! I'll have to find a way to sell photos or something to make tons of money for that! :rofl

Yeah the company here has a program to train up to divemaster level and then get some experience as a divemaster. The work is certainly far less demanding than anything I do at home, so I have nothing at all to complain about. :D I'll have to work some on the side too though, so if anybody has an odd web design job or needs some photos of the tropics, I'm willing to provide! :D

Anyway, as I said, I borrowed the shop's camera for a photography dive and learned a few of the basics. It's a simple P&S Canon with no lights, so colors were quite tricky, but I'm just stoked to get to shoot at least a bit of what I see! :D This dive is at a place called Shark Point, a tiny chunk of rock sticking above the surface with a couple other smaller towers that don't reach dry air, surrounded by a reef teeming with life. We started our dive at one end of the group and without much ado we dropped beneath the surface to drift with a light current along the length of the rocks. Here's Paul at the surface, prior to descent.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0362/776514961_aVAy5-L.jpg



A giant red coral fan backdrops a fish who seems a bit unsure of my proximity.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0364/776548663_sRuRs-L.jpg



For those unfamiliar with the underwater world, one of the quirks you have to work with is the rapidly diminishing wavelengths of light as you descend. It doesn't take very much distance before you start to lose reds, then oranges, yellows, and so on. To compensate, you can set the white balance on the camera, but the closest thing I have to a white card is the back of my hand (very white Alaskan skin) and then the rest I try to salvage in post. It works, but this on top of the lesser quality camera equipment presents some difficulties that can be hard to successfully overcome.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0365/776519066_ZejWJ-L.jpg



Regardless of the light though, some things come across plain as day. One of these is the sea urchin's natural message: DO NOT TOUCH! :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0366/776520984_PeuwQ-L.jpg



One of the more popular goals of divers worldwide seems to be to swim with the turtles. No problem in this area, evidently. This one was moseying along the face of the reef with a whole pack of diver paparazzi following along taking pictures. The area is popular with many diving operations, so there's probably not a moment's peace for such a valuable photo subject until they wander away from the rocks. It didn't seem too bothered though, and just swam along nice and slow, giving plenty of time for photos.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0370/776523752_rz8sN-L.jpg



Moray eels are some very awkward looking creatures, protruding at any angles from whatever small holes they can find to worm their thin bodies into. These ones are only about an inch and a half thick, but they can get big enough to bite off fingers and such, should you somehow resemble food.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0372/776525322_gnAmu-L.jpg



Clownfish are popular in photos of course, with their bright colors and interesting personalities. These guys hang around the anemones, often disappearing to safety within the tentacles. Another anemone fish has a habit of staring right at you as you swim by, even inches away. I'll have to get some photos of those while I'm here.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0374/776526875_VKa4r-L.jpg



The plant life in these waters is just as interesting as the animals. This small fern clings to the tip of a coral fan in shallower depths where a little more colorful light is able to drop in and paint things nicely.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0379/776549430_2mwpZ-L.jpg



Of course watching the floor of the ocean offers spectacular experiences, but you can't forget to look up and around you as well. Often you'll find a school of barracuda, or a larger fish of some variety that you'd miss if you just stared at the ground!
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0381/776532448_MQwrn-L.jpg



Our dive ends with a safety stop at five meters down. Explanations for this for non-divers are complicated, but put simply, with so much compressed air flowing through your body, a brief stop for three minutes at five meters helps you clear out a lot of the nitrogen absorbed in various tissues prior to going to the surface where atmospheric pressure is much less. Paul is holding a line attached to a safety buoy as a depth reference so we don't have to stare at our gauges the whole time - at this point we've drifted out of sight of any feature but the surface itself, so judging depth visually is very hard!
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0382/776533351_G9BYB-L.jpg



Our stay here in Phuket should be all the way through April if the current plan is maintained. Hopefully I'll have plenty of underwater photos for everyone, and if dreams come true at some point, I'll get my 40D down there with a light setup and do things right! :D We'll see though. For now, enjoy!

[Jeremy Winterberg]

Ahh... I didn't know exactly how deep you were diving. But, I suppose ten feet isn't very far regardless. The proper setup for a 40D will be a couple grand... so, good luck with that :D

The pictures you took are pretty sweet. Even with the screwy white balance :rofl a technicality that will be forgiven for being in such an awesome location.

Maybe you could try advertising yourself as a destination wedding photographer... I hear a lot of high end folks get married in Phuket. That would raise the underwater housing funds quite nicely. :wink

[ian408]

Some great U/W shots! You need just a bit more light--which translates into a huge strobe--to make the color really pop. Great times!

[Prezwoodz]

Every now and then I decide to come and look at your photos only to wonder what I am still doing here!

On that note...will you still be there in May?

[coldclimb]

Every now and then I decide to come and look at your photos only to wonder what I am still doing here!

On that note...will you still be there in May?

No sadly the end of April is our last bit of time here I believe.

... At which point we hope to head over to Railay for a month or so. :thumb :D Please do come. No better place to get married! :rofl

[Prezwoodz]

No sadly the end of April is our last bit of time here I believe.

... At which point we hope to head over to Railay for a month or so. :thumb :D Please do come. No better place to get married! :rofl


Be that as it may I am not getting Married!!

Do you think you will still be in Thailand say June? I know im moving it around a bit but gotta do some more guidework first!

[ian408]

That's a terrific place to get married! Good on you Kelsey :lol3

[coldclimb]

I think by June we'll be touring Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma. It's too far ahead to really say for sure of course, though. If you figured out what you wanted to do, we could always come back through Railay again, or tour those countries before going there, or you can travel with us. It would all be very worthwhile! :D

I wish more of my friends would actually come visit us. :rofl

[Prezwoodz]

I think by June we'll be touring Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma. It's too far ahead to really say for sure of course, though. If you figured out what you wanted to do, we could always come back through Railay again, or tour those countries before going there, or you can travel with us. It would all be very worthwhile! :D

I wish more of my friends would actually come visit us. :rofl

I would like to tour those countries as well and I am sure we would both be in for it. Of course Shasta has not been to Railay before so I would love to take her there too. Also she wants to ride an elephant which shouldnt be any kind of issue. So if you wanted to wait for a bit to tour we could tour along too.

[coldclimb]

I would like to tour those countries as well and I am sure we would both be in for it. Of course Shasta has not been to Railay before so I would love to take her there too. Also she wants to ride an elephant which shouldnt be any kind of issue. So if you wanted to wait for a bit to tour we could tour along too.

What's your time frame? Why go home? :D Three cameras will make us more valuable to businesses, and we can just keep going! Sign up for some classes in Australia next semester... :ivar

[Prezwoodz]

What's your time frame? Why go home? :D Three cameras will make us more valuable to businesses, and we can just keep going! Sign up for some classes in Australia next semester... :ivar

Although not a bad idea, my brother is getting married on August 21st in Seattle...and I am supposed to be his best man! That would be bad of me not to at least show up ;)

We were thinking...Early to mid June until August 16th or so and head to Seattle then after the wedding back to Alaska.

[Gworlund]

Are you ever planning on coming home? Hehe Looks like you are having fun!

[coldclimb]

Are you ever planning on coming home? Hehe Looks like you are having fun!

Going home at this point is not an option - we simply don't have enough money to even begin. We'll just have to get there when we get there! :D Plus, we still have six or seven countries that we set out to explore and haven't reached, so we would hate to head back without seeing them.

[ian408]

Going home at this point is not an option - we simply don't have enough money to even begin. We'll just have to get there when we get there! :D Plus, we still have six or seven countries that we set out to explore and haven't reached, so we would hate to head back without seeing them.
That is a powerful way to travel.

[coldclimb]

Well the responsibilities and pressures of life here have kept me from taking and posting as many pictures as I'd like, which is a shame. Phuket has its many beauties, but also many bits of ugliness both prominent and concealed beneath the surface of local society that put a sort of pressure on us that can be hard to shake off at times. We find ourselves daily leaning on our anchors in faith and finding the little bits of good in life, and it keeps us happy even in the sad state of things on the island of Phuket. :D

It's expensive to live here at first, until you get the hang of avoiding the scams and finding the cheap food. Local transportation costs are controlled by a syndicated mafia of sorts, so they're exorbitantly high, preying on the innocent naivety of traveling tourists who don't have a grasp of prices yet, or who have no other options to get places. Prices for anything sold locally are typically doubled at minimum if you're white, and the fact that the Thai language has its own written symbols for numbers makes this quite easy - t's simply written one price in Thai, and another in regular numbers. After a month living here we've managed to cut our outflow of cash to a minimum, but of course we'd be more than happy to find an income of some sort to keep it coming in while it goes out! :D

So regular living and the work I'm doing taking tourists diving have kept me from shooting a whole lot lately. It's a strange phenomenon in my photography as long as I've been shooting that this is always the slowest time of year for me. The camera is still at my side though, and occasionally makes it out for a shot or two. :D Here's a glimpse of life on a Thai Longtail!

Paul comes out of the water after diving with a few students at one of the local training dive sites.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0385/783523478_zc6cc-L.jpg



A pair of students enter the water for a dive at Koh Weo - that's Rock Island in English.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0386/783524647_YpYna-L.jpg



Monja, one of my fellow divemaster trainees, goes over a briefing with a group of divers on the leisurely ride out to Koh Weo. The island is up the coast about 30 minutes from Kamala Beach, and the boat ride is a nice one to get warmed up or cooled down from a few hours of diving.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0387/793266295_nyuMW-L.jpg



Sunsets on the beach here are beautiful of course, but rather spoiled for my tastes by the throngs of people in various states of nudity from "really gross" to "complete". Long walks on the beach are easy to find though. :D I shot this with the Silhouettes contest in mind, as the sun goes down on a number of Thais out fishing for an evening's catch.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0388/793269211_L7Rte-L.jpg



And of course it wouldn't involve us without a mushy self portrait to make our friends at home roll their eyes and sigh! :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0390/793271200_g2CeA-L.jpg

[coldclimb]

Since we've been here a month, we've used up our free time we get upon arrival and have to split for the border to re-up. Thailand has issues with foreigners working illegally in the country while only holding tourist visas, so they make it as inconvenient as possible for those guys to renew. This makes things hard for the rest of us as well, since we have to travel to another country, find a town with a Thai consulate, and apply there, which takes a few days. For us though, it's a welcome vacation from the work we've been doing to get by in Phuket. As we roll out of town on the small local bus, the pressure releases and we find ourselves back on the road, travelers once more on an adventure to see everywhere. We catch a bus to Hat Yai in southern Thailand, and as the sun sinks low we're told that there's no more buses out of the country tonight, so we grab a cheap and convenient room and hit the market

I can't really tell you how nice it is to buy good food and not be horrendously cheated by people who think we're rich because we're white. We're stoked, and in our excitement we shell out more money than we would have back in Phuket, shoveling goodies of all sorts into our very happy bellies. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0391/793267761_pCpTN-L.jpg



The market at the bus station in Hat Yai fills a fairly large area completely covered over with umbrellas and tarps, and sells just about everything. We wander around soaking in the relaxed atmosphere and wishing Phuket was more like this.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0393/793273965_Qg4qF-L.jpg



http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0394/793276053_rwTm9-L.jpg



At length we wander to our room. It's not a lot to look at, but it's relatively cheap at 200 baht (six dollars) and the convenient location at the bus station means no stress worrying about getting to and from downtown. :D We're stoked, and settle in for a great night's sleep.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0395/794174900_iw4Y3-L.jpg



More adventures are sure to be had in the near future! :D

[coldclimb]

The Thai consulate in Penang is the place to hang out early on a Monday morning - a line forms on the street and taxis wait for customers to finish up their paperwork and need a ride to somewhere else. We walked there early in the morning, and were only missing one thing to apply for our visas, so a quick taxi ride to a nearby YMCA for copies of our passports, and our applications were submitted. "Come back at three-thirty" they tell us, and we move through the crowd back to the street. Several others in line are wearing worried looks, sweating profusely, and trying to find T-shirts to cover their tanktops, which are insufficient apparel for gaining access into the Thai consulate. People are actually being turned away for the class implications of the shirts they're wearing. We count our blessings and wander off.

Temperatures soar as we wander the town, saving our pennies and window shopping around. Eventually we find an air-conditioned grocery store, and while deciding what to buy for lunch, we wander past the freezer area. Fatigue from the severe heat and miles we've walked finally drives us to the breaking point, and as we leave the store our receipt is a clear statement of our current condition: :D

1.5L Water - 1 Ringit
1.5L Water - 1 Ringit
1 spoon - 1.5 Ringit
1 King Grand Ice Cream - 7.5 Ringit

Locals wander past and make noises indicating laughing approval as we thoroughly enjoy life for the next few minutes. :rofl

Later in the day, we shell out a few cents for some sugar cane that's been run through a crusher, extracting the juice which is then mixed with ice and served in a bag. It's a simple process generating a very cheap product, and the two Malaysians running the small cart are pumping these things out as fast as they can with movements practiced and perfected from long hours of repetition. Doing some math, I figure at the rate they're making and selling these on a day like today, they're probably doing quite well!
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0396/801564780_cDAaX-L.jpg



http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0397/801566387_eETuH-L.jpg



Unless you've been here, and been tired and hot for days on end, you have no idea how much this simple treat will vastly improve the quality of life. We're happy to be here to begin with, but this just piles more happiness to an already thoroughly blessed life!
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Malaysia-Visa-Run/Edit-0398/801564208_Lg5A6-L.jpg



We're back in Phuket now, with our visas to let us stay in Thailand for a period extendable up to three months. I'm not taking as many pictures as I probably ought to here, but rest assured, the journey will continue. :D It has to you see, because there's still at LEAST seven countries on our itinerary, and somehow we'll have to make it home someday as well! Hope you're still having fun with our photos!

[ian408]

Glad to see your update :thumb

[esc2476]

Fascinating thread and wonderful pictures-thank you for the updates.

[Prezwoodz]

I think by June we'll be touring Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma. It's too far ahead to really say for sure of course, though. If you figured out what you wanted to do, we could always come back through Railay again, or tour those countries before going there, or you can travel with us. It would all be very worthwhile! :D

I wish more of my friends would actually come visit us. :rofl

What do you think about flying to meet us in Vietnam and then heading back toward Thailand through those countries?

[leaforte]

rather cool.

[coldclimb]

What do you think about flying to meet us in Vietnam and then heading back toward Thailand through those countries?

That could work I suppose, but flying is a whole lot more expensive for us so we'll need to drum up some work! :D Where are you thinking in Vietnam, north or south? And are you aware you'll need your visa in advance? We were thinking of hitting it from Cambodia and circling north to leave through Laos over to Burma, then run back through Thailand and Malaysia. We've been told not to miss Borneo, so we may hop over there and do some jungle trekking. What are your thoughts? If you met us in Bangkok and joined us for the bus over to Cambodia and Vietnam it might be pleasant and offer cheaper tickets for you guys, but of course we're flexible too... :D



Here's a shot from a couple days back during a bit of heavy rain that hit us on our way back from Koh Weo, our favorite local dive site. It's so hot that a rain shower even while moving is not an entirely unpleasant event. I was just happy not to have to take a cold shower to wash off the saltwater when we got home. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0400/801574830_pPngo-L.jpg



The rain on the ocean was especially beautiful, kicking up a light mist to add some depth to the swells. I was stoked, even though I was soaked.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0401/802249689_3D3x6-L.jpg

[schmoo]

I haven't commented yet because really, I don't have anything to add that is more meaningful than your journey itself, or what everyone else hasn't already said!

However, I have been telling sooo many people about this trip and your thread. :thumb

[coldclimb]

I haven't commented yet because really, I don't have anything to add that is more meaningful than your journey itself, or what everyone else hasn't already said!

However, I have been telling sooo many people about this trip and your thread. :thumb

Thanks a ton Schmoo! :D It's always good to hear that people are watching. Tracy says you're welcome to come visit us! :wink

[ivar]

I haven't commented yet because really, I don't have anything to add that is more meaningful than your journey itself, or what everyone else hasn't already said!

However, I have been telling sooo many people about this trip and your thread. :thumbThis goes for me, also. I sometimes find it hard to give a meaningful response in the journeys thread, however I have closely followed this thread and your travels and am really enjoying them both! :clap

[coldclimb]

Well once again I have to apologize for the lack of photos! But in response to a request from Cuong, here's a shot of the place we've been staying here. A couple other divemaster trainees rented a whole house, and offered the bottom half to us for 3000 baht per month, or 95 dollars. It's the biggest place we've ever rented, has the biggest fridge we've ever had, and it has AC too. :D It looks a bit smaller than it is, cause the back of the house extends considerably farther at an odd angle.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0404/819847260_ARE7r-L.jpg



I shot this for the "Together or Apart" contest. Caged birds are immensely popular here, and every house has one or two hanging out front, or lining the sides of the streets.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0405/816281852_diL6i-L.jpg



And for another bit of local animal life, while waiting to rendezvous with a friend outside 7-11 the other day we spotted this enormously fat frog hanging out nearby. He was stationed at a cracked joint in the concrete sidewalk where a steady trickle of ants were coming out. They came out, but they didn't go back in - every few seconds another would venture forth and he'd quickly gobble it up, and pause expectantly waiting for the next. Seems like a pretty easy life! :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0406/819846149_GRfJa-L.jpg



As for us, we're working on finding an income and getting ourselves back on the road again. We're not sure how to do either of those at the moment, but as God has always provided in the past, we're sure we'll be alright one way or another in the future. :D Hopefully we'll have some more adventuring to share sometime very soon!

[ian408]

That looks like a fantastic home base!

[Prezwoodz]

Looks like you guys are staying in quite the palace there! I really like the picture of the frog but thats because I seem to be a sucker for amphibians!

[coldclimb]

Looks like you guys are staying in quite the palace there! I really like the picture of the frog but thats because I seem to be a sucker for amphibians!

It's the opening days of the rainy season here, so this week every evening we've had heavy rainshowers. It's a totally awesome change from sun all the time, so we go out and get soaked every day on the way to dinner. The first day it rained, I left the camera at home safe and dry. There's a creek/canal/sewer/trash receptacle that flows past our favorite restaurant, which promptly filled with rushing waters. The locals spotted a huge frog struggling to climb the concrete walls and get out of the current, and very shortly one disappeared, and reappeared with a crossbow rigged with a barbed bolt and a spool of line attached. While I was kicking myself for leaving the camera (you ALWAYS see great stuff when you don't have it!) he leaned way over the waters and stuck the frog on his second shot, then reeled it in, hoisted it out of the water, and walked it right into the kitchen, still kicking. :D

Unfortunately we'd just finished eating, or I might have tried ordering up some fresh frog legs. Over the next few nights we've seen a few more frog catching efforts, but the crossbow hasn't come out again. I'll keep trying to get some good pictures of that. :rofl

[coldclimb]

Alright, I've finally got something for you all. :D



As I mentioned, the rainy season has been slowly approaching. This doesn't mean torrential rains all the time, but it does mean we get some change from the tedious monotony of plain old bright sunlight all the time. :rofl For most vacationers here, that's probably a bad thing, but we love the cool temps and the evenings walking in the heavy downpour with the sky flashing overhead and booming thunder shaking the whole world all around. The water can be a little problematic for some though, I shot this just after helping a Thai man push his car out of this lake after it stalled while he was driving through.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0407/826277089_ji86E-L.jpg



Life here has been rather tedious, just trying to find some work online and waiting for tax returns to be deposited back home so we can get the money to keep moving onward. Kamala Beach isn't very fun for us, with its one crowded beach, bars, and night life providing the sole attractions, but that's life at times, and we're just trying to keep busy. I've been writing up stories of life's adventures to stick on my website and submit to magazines (Viewable HERE (http://www.morffed.com/Adventures)) and we're making the best of it. :D

A couple days ago we got some cooler temperatures and took the opportunity to follow a trail pointed out to us by an Ex-Pat from Finland who has befriended us and been quite generous. It wandered off the end of a small road and followed a single track of concrete up the hills above town and deep into the jungle.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0409/826279095_vFC8P-L.jpg



We were soon to discover though that the "jungle" at this location has long since been converted into a rubber tree plantation, and offers little of its original authenticity for explorers to discover. That didn't bother us though, it was still beautiful, and quite an enjoyable experience. Here's some bananas reaching for the sky from their stem alongside the trail.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0408/826277918_ti5pm-L.jpg



The rubber trees are planted in rows along the hillside, giving evidence to probably decades of harvesting of the latex flowing through their bark. The trees are cut diagonally to access the veins of latex, which drips into a container of some sort that workers attach to the tree. I think the season must be some other time of year, because we didn't see any activity around the plantation and the containers were simply full of rainwater.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0410/826281556_xTzwU-L.jpg



We did pass a number of secluded dwellings well off the beaten track and far from town. We decided if we were going to live in Phuket, we'd probably get back into the jungle too. No electricity, but plenty of running water and lots of relaxation to be found.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0411/826282092_Rj3p9-L.jpg



Here's a vine clinging to a rubber tree:
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0412/826283070_76SGE-L.jpg



I took a moment at one point to stitch a 360 panorama including some of the plantation's outbuildings, which evidently house equipment and some sort of machinery for processing the sap. I took some close-ups too, but I find that I'm just not as good at capturing the magic of vacant buildings as some people here are! :D
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0414/826284956_JiwXf-L.jpg



As we got higher into the hills, the thinned out undergrowth of the plantation passed behind us and we found thick brush filling the jungle like it ought to. Included in the shrubbery was this bush sprouting peppers, free for the picking.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0415/826286151_aCpzu-L.jpg



At our high point, where the trail disappeared and we were following a thread of a path from rubber tree to rubber tree, we discovered a friendly millipede in the leafy carpet of decomposing plant matter. Of course what do you do with giant bugs with hundreds of legs besides put them on your face for pictures? :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0418/826288342_EZuxy-L.jpg



These really cool bugs are biteless and stingerless, and very much slow, weak, and vulnerable (NOT to be confused, however, with their cousins the centipedes, which have a poisonous sting and move fast!). They certainly are fun to play with though, and this one thoroughly explored my hand, searching for some way to get back to earth again.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0419/826288663_959L6-L.jpg



Unfortunately you'd need a video to really get an idea of the mesmerizing movement of the legs on these guys, but if you can take this picture and imagine every leg constantly moving in a dazzling line of incomprehensible cooperation, you might get a bit of an idea. :huh
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0421/826289770_RRfUA-L.jpg



Leaving our friend in the leaves where we found him, we wandered our way back toward town as the dark clouds moved in overhead in preparation for the evening's rain. The water didn't fall for some time though, so we stayed dry. Moving back through the rubber trees, we were given a good view of this hillside, showing that it's been quite a while since the natural jungle thrived on these hillsides.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0422/826290913_eMfTH-L.jpg



Another of the plantation huts would present a very comfortable atmosphere if it weren't for the typical piles of litter adorning the floor. Asians don't seem to mind the garbage everywhere though, so I guess it's just fine for them. :scratch
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0423/826291720_kAbg4-L.jpg



We don't know what this is, and we're quite curious. :rofl Any of you botanists find this familiar? It's a giant plant about six feet across perched in the branches of a tree, with a huge bowl of leaves on top and a dangling ribbon-like system of roots below. We can only assume it must be the bed of some fairy princess, sleeping cozily in a mossy mattress wrapped in bundles of soft leaves. :wink We could be wrong though...
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0424/826292433_mVyWm-L.jpg



And a gooshy self-portrait of two raggedy travelers enjoying some peace and quiet deep in the jungle of Thailand, with a babbling brook drifting by to add some texture. We're trying to get a big enough collection of these sorts of photos to make an entire album for showing off someday down the road. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0428/826295602_BFrfB-L.jpg



Lastly, just before reaching town again, we spotted one thing I had hoped to find out here. This is a golden orb-web spider building a web which is stretching significantly under the weight of the massive beast. The thing is nearly as big around in body as a human finger, and very intimidating looking. Evidently they're harmless to humans, but we didn't try putting one on our face this time. :rofl
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0429/826296316_eZse2-L.jpg



So there's a hike in the Thai jungle for you. Hopefully we'll get more of those in the future. For now, enjoy!

[schmoo]

Even though they're totally harmless, the photo of the giant millipede on Tracy's face made me jump. :lol3 I feel like a boring fuddy-duddy after I read one of your posts!

[coldclimb]

Even though they're totally harmless, the photo of the giant millipede on Tracy's face made me jump. :lol3 I feel like a boring fuddy-duddy after I read one of your posts!

Haha I wouldn't worry too much, I notice you've left the country at LEAST twice since we have! That's pretty good! :D

Here's an important update for our trip, after much deliberation and prayer we've decided to head back home for the summer at least. There's a whole bunch of reasons of course, which all boil down to doors being open there and closed here. It's disappointing in a way because we had hoped to reach so many more countries, but it's exciting in a bunch of other ways, not the least of which is the awesomeness of Alaska in the summertime. So our (current) trip will probably end soon, but of course that also depends on us finding tickets home from Thailand that match the budget of our tax returns. :rofl Whatever happens over the next few weeks though, we'll try to keep posting pictures!

[heatherfeather]

Hi John! Gorgeous stuff as always... love the gushy photo... what was your shutter speed on that one?? Oh, and just so you don't feel too bad about coming back... the snow is aaaalmost gone. And I saw a bug.

[Jeremy Winterberg]

And I saw a bug.:huh what kind of bug? :huh :rofl Also, speaking of snow.. we've been having nice weather in Wisconsin, 50's-70's, but today it dropped to 30 and snowed! WHY??? so stupid.

Hopefully you get more than me for a tax return... I got $5 from state... $0 from fed.... that definitely wouldn't buy me a plane ticket from Thailand...

[heatherfeather]

It was some kind of millerish moth thing. No skeeters yet. :D

[coldclimb]

Hi John! Gorgeous stuff as always... love the gushy photo... what was your shutter speed on that one?? Oh, and just so you don't feel too bad about coming back... the snow is aaaalmost gone. And I saw a bug.

1.6 seconds for that one. We're stoked to not have to miss summer in Hatchers! :D

[coldclimb]

Well it's been a little while, so of course lots of things have happened. :D First off, Thai New Year celebrations happened last week. This is a little more significant an event than our New Year back home. There's fireworks of course, and the usual stuff worldwide, but the unique thing here is that for one day the entire country of Thailand just plain shuts down and has a waterfight.

http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0432/836405361_334oc-L.jpg



And it's not just a little waterfight either. I mean of course there's little kids with small squirtguns hiding in the bushes along the roads, and they get you when you wander past, but it escalates to a much, MUCH larger scale. Here's one team of wetteners, and their mighty charger equipped for war.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0433/836404004_XqjjZ-L.jpg



Streets sprouted swimming pools; businesses closed down and filled trash cans with water and buckets; everybody venturing outdoors was armed with something (except us - we neglected to budget for squirtguns http://dgrin.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao.gif) and there was general all-around mayhem. Watching the traffic in the streets was hilarious, as everyone stopped for a light, geysers of water would shoot in all directions.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0434/836407065_EEGTb-L.jpg



And it's not just for locals either! An event this size draws in everybody around. We speculated that it might have been pretty bad if you just showed up in Thailand and didn't know this was going down! http://dgrin.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao.gif This guy's deluge was definitely having an effect on its targets.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0435/836413327_dd9ds-L.jpg



Every truck on the island was of course equipped with a drum of water and a team of soakers, drenching the sidewalks with drive-bys.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0436/836417814_tnx8s-L.jpg



http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0437/836424677_3gepH-L.jpg



Drivers will slow and approach the sidewalk battalions, engaging in a few moments of intense combat before they move on and reload for the next fight.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0438/837427944_GfDvL-L.jpg



Some brave souls, it turns out, are perhaps just too brave for their own good. you can imagine how this story ended. http://dgrin.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao.gif
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0441/837430482_aKvVR-L.jpg



And of course, nobody who goes outside during the day is going to stay dry.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0446/837438992_Vs4K8-L.jpg



And so ends the old year in Thailand, and begins a new one, with the hot season in full swing and spirits as high as the mercury. :D Some crews even drop bags of ice in their water, which makes for a really nice dousing when they get you good. Very refreshing in these temps.
http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/Edit-0449/837452506_JGdUR-L.jpg




There's more in the gallery here, I just figured the highlights would be plenty for this thread: http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/11403178_X3ZSH#837423449_oUxFS


And now we're moving on, and with our decision to head home things have happened quickly. We left our cozy room Monday morning, saying goodbye to the cats that had adopted us, and were quickly on our way to Bangkok to catch our flight back to Alaska. I'm writing this from Seattle now, but still have another batch of photos to get online from the trip. It's a big event to end the trip of course, but then it's just another adventure. We're not sad to cut it short of our plans either, five months traveling in Asia is certainly nothing to treat lightly! And we left plenty of stuff undone, too, so we'll just have to come back.

At least one more post to come! :D

[Jeremy Winterberg]

glad to hear you made it stateside safely!

[Jane B.]

This has been a VERY interesting thread. Thanks for taking us along.

I am glad that I was not caught unaware in one of the waterfights! I wear a hearing aid and most of them are NOT waterproof or even resistant!! I do have one that is but don't always wear it as it is not as powerful as one of my others. It sure looks like fun though, if prepared.

Thanks again
Jane B.

[coldclimb]

This has been a VERY interesting thread. Thanks for taking us along.

I am glad that I was not caught unaware in one of the waterfights! I wear a hearing aid and most of them are NOT waterproof or even resistant!! I do have one that is but don't always wear it as it is not as powerful as one of my others. It sure looks like fun though, if prepared.

Thanks again
Jane B.

Thanks! Yeah we figured if you just showed up in town and weren't told, you'd be awful angry when your phone and camera got drenched as you stepped out on the street in the morning! :huh

[coldclimb]

Well alright, here it is, the last post of photos from our one-way adventure! We're back home in Alaska now, where the cold is just fleeing, the geese are returning, and a few residual snowflakes are still making their way out of the sky to coat the ground in white. Our trip started on Monday, Thai time, when we jumped on an overnight bus from Phuket to Bangkok. Arriving very early in the morning, we managed to make our way into downtown without being ripped off TOO badly, and with our remaining cash totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 baht (about 13 dollars) we set out to purchase our last Thai souvenirs, see the town, and get to the airport.

Thai temples are quite impressive, and Bangkok has its share!
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0455/846002149_yM9wY-L.jpg



Since the ethic in Thailand is simply to throw trash anywhere and everywhere that gets it off your hands, most of the waterways are rather filthy and polluted. This one is no exception, but it at least looks good in the picture, which is more than I can say for others.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0456/846002558_zPdLG-L.jpg



Did I mention the temple architecture? My favorite part was the rooftops. :D
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0458/846003548_NL9dT-L.jpg



Adding to an amazing string of coincidences that I can only call blessings, the local tuk-tuk drivers were subsidized by the government for a few days to take tourists around to local sights at no charge, while thousands of Europeans are stuck in town waiting for the air to clear of volcanic ash over their home countries. We were picked up by a very friendly fellow, and absolutely contrary to typical tuk-tuk ripoffs, were treated very well, driven around for some time, and dropped off where we wanted to go! This was an amazing thing, since our packs are quite heavy! :D
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0459/846003969_oUob5-L.jpg



One of Bangkok's attractions is a massive golden Buddha.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0460/846004711_2D49F-L.jpg



One item of interest in the media lately has been the unrest and riots in Bangkok between the red-shirts and the yellow-shirts and the police. While we didn't experience any run-ins with these, we did see many evidences of a town ready for riot control, and we encountered two equally spirited parties in a debate which led to bloodshed, angry glares, and vocal discontent! We were almost too close for comfort, but I snapped a few blurry shots of the action, and this one of the after-battle calm.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0461/846005044_Zty32-L.jpg



And of course in any Asian country, free anything is just too good to be true. In addition to the tourist attractions, our driver brought us to a number of local shops selling jewelry and tailored clothing, and to oblige we dutifully admired pieces and suits, some of which cost several times what we have spent for the entire trip! We of course were wearing clothes which displayed a rather less-than-wealthy position in society that should not be considering such shopping venues: one of us in a shirt we found in a trash can, and the other with a palm-sized hole in the shoulder and smaller ones dotting the front. :rofl One store was particularly interesting though, with a showroom filling over an acre of ground, and a small display of craftsmen working skillfully at creating the jewelry right there, from the fresh cut stones to the finished products. These are rough stones at the beginning of the cutting and polishing stage, attached to sticks for proper alignment on the grinding equipment.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0464/846007992_3Ps59-L.jpg



The speed these workers have shows how long they've been doing this, and the skills they've acquired in that time. A quick glance at the stone, and it would be attached to a guide in a fraction of a second and touched to the wheel briefly, then examined again and cut at a different angle in the next instant. I was impressed!
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0465/846008240_ZuNQe-L.jpg



Next in line, another worker was forming the settings for stones and pearls in rings using - of all tools - a simple hammer and a stick. He worked fast, and produced some fine results in no time.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0467/846009080_cUBPV-L.jpg



At another seat a small block of wood formed the backing for some action with a very thin hacksaw, shaping the details and finer parts of the jewelry.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0469/846010001_BLizQ-L.jpg



And lastly, the setting of the stones themselves, all done by hand and resulting in a very nice product, truly crafted by hands that have formed many thousands before. It was a very interesting tour, and we were quite happy to have stopped by.
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Traveling-Home/Edit-0470/846010422_ziwv9-L.jpg



And that's it! We caught a local bus to the airport, boarded a plane in Bangkok, flew to Tokyo, then to Seattle, and even managed to catch an earlier flight to Anchorage, arriving in time to inconvenience Kelsey as he expected to pick us up later in the day.

Our cash is down to only 120 baht, which is about four dollars, but that's just fine; it's still in baht, and we can't exchange it locally anyway! :rofl



Within a day of getting home, we're jumping back into things, attending some ice rescue training and working on getting caught up with everything that has left us behind in our absence. Straight from water at 30 degrees Celsius to water at 30 degrees Fahrenheit! :D
http://coldclimb.smugmug.com/2010/Ice-Rescue-Training-Willow/Edit-13/846035724_6ovwv-L.jpg



Once again, I hoped you've all enjoyed the trip! :D

[Art Scott]

All very well done...sorry it had to come to an end. I enjoyed it all.

Thank YOU BOTH

[ian408]

Don't know what to say John. You've shared an amazing part of your life with us during this trip and for that, I am grateful. Very grateful!

Thank you so much for sharing your journey.

[schmoo]

:bow Just incredible! I'm almost sorry to hear that you guys are home "already" because I look forward to reading about your journeys so much. You are so inspiring and I'm sure both your families are thrilled to have you home.

I've never seen baht before and I bet most of us haven't. :D

Glad you're are home, and I'm already looking forward to your next adventure, no matter where it is!

[gembobs]

Thanks for sharing your travels with us - I have been enjoying read all about it since you started this thread!

I hope you enjoy being home and I look forward to your future travels.

[dadwtwins]

Like a good book, you hate when it ends. Thank you sooooo much for sharing with us your adventures. I thoroughly enjoyed your monologue as well as your pictures. :bow