Rock climbing and reggae root rock

Thursday, October 16th

Steph forgot to set the alarm last night, but miraculously woke up at 7:30am. The Peak (rock climbing company) was scheduled to pick us up between 8:30-9:00am. We quickly showered and ordered breakfast...gobbled it down and was on time for our pick up.

Our guides for the day were Crazy and M. Yes, funny names and they were lots of fun. Lots of jokes and silliness. This is our second climb, we already tried it once at yangshou. Unlike last time, we have to actually do more than climb up and down, we had to tie our own knots and hook on and off the wall. We climbed on the crazy horse level 5a, b, and c (highest level is 25). You would be proud to hear we successfully climbed it with no issues and less bruises. We're becoming quite pros at it. On the site we met some other travelers, Christina from Barcelona and James from Connecticut. Christina is travelling two months on her own and has been exploring all over thailand. She was really cool. James was a diver that does inspections and such underwater. Previously he served in the marines for 4 years. Seems really hard core with his life style, and currently living in chiang mai for some time. His apartment was only $400 a month with a nice view! What a steal!

After three climbs we broke for lunch and chatted some more over our thai meals. Christina informed us that she refuses to go to see tigers because she saw a documentary on them drugging them up. Steph was a bit upset about it, so she googled and found out it was tiger temple. Tiger temple actually beat their tigers and drug them so they do not exhibit aggressive behaviors towards humans. Tiger kingdom (the one we went to) is fairly new (opened for 6 months) and constantly emphasized tigers see them as friends because they never hurt them. After 14 months they transfer them to the same company owned zoo. Steph had much sympathy for the tigers but not for the hill tribes. Christina also told us the hill tribes were like human zoos because the government will arrest them if they leave the hills. I felt bad for both.

We then went back to the mountain to do more climbs. This time there was four climbs - 5a, b, c, and 6a. By now we were pretty comfortable with fives, but the 6a was difficult. It was a crack on the mountain so we had to climb up facing outwards, pushing off both sides of the wall in all fours...lie how you would climb a chimney. I was impressed that I successfully climbed it, but did get some help from Arkom (another guide from chiang mai climbing). Steph was reluctant to do it at first, but after some convincing from crazy and me, she did it too and climbed it successfully. Christina had a bit of a harder time, which consisted of her smacking into the wall a few times, but with some careful guidance and help from crazy, she also made it to the top.

To celebrate the successful climbing day, we headed back to the lunch restaurant for some beers. That was perfect timing because it started to pour on us. Thank goodness we were not climbing then. The routine finger game popped up, but didn't pick up steam. We ended up just drinking our big beers. It's starting to feel weird when we get normal bottles since we are so used to the super size beers in asia...that only cost a buck! We also arranged to meet up with everyone that evening at reggae root rock bar.

Our drive back to the guesthouse took 40mins or so, just enough time for our bodies to process the huge beer bottles. We were struggling to hold in our pee as long as possible, but it seemed like we were never getting there. Eventually we asked M how much longer. To our relief it was just around the corner. We quickly arranged with crazy that he would pick us up at 9:30pm to go out. Yea! Partying with the locals.

We had a lot of time to kill when we got back to the guesthouse, so steph and I leisurely got ready then went out for dinner. We ate right across from our guesthouse because it was still raining. The place was nice and romantic...and empty. Steph and I had our private candlelight dinner with an awful live band playing love music.

When we went back to the guesthouse, steph took a nap and I surfed the net. I also convinced our beautiful receptionist pom to meet us that night. Unfortunately, with miscommunication and bad timing we didn't actually see her that night.

Exactly at 9:30pm, Crazy picked us up. M didn't come so steph and I needed to ride on his motor bike together. Pretty scary, but fun at the same time. We went to some restaurant where Crazy's friends from the peak were eating. They were all really nice and some were pretty good looking with awesome bodies.

We learned thai names are really long, so they all have nicknames. For instance our guide is nicknamed M and his siblings are B and X...he is the middle child...together spells BMX. We also met a girl nicknamed M an her siblings are N and O...MNO. Pretty convenient for their parents to call them.

Other people we meet there was Nui (long hair allstar climber), M (trekking guide), Boom (cooking instructor) and her boyfriend (climbing and off roading guide). All really nice people.

We then headed to reggae root rock bar where I rode behind nui and steph behind crazy. Nui just recently won a climbing competition in chiang mai and came back from a 3 day trekking tour. Tomorrow he was heading to a dirt bike tour. Who would guess Nui was a computer guy before the peak. But an office job got old after awhile, so he decided to join the peak. The peak is one of the best tour companies at chiang mai and only hire thais to work there. The peak got an american climber to train Nui and now he teaches other guides to climb too. His students included Boom's boyfriend, M and Crazy. He also had a pretty cut up body, like our yangshou guide leung. He is the climber on the peak brochures (http://www.thepeakadventure.com/).

Reggae root rock bar was pretty chill. There was a live reggae band that was pretty good, and a dude which we later learned was named Kyaw dancing solo. His moves were pretty crazy? Wild? Out there? As the night progressed steph became his friend talking to him about american politics, and trying to explain why she hates McCain because of Palin. The dude didn't get the meaning of vice president and after a while I had to cut steph off from explaining to him. Oh before they were friends, the conversation was a bit intense and crazy thought he was harassing Steph so he almost got into a fight with him....almost.

So the bar was super cheap because we got the "local prices." For 200 baht each ($6) steph and I drank until we were more than enough drunk. The beer chang was pretty crap, so they had to enhance it with ice. So of course the night progressed onto lots of dancing, picture taking and beer spilling. For some reason, I'm always the target person to spill on. Steph by far did the worst spilling, not on me thank goodness....she was talking to a girl and was swinging her hands around...which naturally led her beer to swing out of the cup and into a girl next to her. Poor girl.

Crazy was pretty impressive with his bongo drums and singing Thai songs. It was lots of fun listening and dancing to it. I'm also impressed that Thai people dance really well. Steph and I were pretty embarrassed with our crappy reggae moves, but who cares when you are drunk. It's all about the fun anyways, at least that's what Nui told us.

The bar closed around 1ish, so we moved to the next place called spicy. It's a late bar that is open till 5am. I don't really get how these boys party this way, especially since they have long days coming ahead. But I guess the adrenaline rush keeps them awake. Spicy was also more dancing and lots of girls everywhere. By then we were only left with a few standing soldiers, so at 3:30am, crazy and nui took us back to the guesthouse. It was a pretty fun ride back. I'm not really sure how, but crazy and steph stopped at a light and they lost balance and toppled over...Steph literally stumbled onto the ground. Nui and I just looked at them crazy. When we got towards the guesthouse, Crazy wanted nui and I to stay by the riverside park, while steph and him goes back to the guesthouse...all three of us looked at him like he was on crack. When we got to the guesthouse, Nui politely left while crazy wanted to come in...of course we said no way jose.

Regardless the night was tons of fun and we have great evidence from the photos. Steph and I only wished we did climbing first so we could of met them earlier on our trip. Nui actually offered to take us rock climbing the next day or whatever adventurous sports we wanted, but too bad we were leaving to bangkok. We did do a lot of drunken email exchanging, so we shall see how that turns out. We totally want to come back and spend more than 5 days there.