Oldies But Goodies.

(Day 21: A List of Links to Your Favorite Posts in Your Archive)

This was harder than expected.  I never seem to like anything I've written.. especially after the fact.  In addition, I decided to add a few posts from my other blogs.

1 - Pre-Traveling: First post on this blog. It's great to remember the feeling of giving up everything for the unknown.

2 - A Week in the Desert: Such an unexpected stop on my journey cross country. This first Burning Man experience will always hold a special place for me. So much so, that I am hesitant to go back and alter my perspective on it.

3 - Maui: Just love this collection of photos of my time here.

4 - I'm in Heaven: Ton Sai, Thailand. Truly heaven on earth. One of my favorite spots on Josh and my tour of Southeast Asia.

5 - Traveling: It is amusing to re-read this now. I like thinking about how I actually accomplished this. .. At least a little.

6 - Tropical Weather: I like the photo in the post and the musings. And I always miss these things.

7 - Red Walls, Aching Muscles: Being a tour guide was hard. But also, rewarding.

And from my other blogs:

1 - 4 Years and 2000 Miles Apart: Life in SF versus life in Maui

2- Lovesick for Wanderlust: Disjointed and strange, I think this accurately depicts my traveler's itch.

3 - 5-Hour Blink of an Eye: Being an adventure travel guide.

4 - Chronicles of Our Cat: I love my kitten.

heaven.. i'm in heaven...

ah, yes, i sit here in an internet cafe on the east side of railay beach where the song "heaven, i'm in heaven" is playing.. and yes, i feel so much like it is.

we have been back on tonsai in our qaint bungalow at the lovely andaman resort since our side trips to phi phi and lanta and have been loving it.



we spent a nice christmas evening at a beach bar watching fireworks and the obligatory fireshow with some people from california. we even went to this one place where they had a guy who can twirl poi and the firestick WHILE being on the slackrope. amazing! spent a quiet christmas day relaxing and going out for a nice dinner.

since then, we have been climbing and hanging out with bruce and smithy again (yay! they came back to tonsai for the holidays too!). i have been doing well and liking it. and i even did my first lead climb today! :) one day, we took a steep hike to the lagoon in the middle of railay. we also went to the viewpoint where you could see both beaches and, in the distance, tonsai as well!






for new year's we hung out with the boys and a swedish couple we met at wee's climbing shop and ended up on the beach where this really good semi-reggae band played the night away. we ended up seeing everyone we knew and it was a lovely way to ring in the new year.




we are thinking about headed back to koh phangan for a while to run out our visas and then heading on to laos or malaysia... or maybe to the phillipines.

climber's paradise.. .

from koh phangan, we caught a 3-hour boat ride to surat thani and a 2-hour bus ride to ao nang - a nice little shoreline town on the andaman sea. then, we caught a longtail boat with a few other couples to haad tonsai, a nice quiet beach next to the popular railay beach.

here, we found an amazing place to stay, nice restaurants, and pleasant people. we called the andaman nature resort our home for almost a week -- cheap bungalows with an amazing restaurant (it got very popular at night, showing movies 'til 10, and having seating and cushions to lay out on the viewing floor). also, during low tide, we could walk over to railay, a pretty stretch of white sand beach, full of very pricey resorts.

haad tonsai is a climber's paradise. surrounding the waters are large steep cliffs that fall either to the beach below or straight into the ocean. one day, we rented kayaks and navigated through the cliffs and into caves.

one day when playing cribbage at a local restaurant by the shore, we met two other fellows playing as well. we met them (smitty and bruce), and their reading friend val, and spent the rest of the day playing cards and conversing. they were all from brighton in the u.k. and regaled us of tales of beach raves with fatboy slim and their random hatred of beckham. we met up again with them at night to play crib under the waning full moon.

leaving, we still felt like we wanted to return. and, even now, we're trying to figure out a way to get back and are hoping that andaman still has a bungalow for us even thought it's so close to christmas.