So thats how sport climbing works!

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The End of Relaxation

After a couple of weeks of lying on the beach Chris and I decided it was time to do some 'proper' travelling again, and headed up to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. The town itself is really nice and very very chilled out. No-one hassles you for anything, yet there are quite a few tourists about and a lot of tourist activities to do. We ended up staying here for 6 nights from the 7th until the 13th January.

While we were there we spent a day seeing some of the local temples, did a one day thai cooking course and spent an awesome three days of sport climbing at some cliffs about 45 minutes drive from the town itself.

Climbing - shown how it should be done

We spent a couple of days climbing with a cool Austrian girl we met called Anna, who, although she'd only started climbing 9 months ago, was showing us boys how it should be done. In the interests of male pride, we had to try to keep up, so me and sceats managed to upgrade (sorry climbing talk here) from grade 5's to finally climbing some 6a's, and 6a+'s and one 6b. However, we have no doubt that Anna will be on the 7a's by the time she gets to Krabi in a couple of weeks!

We also climbed a bit with a German guy we met called Thomas who rescued a a few of our quick-draws on some botched attempts at more 6b climbs!

Anyway, apart from the fact that the climbing was awesome, the people we met in Chiang Mai were really nice and the whole atmosphere of the town was just very cool - defintiely worth a visit again.

Masterchef?

As for the cooking course - am I now a masterchef?

Well, err, no. But I now have a thai cookery book and I'm not afraid to use it! I've made Green curry, pad thai (noddle dish), fish ckaes, thai chicken salad, and a chestnut dessert, so I reckon I can make a reasonably tasty meal now. That said, they had all the ingredients laid out for us on the course, so it'd probably take a bit more effort next time when I'm at home...

***NEWSFLASH***

On more exciting news, Sceats downloaded puzzle bobble onto his phone and we now have something to keep us occupied on even the longest bus and train journeys - the only limiting factor being the battery life of his phone. - although he could maybe get a spare one...?

Moving On

Anyway, we reluctantly left Chiang Mai on the 13th Jan on a three day trip via buses and boats to get to Luang Prabang in Laos.

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Photos

Crazy Horse View
This is the view from the top of one of the climbs at Chiang Mai - the crag is called Crazy Horse.