Along the way I'll be able to check this address a few times:radboy2@yahoo.com See you in February! Jason

If you want off this list, speak up quick because I'm heading out within the week. See ya!

Jason

Bangkok is full on strange. It's nothing but street markets and back alleys and littls stalls selling vats of curried squirell. If you've seen that leonardo dicaprio beach movie, and you probably should if only for the first half, you'll be happy to know that the Bangkok scenes are not embellished whatsoever. In fact, I'm convinced that they shot part of it in my room.

Anyway, assuming I'm not knifed to death by pirates tonight, I'll be flying to Sydney tomorrow evening. I think I enjoy the third world best in small doses.

Along the way up the coast I bought the most beat up shortboard I could find. I've only had it in the water once, and got thoroughly worked as a reward. It's cool not having to wear ten pounds of neoprene to avoid hypothermia, but I sure don't float to the surface as quickly without it.

And for the record, the toilets do indeed flush in the other direction, and the moon is oriented entirely the wrong way. All in all, good times are being had.

Basically, you fork over some money and they pile you together into a group of nine strangers and hand you the keys to a big ol' Toyota Landcruiser. Then they toss in about sixty pounds of steak, 30 gallons of beer, and a couple beat up tents. The rest is up to you, and the ferry leaves in an hour.

Fraser is really cool. It's just a giant pile of sand, with a rainforest covering most of it. It has some amazing lakes with white sand bottoms andincredibly clear, pure water. So pure in fact that you can drink it.

Apart from the beach (which is actually designated as an australian highway), there are no roads, just a series of rough tracks through the jungle. Now when I say rough, I dont mean just rough, but rough enough that they manage to consistantly bog vehicles designed specifically to never bog down in sand. Loads of fun! Even better with eight nervous passengers screaming in the back.

In short, the best time I've had in australia thus far. Good times, good company, beautiful place. It's all good.

I'm in Airlie Beach right now. It's a bit southeast of Townsville, and it's the point where the barrier reef is closest to shore. I'll be in the pool for the next couple days, then living on and diving from a boat out at the reef. Pretty cool!

It's a pretty cool operation. Much different than in the states, where there would be dozens of waivers and big warning signs and absolutely no alcohol on the boat. Here, the only piece of advice was "figure out how much alcohol you think you'll need, then double it." Australia rules!

As to the actual diving, it was great. I did an advanced course on the boat that added a 30m deep dive and a night dive, along with some additional skills. The night dive was really cool. There were dozens of meter long travellies following along at your shoulder. Whenever you'd spot a fish with your dive light, they'd flash past and grab it. It was so much fun that I just spent the rest of the dive spotlighting food for them.

The reef is pretty cool. Lots of big fish, sea turtles, rays and such. I even came up against a 5 foot reef shark.

Anyway, this internet connection has some serious issues, so I'd better get this off while I can. I'm off for Thailand in a week, so the next message you get will likely be from there.

I spent a few nights in Byron Bay on the way back down the coast. It's a pretty cool town with a great beach. They have this funky hostel there that attracts an eclectic subset of the backpacker community. This place has free digeridoo lessons, fire dancing and some really strange accomodations. I slept in a teepee.

Anyway, I'm back in Sydney now, trying to come up with a day's worth of tourism to keep me busy until I fly out tonight. I'm not sure how often I'll beable to check my mail in Thailand, so you all may get a bit of a break from my lame trip reports for a while.

So check out the first photo on this page:

http://www.megagrip.co.uk/thailand/Thai7.htm

That is the route that I'm working on at the moment. The photo doesn't do justice to how ridiculously steep this piece of rock is. There is a 20 foot section where you gain 3 feet of elevation! Completely unlike anything I've been on. It's all sorts of fun, and plenty hard as well. I've put three days into it so far, and only just this morning finally got to see the top. That doesn't mean I'm done by any means. Now I get to spend the next few days linking together moves and trying to get the whole thing in one go.

Anyway, things go well. Plenty to climb, plenty of time relaxing on the beach, even some diving in the cards. See ya!

Our first dive of the day was on this passenger ferry that sank a few years back. The main deck is like 24m down and it's upright and in good condition. It's fun and a bit spooky cruising around inside the thing, as all the divers stir up the water & visibility is reduced to just a few meters. Being a boat, it has plenty of narrow doors and confined spaces to swim through. Definitely a cool experience!

And for those of you keeping score, I've put in a total of six days on the route now. Only a couple burns a day recently, since I have all the moves wired now, and I'm just trying to put together a clean ascent. I can get it with one rest along the way now. Now I'm just moving that rest spot gradually downward until I can cast off straight from the sand.

The route will have to wait a bit though, as I'm off to the islands tomorrow, followed by a dash for the malaysian border so that I can get a fresh 30 day visa.

They have all sorts of chickens and ducks running around too. In fact everything on the menu is present and accounted for except beef. That sort of sets the mind wondering as to the true purpose of all those cats...

Anyway, we set off traveling tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have more interesting stories to report.

And you'll be happy to know that I've been downing every sketchy looking dish that the street vendors can toss my way. I've even been drinking the local hootch with buckets of poisonous ice from the bar. I'm indestructable!

This works out well for our kid Jay, as his body hasn't reacted well to tropical environs and poor sanitation. As weeks of never quite being healthy enough to climb piled up, he's been talking more about rafting, snowboarding, and other things you can do in sub-95% humidity. He hopped a flight back to the states this morning.

In fact, everything is pretty cheap here. They actually have paper money that is worth less than a penny. You give the guy on the beach the equivilant of a two dollar bill to pay for a bottle of water, and he has to scramble among his friends to break it for you.

So I'm pretty much Bangkok'd out by now. It's a great place to visit for a day or two on the way to somewhere. But I've done that three times now on this trip alone, and there's really not all that much to do. They've got temples, they've got crowds, they've got people selling you fried, barbequed, and otherwise dead things to eat, but that's about it. About the only amusement I have left is playing "is that prostitute a man?" at night. She usually is.

Bali has some truly amazing waves that I have no intention of paddling out to anytime in the near future. I spent part of today day at Ulu Watu when it wasn't even on, and it looked plenty mean. There's rock here, by the way. I'm going to do some scoping over the next week to see if we should be planning a future expedition w/ Hilti in tow. There's definately enough bouldering on the beach to keep a fella occupied for a while.

So it turns out that my buddy Jay doesn't function all that well in the tropics. The five weeks he was in Thailand, he was never quite healthy, wavering back and forth between a stomach bug and some sort of bronchial thing. It worked out great for me, because he was always healthy enough to belay me on climbs, yet he could usually be counted on to eat less than his share at mealtimes. The perfect traveling companion as far as I'm concerned, but somehow he didn't see it that way.

Anyway, I'll be embarking on an informal tour of Bali and the surrounding islands tomorrow. It should be fun, I managed to get down the coast a ways today and It was quite a bit nicer than around town. Happy holidays!

Uhhh... Bali is sort of in Indonesia. They seem to like americans just fine so far, though I guess they bombed a church or two over on Lombok the other day. That's the next island to the right from Bali.

I spent a few days on Nusa Lembongan, a tiny island off the coast. It was just beautiful. I had this dream bungalow on the second story fronting the beach, looking over the lagoon and out to the reef where they have a great surf break. Pretty much the primo room on the whole island. Two bucks a night.

Yeah, the whole thing where they kill all the foreigners is doing great things for the exchange rate over here. And realisticly, it would take quite a while to kill them all. I think I'll last at least another week!

Well, happy new years! Keep me posted about the dot com situation. Maybe I'll just have to stay over here until the market improves!

Faxing may be a bit difficult at the moment. I'm still not near anything resembling a city, and may not be for a while. Towards the 10th, I'll be back in Thailand, staying within a day's boat trip of Krabi for a while. I bet we'll be able to work something out then.

I'll keep you posted.

Bali is pretty cool. Found a little island off the coast with beautiful beaches, good diving and great waves. I'd still be there, but my festivity gene kicked in, and I ended up back in Kuta watching the sun rise on new years day, with far too many beers and red bulls in my system.

And you should know that I was only joking about them hating americans over here. Bali is actually untouched by the sort of thing. The islands here are somewhat shut off from each other culturally. Almost like separate countries. The ones that are having problems are predominantly muslim populations. Bali is maybe 90% hindu, so it's unlikely that anything will break out here.

Anyway, I'm starting to look forward to getting back to thailand. I want to make sure I get some more diving in, and definately do some climbing. I feel lazy just sitting around on the beach.

Things are looking up. That crazy Indo medicine seems to work just fine! It was funny, the lady at the desk looked all worried and asked if I had insurance before handing me the giant bill of RP680,000 and explaining that the blood pressure medicine was what made it so expensive, but it was really important that I took it, so we needed to find a way to get the bill paid. Let's see, $70 US to not die... Let's skip the insurance and put it on the credit card. They really don't understand the difference in income with respect to the industrialized world.

But you're right, when we went to the pharmacy in Krabi to try to get Jay some more antibiotics, we just said the name and she handed them over the counter and charged a buck fifty. Not quite the same procedure in the states.

Aparently, this isn't all that uncommon a scene for americans in Indonesia. In fact, I'm certain that's why the guy pulled me over in the first place.

Let's see, what else... Oh, I rented a motorcycle today. All sorts of fun! After long enough in the third world, the insane driving rules start to make a bit of sense. Just don't hit anybody, and be sure to honk at a guy before you pass him so he won't swerve into you. Everything works out as long as nobody does anything too unpredictable. Driving on the wrong side of the road is cool, as is passing a guy who happens to be passing somebody else. As long as you keep doing what you're doing, everybody else will adapt in short order. Still, it keeps you on your toes when you're thrown into the frey.

Anyway, nobody died so all is still well. I'm off to Thailand again day after tomorrow.

When it comes to jungles, Thailand gets right to business. Big trees, Big rains, Evil critters, No amenities. Just what I'm looking for. We stayed in a treehouse between two small rivers, with a cool rickety bridge to get us there. The second night, there was a spider the size of my hand on the mosquito net. Quite a fracas ensued, culminating in the spider getting pitched off the balcony, and the rest of the hut getting a thorough inspection by candlelight.

Right now I'm in Trang. billed as the cleanest city in Thailand, and home to some truly sketchy food. Dinner last night was noodles, with a ladel of stuff from a vat, and handfulls of stuff from a half dozen piles, none of which I could identify. I think at least one thing started off as a bird.

Anyway, I'm heading back to the beach tomorrow, and returning to civilization in three short weeks. Good thing too. I've been wearing the same shirt for 70 days now!

I managed to trap it and get it in position to flush down the toilet. All the girl had to do was dump a couple buckets of water in after it and it would be on its way. I dropped the critter, and the first bucket missed the mark. Hannah dipped another one and half missed the toilet. Then she completely panicked, started throwing water on me, jumped up and down a bunch and screamed really loudly. It was great!

I catch the train up to SEA in an hour. Hopefully I can remember which side of the road to drive on. I'm doubtful. It's been really strange riding as a passenger so far. Everybody stays in their lane, and nobody honks at you when they pass. How are you supposed to know they're there?

Anyway, I imagine that my exploits lounging on the couch over the next few weeks may not live up to my previous tales of adventure, so I think I'll pack it in.

See ya!