Beach Bums?

Looking back through our pictures I was reminded of this cool little bar Marilyn and I went to on our last night in Krabi town named FU Bar II. It had a very chill vibe which wasn’t surprising as it had the reggae beats pumping. The bar itself seeded to be build out of drift wood and had plants and art work everywhere, a very rustic feel. We grabbed some beers and headed for a section of the bar that had these little tables and mats so you would sit on the floor. Each table had different games or puzzles to play with. We played some jenga which was followed by a few rounds of connect 4. Marilyn prevailed in the best of 3 series in connect 4 and may or may not have been the one to toppled the jenga tower…it was at level 30 so we were both winners in my books.



We have spent the last few days in the little tourist beach town of Ao Nang. We managed to quickly snag a guest house as we were all keen to hit the beach. The main beach is only a 5 minute walk down the main street. On the short walk you pass all the shops, selling their knock off ray ban sunglasses and quick silver surf shorts, as well as many restaurants and other guest houses. The main beach is nice enough but there are lot of boats always coming and going and quite a few people around. The water is amazing and feels like bath water! After working on our tans, aka getting burnt, we headed back to our room. We were quite tired from the sun so we had a pretty low key evening. Upon waking up in the morning my travel companions were certain we wouldn’t be staying another night in that guest house. Although the sink leaked, there was a hole in the ceiling, the beds bent your spine, and the widow had been blacked out as it faced a brick wall less then a foot away… but I’m grouchy and lazy in the morning and didn’t feel a move was necessary. Yet as I type this from the comfort of our new room I assure you how wrong I was!



Rob had spotted a path at the end of the lagoon the previous day so we decided we would go for a hike and see where it led. Before you got on the path you had to go over a little boardwalk where all these wild monkeys would come because people would feed them and take pictures. Although they were cute I won’t be letting wild monkeys climb all over me… I guess most people didn’t get that memo. The path was a relatively short but steep path up, over, and down a lime stone bluff to a beautiful beach that had a few luxury hotels located on it. This was a much more isolated as anyone staying there would have had to take a boat or hike a jungle path to reach this area.





The next morning we loaded up with food and water and hit the jungle path to have some white sand and clear blue water to ourselves. We swam, sunbathed, built some sand bike trails, and swam some more. Just as we were getting ready to leave the storm clouds rolled in so we quickly hid our stuff under some over hanging rocks and headed for the water as the rain began to fall. Swimming in the rain is amazing and even better when the water warm. It just poured and we were in the water for about half an hour just playing around. Me being an idiot though it would be funny to go skinny dipping, while I was swimming around Rob managed to get my shorts without me noticing… needles to say when I went to grab them I was thinking “oh shit, how am I gonna get my towel” after letting me search frantically for a few minute Rob started laughing and tossed the shorts in my direction. Phew!



We took it easy today since we are all burnt as, and Rob has got the traveling shit’s. The plan is to head to a new beach tomorrow but we will have to wait to see how Rob feels.

Good Bye Snow, Hello Sunshine!

For the last few years I have used this blog to follow along on my bike adventures. At first, it was used as a way for my friends and family to keep tabs as we rode our bikes across the continent. I have to admit that after the first summer the blog has become a much greedier pursuit. I have never kept a diary but every so often I will go back and re-read sections of the blog. Although I remember all the rides and stories it is the little details or inside jokes that allow me to truly re-live those experiences and that’s the beauty of this blog. I explain this because I'm currently on a new adventure and although I don't have a mountain bike with me (I do have a beautiful new bike waiting at home), I will be using this same blog to follow along on this new trail with me.



Now on to the adventure at hand. For the next few months 3 friends and I will be backpacking around south east Asia. The plan is to spend most of our time in Thailand, but we also intend to visit Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos.

We have been livin that Thai life for almost a week now and all I can say is that it has been an experience for sure. We spent a few days in Bangkok and it was truly crazy, just a total culture shock. Although that was kind of what I was looking for, it still took some getting used to. Within minutes of getting dropped off on Khao San Road (referred to as the backpacker ghetto) you are being bombarded with noise, smells, and people. Backpackers are everywhere and taxis and tuk tuk (3 wheeled motorized carts) drivers are shouting at you, "hey you, where you go?". It was quickly learned that any sign of acknowledgement what-so-ever would result in being followed and hassled to take their tour, that although the same as the other 100 guys doing the exact same thing was much better. Very annoying but you could usually pick up a good piece of advise through the scam they were selling. The classic scam is that they tell you the place you want to go is closed and suggest something else that is similar and just as amazing... but you go with them and it is their friends place which ends up costing you time and hidden fees.



We managed to find a decent place to stay, The Khaosan Palace. While in Bangkok we got to see some great sights and eat some great/not so great food. We saw the giant Buddha and The Kings Palace, both were amazing! The time and attention to detail, along with the respect shown to the Buddha and the Monks was wonderful to see. It was great to learn some of the countries history through the pamphlets and placks which mostly had english translations.





We spent two days in the city and then went on a tour we had booked while there. We got picked up from our hotel by a mini bus. After a few hours of driving we arrived at a world war two museum. This museum was beside the bridge over the river kwai. Which has a ton of interesting world war 2 history... and was referenced in the disturbingly hilarious "unforgivable" web series… Jared you know what I‘m talking about. Then we took a beautiful train ride over said bridge and continued along the death railway. Named because of the large number of POWs and other forced labour which was used the create the railway during the second world war. After the railway, we ate a delicious homemade Thai meal on a floating restaurant where our tour was held. After lunch we went bamboo rafting followed by elephant riding. While I really enjoyed the elephant riding, I do feel guilty about seeing these beautiful and smart animals in captivity (My sun glasses fell off while I was climbing on the elephant and he picked them up with his trunk and passed them to me). They seemed to be treated fine and had plenty of room to wonder around, but would never compare to being in the wild.... but as long as people like me pay to use them it's not going to stop. The lovely grey areas of life.







Then back to the floating restaurant for another lovely home cooked meal. After a short long tail boat ride we arrived at a floating guest house. This is where we would be spending the night. After setting up our rooms we drank beers and shared travel tips with some of the other people on the tours... mostly received info on our end. We meet a group of 6 other Canadians, 2 Brits, and 1 guy from France. It was great to meet some new people and hopefully we will run into some of them later on the trip.



We were up early the next day to drive to a Erawon National Park to see a 7 level waterfalls. This was the highlight of the trip for me so far. Each level was beautiful and different in its own right, I'll let the pictures do the talking. It was a good hike to get up to the 7th falls, a 4.5 km round trip in flip flops. Our feet were feeling it the next day for sure. One of the falls had natural water slides down the rocks which were a super fun. Another you could get behind the falling water, such an amazing feeling looking back out from behind the curtain of falling water. Because the water was so clear you could see hundreds of fish swimming in the water. This took a little while to get used to as they would bump into you while swimming. It freaked me out at first but was fine after one got used to it. One thing I found cool about the park was that in order to cut down on people leaving trash on the mountain, you had to pay a deposit to take a water bottle with you on the climb. It would be returned once you turned in your empty bottles on the way down.







After leaving the waterfall we began a 24 hour journey down south to Krabi Town. This journey involved mini buses, over night trains, walking, waiting at train stations, and pick up truck beds. It all went smoothly until the last half hour. We knew we had a ticket to Krabi but didn’t know exactly where. On the drive we met two nice ladies from Quebec who were getting dropped off at the main backpacker area of the town. We decided it would be the place to go as well... this was until we started to unload our gear with them. Although the driver let these ladies off, he freaked out at us for trying to get off and wouldn't let us unload our bags. One of the French ladies managed to give us a card of the nearby hostel before this clown dropped us off at some tour booking company just trying to make money off us. We then proceeded to take a cab right back to where we were before. Overall not a huge deal but just frustrating having your time and money wasted. On the positive note this is a great little town and we are staying in a nice guest house. There are great shops and great restaurants everywhere, nice to finally be in chill relaxed town! We went on a boat and saw some caves and beach huts.





That about brings us up to date with the longest blog post ever... Also a happy birthday to Mr. Roosh!

And to anyone only interested in the bike content do not worry, I can assure you that this blog will revert back to biking come summer. As I assured JF when booking his ticket to visit, the only way I won't be in whistler is if I'm dead.

Summer Slide Show

Chambon ya'll! here is a slide show I put together from last summer. Happy New Year to all, and my your wheels find glorious single track in 2011!

Summer Slide Show from Ben Crook-Hanna on Vimeo.