Cliffs and sands but empty hands

Hi,

So I'm on "vacation" now, spending just three or four days down at a place called Railay beach in Krabi province. This is really the epicenter for climbing, especially beach climbing, in Thailand, which is largely why I came. It's beautiful: the ocean, the sand, the cliffs, the room, everything is very nice. But I'm feeling a bit more lonesome than I did before, probably on account of all the chummy tourists everywhere, but it's nice to be taking a break, and I'll probably be able to get some work done.

The staff at the little bungalow/hotel thing I'm staying at certainly have taken a fast liking to me. It almost seems like they were just sitting around waiting for some Westerner who spoke Thai to show up, because they keep asking me to translate Thai sentences into English that they didn't know how to say before. They also seem to be genuinely happy that there's a tourist who speaks Thai, which is a nice feeling for ol' holier than thou me.

While bouldering around on one of the cliffs this afternoon I did make a friend, an American named B.J. who's from Washington State. He agreed to go with me and his buddy to do some deep water free soloing tomorrow mornign, which should be exciting, to say the least, and is the main reason I am here, to be honest. Let's just hope the weather holds out.

Deep water free soloing is climbing high without a rope on a cliff where there's no chance you would hit anything but water after your fall. Very fun, very un-dangerous. I just wish I was in better climbing shape!

On the bus this morning I got a call from Jiew, on Koh Hlao, who was just wondering where I was, and he told me that they all missed me and that I should come back right away. That was nice. And then Phii Naw called to, and told me she wasn't mad at me and wanted to talk to me before I left and was really worried I was already gone. So there's another interesting conversation that's going to happen.

Ok. Internet here is 10c a minute, so I'm going to keep it relatively short. Keep your shirts tucked in.