Thailand

Hey all-
I have finally posted photos from my trip to Thailand.
Check them out at:
http://levikilcher.com/photos/2007/thailand/

So far these are only the photos from cambodia. The thailand (climbing mostly) photos will be along soon.

later,
Levi

Well I'm back in Oregon now... sitting in my office. Kinda crazy. It is nice to be back, but man is it cold outside (34 F or so).

Though Layton and I had a couple final adventures in Bangkok, the trip home started in earnest when I said goodbye to my brother at the bus station in Krabi (he was headed south back to Koh Lipeh). That was nearly 4 days ago. The 14 hour bus ride north to Bangkok was not terrible. I met a school teacher from Saskatchewan who was travelling around Asia with his family (wife and 6ish-daughter) for a year. They got off after 4 hours; I slept for most of the rest of the ride. I arrived in Bangkok at 5am (15th), and managed to get one of the Tuk-Tuk drivers to tell me which bus went to "Miami Hotel" without taking me there.
Layton showed up shortly and we headed out to find some trouble to get into on our last day in Thailand. I decided to get a suit and ended up having a really sick pinstripe cashmere one made; then we went and watched "Blood Diamond" while waiting for the suit to be made.

The next morning we woke at 4:30 and the traffic to the airport seemed worse than I'd expected considering how early it was. Layton was making a comment about how interesting it was that none of the cars were getting out of the way for the ambulance that was coming up behind us; when we realized that the accident it was trying to get to was just ahead of us. We pulled to the right to pass and a man with blood-filled hair was lying face down on the pavement. He was trying to look up, but it appeared that he could not see due to the swelling that had already begun on his face and his shirt was half torn off. A woman who looked as though she had just run over was reaching down trying to help the man. As we drove on, the magnitude of the wreck came into view. The carnage seemed to go on for 300 yards, two cars and at least two motorscooters were involved. One man walking down the street was holding a cloth over his face as pedestrians gathered around him. The accident had probably happened 5 minutes before we passed. It was a poignant final image.

There is so much more to say about my trip. I learned so many things about myself and the world. To try to write it down here, so long after the fact would not do it justice. Thanks to my brother for making the whole thing possible.

Yesterday, we woke late and Eivin wasn't feeling well so we ended up laying on the beach looking at girls and playing King's Corner. We also got massages... my first Thai Massage. It was excellent.

Last night I woke up feeling really sick to my stomach. After purging ;| for probably 15 minutes, I layed in bed for at least an hour trying not to make too much noise groaning while Eivin was trying to sleep. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep. So now we hadn't climbed the day before because Eivin had felt crappy, but I wasn't going to let my lack of sleep ruin my final day of climbing in Thailand. Once I started climbing I felt pretty good.

Today was amazing... again. We talked Alex and Victor into climbing Humanility with us so that we wouldn't have to haul a second rope - for the rappel - ourselves. Humanility is sorta the quintessential multi-pitch climb here on Tonsai. I had wanted to climb it since I got here, but hadn't gotten around to it until today:
Access Pitch:
More difficult than I was expecting for an access pitch.
Levi: Lead.
Eivin: Follow.
Pitch 1 6a
Fun, straight forward pitch out of cave.
Eivin: Lead.
Levi: Follow.
Pitch 2 6b
Very strenuous, slightly overhung, tricky feet, but with large holds. In my opinion, the most difficult pitch of the climb.
Levi: Lead.
Eivin: Follow.
Pitch 3 6b+
Oh my god, this pitch is unbelievable. You must stem out onto a stalagtite behind you, then transfer fully onto the stalagtite, climb up 2 meters, then transfer back onto wall. Clips are sorta below you, so as you're stemming between the wall and stalagtite and clipping down, you see nothing but air below you for 150'! Wow!
Eivin: Lead.
Levi: Follow.
Pitch 4 6b
Another nice slightly overhung, pumpy pitch with big holds.
Levi: takes a couple falls in a place that should have been easy, but I didn't use the finger slots that I thought were too small for my fat fingers. After a couple falls, I realize I can fit my fingers in there, and the climb is no problem. Argh! So close to on-siting the whole climb, and I blow it on the easier, last pitch! Damn.
Eivin: follow.

There is a fifth pitch, but it looks dirty, and the book says few people climb it. We elect not to because we need to rappel from the top of pitch 4 anyway. Once at the top, we wait for 40 minutes or so for Alex and Victor to get up. We take a few photos, then rappel uneventfully.

On the second - final - rappel, you get dropped right next to "Freedom Bar". As I'm the first to come down, I buy 4 beers and put a bar stool in place for my comrades to land on. Eivin comes first, but tries standing on the stool, "you're supposed to take a seat" I tell him, then he drops suddenly, nearly breaking the stool. Alex and Victor come down afterward, and Eivin takes some pretty sweet shots of me handing them beers just as their sitting on the stool. It doesn't take long for my upset stomach to reemerge. We all grab some food (I have salad), and are all pretty much way too tired to climb anything else. It was a really perfect finale to my time climbing in Tonsai.

Oh man, what an unbelievable day.
Eivin and I were still a bit tired this morning from all of yesterdays climbing so we got a bit of a late start. We'd told a couple guys that we'd meet them out by Escher wall to go through a cave system to Thaiwand wall. These two - Alex and Victor - needed us because niether of them had headlights. Anyway, we didn't want to take a long-tail boat to Escher because we are feeling poor and so we decide to hike to Thaiwand and go through the caves to get them, and then go back through with the two of them.
Anyway, we got to Thaiwand wall, climbed up into the cave and started exploring... and exploring... and exploring. After a while we found a totally sweet little cave that had a couple candles in the corner. We decided to have a quick safety meeting - just to make sure we didn't get lost or anything ;). As we were sitting there, a couple other guys came through. Eivin started making spooky noises, but the guys didn't seem to notice, and we both sorta figured they'd seen us, so Eivin said:
"Hello"
"Shit! You scared the crap out of me!"
Eivin and I chuckle.
"Hey guys, sorry." Eivin says.
"It's cool."
They continued on. After a while Eivin set his stereo up in there and we both put our climbing shoes on. We bounced all around this cave that was probably two or three times the size of a large house, exploring every nook and cranny for probably two hours. After a while we finally sut off the music and moved to the next cave. This one was probably 3 times as big as the previous, and was open to the light in a couple spots. We talked for a while how awesome it would be to make a house out of this place. The master bedroom was chiseled into the side of a column in the middle of the whole cave. There were all sorts of crazy rooms and cool views.
Finally, we found a totally cool looking little ledge to the outside, but it was behind a hole, about the size of a football, and we couldn't fit through. Fortunately, we found another passage to the cliff exactly below this ledge. At first we were like "no, we probably shouldn't", but then we sat and thought and said to ourselves "why they hell shouldn't we? It probably isn't that hard."
However, we needed more than just our one rope to pull it off, so we headed off to find Alex and Victor... who fortunately had actually just gotten to Escher Wall because they had tried climbing somewhere else for a while (while Eivin and I were exploring the caves). After about 10 minutes of trying to explain to these guys what we wanted to do, and them sorta looking at us like "are these guys crazy, or is this going to be really"... or both perhaps, we talked them into coming to check it out. It didn't take them long to realize how cool the idea was and we started setting it up.
We had thought about trying to lead it, but didn't see many places that we could protect on and the rock looked really dirty and shitty. So we all agreed that setting a toprope through the football-sized windows was the best idea. It took us a while to get the rope down, but we finally got it, and it hung right out in front of our lower ledge where I snagged it with a bamboo pole that Eivin rigged up. Though Eivin had found the ledge originally, he let me climb first (awesome bro). The rock was shitty and even though I was on top-rope I didn't want to fall because it would be difficult to get back on the wall because it was pretty over-hung. I got most of the way up but then pulled a rock about the size of a watermelon off. It plunged into the water below. After this I was pretty freaked about all the rock and ended up tiring myself out looking for a better hold. I fell and swung across the overhang-section and caught myself on the other side where I climbed up. I then belayed Eivin up, followed by Victor and finally Alex. We had made it! It was great. We all speculated whether this climb had ever been done before, and we all agreed that this was probably the first ascent. Eivin left a small plastic aligator he'd found earlier that day on the ledge so that people who looked through the window would be able to see that someone had made it onto the ledge.
We'd set up our ropes so that we could rappel down into the water and recover the rope by hiking back into the cave. The rappel was GREAT! Probably 40 meters right into the water. I was the last to come down and Eiving and Victor swung me around a bit. The we all took turns jumping from a nearby boulder while attached to the rope and swinging out across the water, then dropping in. It was so much fun. I can't even describe.
After a while we went back into the cave and recovered our gear, then hiked back through the cave to Thaiwand wall and back home.
It was a really great day.

Today was Great!
Eivin's tended to his scrapes last night and says they don't bother him too bad (nasty rope-burn on hand and gash in big toe).
We headed out to Cobra-Wall where there were lots of nice 6's.
Baby Snake 6c+
Difficult start, nice climb otherwise
Levi: Attempts start. Fails.
Eivin: On-site?
Levi: Follows.
Old Snake 6b
Nice climb.
Levi: Leads... probably hang-doggin... can't recall.
Eivin: re-lead. On-site?
Cobra Venom 6c+
Eivin: Leads... hang-dogs a bit.
Levi: Follows.

After this we headed over to Melting Wall:
Cockroach Beach 6c
Eivin: Tries leading, but doesn't have enough draws to finish. It looks like the anchor at the top of the first pitch is missing. He then downclimbs. :(
The Smoking Room 6b+
Really great, strenuous, fun climb.
Levi: Leads, hang-doggin.
Eivin: Follows clean.

Great day of climbing. By the time we get home, we are both totally pooped. ;)