The Black Hole of Tonsai

Apologies for the lack of blogging, but we've been sucked into a black hole...a rather beautiful one at that.  It's called Tonsai, a beach on the Phra-Nang Peninsula.  The beauty and splendor of the place make it quite difficult to set aside time for blogging!

But here goes...

After leaving Hanoi (or Hannoying as Nolan calls it due to the fact that walking around the street is tedious, to say the least), we arrived in Bangkok around midnight.  Standing in line for immigration, I glanced over and saw our Italian friends, Geno and Alessio, who we met in Castle Hill over three months ago!  They were just coming from NZ.  We spent a wonderful two days with them in Bangkok, rejoicing over yummy street food, raking the weekend Catachuck market for doo-das to bring (or wear) back home, and discussing life over shisha and tiger beers.

An overnight bus ride, a tuk-tuk minivan, a boat (and plenty of haggling over the boat price), we arrive on Tonsai beach and met up with Pascal, our friend from the Blue Mountains.  Almost immediately, we began climbing.  For the past two weeks (since May 3), we've developed a routine that goes something like this:

• 7:00am - yoga on the beach (or, turn the alarm off repeatedly and sleep until 9am)
• 8:00am - breakfast at the beach restaurant, which consists of fresh fruit, yogurt, and meusli and a cup of coffee!
• 10:00am - Gather our gear and go climbing on one the many crags around Tonsai or Railay beach.  For the rest of the day, we climb, we swim, we eat papaya salad or fried rice, we watch monkeys on the beach, we read, we walk through woods, etc.  
• 6:00pm - we shower and head over to the internet place to check email or play with the kittens in the shop (this place is overrun with kittens at the moment and it's the BEST thing in the world!!  One morning we woke up to three babies sleeping on our porch.  I opened the door and they all looked up with puss-in-the-boot eyes - think Shrek - adorable!).
• 7:00pm - dinner at Mamma Chicken, our favorite place.  The food is cheap, plentiful, delicious, and the service, consisting of a family that cooks, takes orders, and serves, is wonderful.  
• 8:00pm - one or more of the following: read (recent recommendations include The Help, Visible World, Snow, Tipping Point) write, plan our futures, or watch a movie.
• 10:00pm - sleep

So as you can see, life is pretty good here on Tonsai, which is appropriate since our trip is now down to less than a month!  I can hardly believe the places we've seen, the people we've met, and climbs we've scaled in such a short time period.  

We leave here in two days to meet my mom and Maureen (my second mother) in Bangkok and head to the north!  I can't wait!!