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| More adventures in Krabi |
| 03.30.04 (5:52 am) [edit] |
More AdvVEnTures in Krabi....
DAY 8
The Princess Cave Beach becomes my favorite beach by day. Go past the 123 Climbing Wall down a monkey-ridden path that opens up to the Princess Beach. Stare in awe of the rock formations- like millions of roots and sinews and veins and such tangling shooting up and down hanging, tipping up, dripping crystals - reds blues browns grays greens... all around you hanging above you as you float on your back and imagine you are being born again like limestone in motion, just in imitation of the frozen growth the shoreline hails about you. Hundreds of all different sized wooden penises that fisherman have carved for good luck in the sea sit all around in the nooks of the caves by this beach. The penises are dressed in colored scarves and are surrounded by candles, jasmine flowers and the like..
PRincess Sri Guladevi's ship wrecked off of the shore of this beach and her soul, fed by the wisdom and power of many past lives, to this day brings good luck to those who notice and visit her. The overhangs of what they call her summer home there are incredible, stalactites imitating the seed planting the wooden phali wish they could achieve as well...I bouy on the rolling emerald- jade water and stare for long times at the guts, a beautiful little blue pterodactyl head-shaped bird visits one of the drippy stalactites and we ask the Princess to stay longer...
There are other places where the Princess is supposed to inhabit. We did a small upclimb to try to reach one of her dwellings - The Princess Lagoon. Amanda, Erin, and Zac got a very very little taste of the type of crazy untamed jungle climbs we have been through in Malaysia.They saw the Achilles tendon tree that loves to make us look like less than ants. We had to go through a steep rope guided orange mudslidey way and some fears surfaced to be dealt with..
Even in the littlest thing your fears emerge. Your comfort zones and your dependency on them arise so much out here. -- And the best and worst of people's weaknesses and strengths must be faced physically at these moments. And our mental wall games are challenged--and we learn the walls we erect that try to fortify fear and justify old habits might not be as great as the gold bricks we lay our walls with-especially when we see we've laid walls in places where perhaps we should have made door and window frames....
more on the princess caves later.. gotta run...
Much love and peace ... Andrea
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| The full moooon and the elephants.... |
| 03.30.04 (5:18 am) [edit] |
DAY 5 -6 In Krabi
One of the biggest things on my list of things I must do in this life is :
Hang out with elephants.
Erin and Zac bail out on doing this, Karen and Bret already did it before, so they bail. Good thing Amanda was down because for when I am close to achieving those things on my list - I shouldn't and can't alter my plans for anyone...
Soo, my birthday wish come true a little late!.....
I finally spend some time with the elephants.
Amanda and I set out and ride on elephants backs through the jungle. We actually get to ride on their heads!
Their gray and pink spotted skin is so thick and tough. Their sags of rolly, wrinkly hard skin and thick broom bristle black hairs rub our legs as we ride their heads the way the natives do. The natives walk around all over the elephants barefoot like the elephants are the earth. How much of our weight do they feel?-- little ants picking at them, which explains the constant nervous whipping of their ears and broom tails to shooo insects and maybe even us away. And under all of those folds of gray flesh are those soft sweet brown eyes of the animal very knowing, yet kind of curious and mysterious. I stood too close to them while feeding them cucumbers and bananas and the native guide has to remind me that I think they are too friendly! After, we walk them to cool off and bathe in the stream.
The villagers nearby are hard at work, scrapping bamboo and sugarcane to make torches and green jungle juice drink for a full moon party.
The natives know sugarcane and bamboo and rubber trees and palm oil well. Our guide named Nok walked us around and showed us a stinky white glue-like sap that comes out of the rubber trees to make rubber. Somehow a golden glove session was discussed and we ended up chillin with the natives in the woods and partaking in the local greenery. They told us that they live in paradise.
I will spend more time with the elephants, these beautiful creatures, and hopefully it will be under better conditions..I mean they poke the elephants with these scary long metal hooks that seem harsh, but I never knew how tough the elephants skin is til now. I doubt they treat these elephants well after we leave though. Its pretty sad...
But I need to see reality for what it is at least once...
That night I witness the full affect of the full moon for the first time ever.
The full moon's coming on strong.
Never fully knew how much of a great change occurs ocean side. Its stirs the people. Something quite interesting fills the air. The wind is picking up blowing people and bamboo huts around- Plates, napkins, hats spinning around the large outdoor restaurants' big boats filled with ice and eenormous swordfish, baracuda, tiger shrimp, sharks- all catches of the day, that stare at you as you walk by, with half of their bodies gone on to some dinner plate. These restaurants that line the beaches at night and their staff scramble to accommodate for the hungry high tide reaching out to consume. Where we used to walk, we walk no more. The 40 feet out into the muddy mangrove tree root nests to catch a longtail boatride back to mainland is devoured by night fall.
Now we get splashed at the restaurants and wonder if this is dry season-what's the rainy season like? Then morning comes and the ocean recedes even further back than before- maybe 100 feet of shore is now walkable and visible.
It makes for an altering of the people as well.
If there's one thing I am learning- it is how difficult it can be to be independent. How to decide what you want to fill your day and life with, without being stuck doing something that brings you down and doesn't feel like the proper message to receive...its a challenge... there are many fears to conquer in being a leader and doing your own thing! And out here most of those dangers are VALID because doing it alone in a foreign place heightens the danger and possible mix up...I always thought I was independent but this shit is putting me to the ultimate tests that are more apparent out here, every day!
I make it out to a full moon party that night with Julie and her new English friends she met. We had to take a longboat to a new beach Hat Ton Sai, tucked even further in the limestone to find the party. There were about 80 foreigners and 30 Thai people mostly doped up on E or something chomping and flitting away at the techno music echoing off of caves that I swore begged me to somehow cover its ears. No goodies for me, thanks.
The only really exciting thing was when the local fire throwers showed up and showed off spinning, breathing and spitting fire. I talked to them for a while a cool tribal-looking couple from Japan. I tried not to cry when they told me they were from Hiroshima and I had to answer that I am from AtomBomb, I mean America, knowing that their grandparents if alive are still feeling it. After all this.. excitement... I soon fell fast asleep on the beautiful white sand, music unfortunately bumping, yet the moon glaring, lighting the place as if it knew day, and so bright the light loud enough to win the battle it had with the music... and so I slept, almost like in my Daimond Cave House bed with my sand colored comforter, which every night I swore I was wrapping a blanket of sand around me before I went to sleep.
To get home when I awoke at 5 in the morning was a drama. The girls and boys I was with were sloshed and they cut up their feet on the coral beds we had to climb through to get to the boat that now sat 100 feet away from normal shorline. I was fine, the beach took care of me and I didn't lose my shoes like some and I loved how the full moon time reveals the ocean's naked bottom that you'd never regularly see...
An intimacy I won't ever forget....
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| Does Privilege KNow Privilege? |
| 03.29.04 (8:43 am) [edit] |
DAY 4 in Krabi~~
We meet the Thai rasta "CliffsMan" instructors, Teak and George, at their spot on the roof, right next to the roof deck restaurant we lately come to watch news in the morning or maybe a movie at night. We get on our gear, and we set out to the 123 Wall again.
As I have said -Rockclimbing is one the greatest metaphors for life .. well, people's approaches to it also really show some things about their character- that they are everyday.
And this was us on the rock.
Erin sticks out especially in my mind becasue she did it with out a peep. No I' can't do its. No wow that's scary. No, I don't want to...just a silent longbodied crawl up and up and then finally it was over... and then we could talk about it later.
Karen and Bret no problems, no real hassle beyond first timer shit, like billy goats but sweaty ones
Amanda great for her first climb.. if time permitted she would have picked up where she left off in the battle and beef she has with that rock...
Zac, a lil experience kicked in, he rocked them all with that muppet smile still on face. Good idea Zac.
And then there's Andrea...wouldn't let the fuck up, mind-over-any-matter... and ofcourse, especially this day- it also does help to have a little pack of friends cheering you on.
5 climbs. I begin by getting up and over the 5th climb I had ended with on my first day and couldn't complete.
One more climb "A little bit higha!" that time.
Then comes the 4th I bailed out I didn't even try because of the first overhang you have to go upside down vertical to scale! Respect to Karen, Brett, ERIN and Zac for getting through that one..
Amanda and I were losing monetum. That is the worst thing you can do.. If you do one climb- you believe you can do the next if you go son enough BUT sitting and waiting puts you into the doubt swing again...
Teak set up a really baby climb to do, I did it anyway and it pumped me up for the largest one I did next....
100 feet up in the air I felt strong. My hands were wet powder flaked and slipping from crevices searching for the Way, searching for the hooks. My feet in broken toe shoes too damn tight they make them ( air conditioner - Teak calls the hole in the toe..) - its amazing how you can balance your wait on one toe leaning ona centimeter edge in the rock. But I felt smart, if that's what it takes. I felt knowing, and that is what made me push on through.
This beautiful little inlet cave 100ft up in the face of the rock cradled me at the top. What wild birds and spirits run through here I should meet... and the window frames created by the limestone had to have been planned but maybe they were not....breath returning dirty nails I dug into the sandy rocks on the ground of the cave looking for stones to bring home with me. My friends below made a bet on what I was doing up there for so long, they say crying, talking to myself etc.. and not ONE guessed right...it was a great feeling.
We all have these comfort zones.. certain privileges, certain materials, certain things that we cling onto and become dependant on so much that we are blind to the fact that they even exist anymore. We just use them in robot mode and will we maybe MALFuNCtion when without them?
Then we have these ways of resorting to our comfort zones by creating these ludicrous-often ridiculous justifications that just makes it ok for us to keep something that we don't need or that may even harm us around around.
Out here rugged, you shed those comfort zones out completely... because nothing can be expected to be there- its as silly as trying to buy a hairbrush in Laos where they only know combs OR its as serious as, will I get a body-eating bug if I brush my teeth? And although you may inject yourself into a challenge that may at first be uncomfortable....sometimes the things you learn about the universe and the breakthroughs that you make on your past and present lives really becomes worth it. What is comfort? and why was it built? The questions the questions and maybe get to the truth of things where you are closer to what really matters...
all for now..
Much love and peace to you all more later.... Andrea
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| Ready to Rock? Can you Dig It? |
| 03.20.04 (9:54 am) [edit] |
DAY 3 in Krabi- Railay Beach East
The Boston crew steps into our tripped out world
bringing the old into the new- the new into the old...
I already mentioned how Amanda is joining the trip. SURPRISE.. a little piece of me already knew. shhh.
I already question what life I live everyday.
Could it be?
All of these beautiful things and welcomed challenges- all mine? Oh my Buddha - as the locals would say. K and I searched out the best place for us to live in a thick heat as Brett babysat our houses.
And among all of the precious stone we found The Diamon Cave Bungalows, which gains its names for the immense Diamond Cave and cliff that towers and breathes down the necks of our light red brick bungalow eaves...
I could see little people climbing this rock each day with mt goats or monkey blood or something- and their puppet strings barely visible, you hear! I was like oooh. They must be advanced. That is high. I will stick to the 123 Wall until its 1-2-3- for me I guess. Later I learned that the 123 wall was just as high...wow.
Karen is once again the bomb digs, mama Asia Korea, beautiful shining as a great friend as she has on other days as well. She hunted down her roots and gave me some wind to test my flight towards my own, when I get enough money to teach in South AMerica, I hope... fuerza!
The Boston crew didn't know what to expect and we knew they would be dealing with foreign image overload, and security issues -which bugs you out at first soooo K and I tried to hook it up for a good start. And here they come.
Banana banana banana shakes all around...3 a day for days wow... monkey juice - we estimated we ate about 100 bananas in 6 days between us all.... chilll out emerald jade ocean breeze and a full moon on its way- What do YOu want to do today? we discuss in the huts...
Ready to ROck ...? Can you dig it?
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| Liquid Jade from where the birds fly... |
| 03.20.04 (8:56 am) [edit] |
Climb Day One: Feb. 29 !!It's Leap Year Y'all!
I did the "123 Wall" on my first climb-
Bret was going to come but he couldn't find Karen so I went alone. Did four climbs and sweated a new ocean for each one -
my god! no wonder the breeze stood out... and the views from the rock tops! -
hey I'm Superwoman going where people envy the birds can travel to... rocked 4 climbs and only made half the 5th ouch!
took a coool dip in the liquid jade beach and took 2 DAYS off to rest my extremely ached out muscles -
I must have shed some skin in the process- I am a new women...
Well my legs were sure beat up! - This was only the beggining of what would make my legs look like I was the stunt double for the man in the Stephen King movie "Misery." Thanks sisters- I am no longer Kathy Bates...
my blood tried to get out and get in the mix too!
I must trust my own feet can bring me up- Keep momentum - It is the key- even if there is no physical grounding for me to rely upon! woah! Look out below...
Legs are strong from within from bottom to top of me- not from the grounding, and no need to always be on my knees!
Trust! and give the knees a break people!
My hands have swallowed Spinach cans that my arms try to digest... Am what I am ....
That night I saw the fire spinners in motion.
Those boys spun in such rhythm to the beats of the music. They keep the energy of the two fireballs in ways I have never seen energy balanced and understood. I saw the one boy while he was away from the show. The look in his eyes when he saw a flame from the nearby torch was intense - a true love and connection for fire. He grabbed the torches' flame, as if burn was cooool. Not for show either, but to satisfy some drive and curiosity burning in his own self to meet and match I suppose...
I drank some Samsong Thai whisky- Watch OUT!- with one of the cool Brits named Helen and hung out with the rasta "Cliffsman" instructors who were not shy with teaching about the local greenery as well....
getting strong for climbing with the Boston crew..
Do they have what it takes? What will they here give and take? - those people I knew in other landscapes and situations now stepping into this tripped out movie of my life on the road...?
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| Cliff Hanger....1 |
| 03.20.04 (8:19 am) [edit] |
-*thanx to K for the lead
Helloooo out there!
Hope things go well in your worlds...
My stay in northern Thailand is on a roll and I have been living out the new stories
BUT
Now its time to back back it up to adventures in Krabi, Thailand down south. For they are moments burying in time- precious treasures I will hopefully unearth here again...
From day one I entered the rock climber's heaven and witnessed the immense mountains to scale... I thought
!!"Hell Yeah I'll do it. I just trekked up some crazy jungles in Malaysia and what's to stop me? Bring it on.."
I didn't know what I was getting into.
The beach shore is strewn with different rockclimbing schools, fire throwing schools, sweet Thai food huts, bars, Thai massage opium den looking shacks with beds, beauty parlors with lady boys chilling, all Thai's soliciting your business, Sawatdeeka's! welcome welcome... things like that.
We lived on the dingier side, where the shore is muddy, unswimmable. Yet you can see, during low tide, the most beautiful of the mangroove trees' bare bones, roots and roots clinging to the pounded shore, its moving bed. The east side beach is budget, but the cooler place to be at. You know, where the party's at. Because you know where we at is where the party's at anywayss - east side was not as resorty, Ken and Barbie and their old posh parents sniffing up the air like on the west side-
Chillin- Checked out the beach... learned 10 tricks from a local named Gai at Mom's Kitchen. He taught us how to spin fire with poi... an interesting lesson in awareness and management of energy flow...
We ran into Emma, the chatty English girl we traveled with in Malaysia, and her friends who were cool bloques not mingin or anything- I don't know ask a Brit!
They made the great roccomendation for rockclimbing with the peoples at "Cliffs man" because we climin' de cliffs man wit dees little cute brown muscular rasta Thai men and we make friends man -
they were really awesome instructors and helped us get to the top of every climb!
And you wouldn't believe the winds from up at our tallest climbs ....
And yes maybe they are just that extra special after your first time you have ever done it like this
- fought yourself physically and mentally until you thought you'd break - to find a way , to make a way, to get to that little bit higher. To get to the next little nook in a rock, that often tilts worse than vertical. And your hands slip and scrrratch and you doubt its there or that you have the power -
and the chalk sweats off your tips
and only your left your toe is clinging to a 1cm ridge in the rock ...
and you don't trust the rope
and you are 80 ft above the ground .......
and all you can hear is that little Thai man's scream bouncing up to you - faintly or popping in and out of surround sound as your ears pop and dizziness and sweat twist you senses a couple notches...
"-- come on -- go just a little bit higher! little bit higher! To the left! just a little bit higher! to the right - -- Andrea-! a little bit higher!
The rockclimbing feats I have been through are such a great metaphor for life -
I will never let the echo of the little rasta Thai men's voices fade when I climb on and on to scale just about everything and anything!
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| HOLY shit!!!! |
| 03.16.04 (9:41 am) [edit] |
What up all...?
I have been mmoving on up -
Now into northern Thailand to a place called Chang Mai and its such peace here. You can feel such cool breezes and some silence brushing down clean festive streets. There is much culture and artwork and every block holds a beautiful wat= Buddhist temple in its soft coconut sticky palm. It wouldn't be Asia if random weird stray dogs or goats or roosters weren't lying all around in odd places or scraping their asses around... This city is pretty small, smaller than the CRAZINESS of Bangkok which is ENORMOUS..
This quaint city is split in half by a wall separating the old city from the new. We are living in the old city where there's this crazy moat that separates the old and new I believe erected by King Rama in like 1200's or something. It's an interesting thing- but I haven't much explored the city yet. We will be living here for a week though- how exciting!
After being totally choked out on the smog and shopping of Bangkok and on saying peace and see you soon to the Boston crew who left us, this place is such a breath of fresh air... I feel the light air and its like anything is more possible or something and it teaches you there is time.
We walked around snap snapping away, looking at the wats. We got a chance to chat with a couple of Buddhist monks who showed us an interesting little magic trick of the disappearing tissue. They were silly and the one had a crazy inhaley geeky like laugh that made us laugh even harder. They explained their lives a little and I will definitely try to head down there again. There is some great art work there and I have many questions for the monks. They like to chat with foreigners to practice their English. Plus they fast or beg for food. The monk today told us that one monk ate the dog's food once! But maybe his English got mixed up or my hearing did because they don't feed the dogs and I wonder what the dogs might have dragged from the edges and alleys?
The temple I think is the oldest in Thailand (Bret correct me if I'm wrong) and the main one is quite run down, sunken from 900m to 600m by an earthquake.
I was lost in a beautiful little shrine house, that housed this scary wax monk -crazy when Karen and Brett urge me to come along because its time to
"Water the Buddha" -
I thought oh ok ok I'm coming -- noo-- now wait - is this one of their little expressions for taking a shit..?
I have been hearing new ways to say taking a shit lightly and not so lightly. Not a surprise that our bowel movements work their way into every conversation while backpacking when you are eating little and new spicy sweet odd foods --you're stomach tries to deal with...
There's the "I need to drop some kids off at the pool" and lately Karen has been saying
"Man, my kids are kicking"
And there used to be one Brett was encouraged to STOP saying
"I 've gotta go Drop some Bombs"
ew.. in public in a Muslim country, Karen was sure people gave doubletakes when they would hear him say that, and so they found other ways...
OK so now - "Watering the Buddha" was not toilet talk but an activity at this wat in which you pull a water holding vessel up a rope pulley to the top of the highest temple roof and pour water on the big Buddha... to cool him off for good luck....
and that was my day...
First day in ChangMai and its time to explore and read what this place is all about -- I have a feeling I will be chilling with elephants - BABY ones no less! real soon...
I have this list of accomplishment things I must do and see in my life, walking through a bamboo forest on a windy day, hiking through a jungle, riding an elephant, seeing a banana tree, picking a pomegranite, you know the little things and today I knocked another off the list: the ability to have long conversations with monks...
its all happening just by KEEPing emphasis on the I-N-G!
I am in search of a good Reiki class (Energy Healing) and I may have to travel 3 hours northwest of this city to Pai to get to a good one- but I still have to do my research here so we'll see. I want to chill with my little crew K and B,
because ---- they are the shit ! Ha!
and so I hope I can stay here the whole time before we move into Laos...
more stories to come
much much love respect and peace to you....
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| MInd oVeR MaTTer 2 |
| 03.13.04 (5:46 am) [edit] |
Krabi- Hat Railay Beach EAST side
--Being able to settle into a place for more than 4 days is so sweet - I love allowing the land and the people and their way to become me and for me to melt into it.
I guess I was missing the Perenthian Islands so much that I had said to Karen and Bret "Could we possibly have enough to do here at Hat Railay Beach for 10 days?? when we first arrived...
Crazy Drea...
don't you know that you only crack the surface of the place's true faces and there is soo much more beauty to discover when you stay longer? I learned quick!
ANd then I wound up staying an extra day and Karen Bret and Erin and Zac moved onto Bangkok- but I couldn't get nough of the rockclimbing - so I stayed behind when one of the local Thai rocklimbing instructors asked me on his day off if I wanted to climb for the day- no pay! just for fun! I couldn't resist that!
soo many things have past my mind spins but watch out- as a 13 day break down will glide through my fingers as I try to reflect on all the things that have flown through my head in this part of my journey....so hard to capture it all....much love and peace to you all....to be continued...
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| MInd oVeR MaTTer 1 |
| 03.13.04 (4:58 am) [edit] |
So we took the long jungle train to paradise- the Perenthian Islands. of the eastern coast of Malaysia...
I allowed the green growth to entrance me and it smears and juts by through my swelling eye ducts paddling through the heavy water building, shapeshifting the scene into my own beautiful watercolor creation.. blurried and magnifyied and steeped in a profound sadness, a mercy cry for support to never forget my mothers , a happiness, an appreciation, a feeling of praise and unworthiness, a promise that I will try hard not to forget them..I finished a good book called "Comfort Woman" which made me feel all this even more... I also lost my grandmother's ring in Malaysia and I guess that is where I may come to visit her as this is now where a piece of her rests...
We left Malaysia's peaceful smiling face of a Muslim country and walked across the border into Thailand making our way up into Krabi town where we would meet our Boston crew, Erin and Zac. I got the surprise of my life, I had to remember to breathe and turn away and hold up tears when Amanda tapped me on the shoulder at the airport and surprised me by not telling me she would make it to Thailand !!
We had been there a couple of days before the Boston crew arrived and checked out the Hat Railay Beach scene. The 4 beach areas off the Gulf of Thailand is so tucked away by massive limestone cliffs rising out of the dark emerald water that you can only reach it by longtail boats driven by little browned Thai men mosquito buzzing your ear in highpitched chants Railay railay! Krabi Krabi! The limestone monster beasts' immense backs rise out of the ocean and drip down in crazy stalactite, stalagmite formations and loom around you as you enter begging and daring you to climb on and try to conquer... this is a rock climber's heaven and we are here no doubt to climb !!...
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