Lazy morning, followed by lots of entertaining, low key travel, capped off with a night ferry.
This, more than anything else, was the reason I came to Thailand. Forty feet up, no gear, beautiful views, and nothing but air and water below.
On-sighted my first lead. It was a juggy 5.8, but I’ll take it.
When we first arrived on the beach at Tonsai, we were unsure of what to make of it, but we damn near crawled back in the long tail. Tonsai is beautiful: humbling cliffs, seemingly impossible rock formations, crystal water, and gorgeous views. And all of it completely covered in trash.
We were speechless.
We had begun to grow used to the wear on the environment. Every excursion we’ve come back with our pockets filled with rappers. We’d even grown accustom to our guides in Khao Sok cutting down bamboo along the trail to make whistles, coffee pots, or even just because. But this was something different. Beer bottles, plastic bags, tires, and the smell of burning plastic permeate everything. It’s disgusting. Even along the beach with the on-shore wind, where it’s not sandy, it’s dead coral.
From what we’ve pieced together, no one lived in Tonsai before climbers came. Not like it was undiscovered, just that there was no reason to come out this way. But with the climbers came money, and with that the services it pays for: restaurants, bars, reliable internet. Very little infrastructure; trash still gets burned. The tourists ignore it or see it as a local problem (who wants to spend their vacation picking up trash?), and I’m sure locals have diverse perspectives on it.
Complicating all of this, they’ve just broke ground on a new resort, starting with a huge concrete wall wrapping around the perimeter. So the story goes, over the last few months banks have been repossessing all of the beach front property in Tonsai. Now it’s all in the hands of the Starwood Alliance (full disclosure, I’m proud to have several family members that are Sheraton employees). The climbers hate it (civilizations filling in all the cracks, man), while the locals seem ambivalent (and who can blame them for wanting higher cash flow?).
Ironically (if predictably), a major resort could be the best solution to the problem we climbers created. We’re the ones leaving Chang tallboys all over the jungle, while a resort can’t afford to let trash turn away customers. We’ll move on, push out further and develop new routes, hunting for that place where we can really experience nature, so long as it’s got wifi and beer.
Maybe I’ll come back in a few years, see how the resort has changed things. The rock sure isn’t going anywhere. But if I’m being honest, and as shocking as it is on arrival, writing this is probably the most I’m going to do about it. You can get used to overlooking the trash and holding your breath walking through the smoke. And the rock really is incredible.
Night trains are the most badass things ever. So cool.
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18km hike to the falls. A little bit of swimming, a lot of sweating.
4am bus from Surat Tani to Khao Sok. Canoing down the river.
Sleep. Glorious sleep.
This market lies along side/on top of railroad tracks. It’s shoulder to shoulder stretching for about a mile with vendors selling everything. If it’s edible, it’s here. All too mellow chime goes off just before the train come trundling through, and everyone calmly packs away their stall 30 seconds before it arrives, the train passes, then everything picks up where it left off. Weird.
The Floating Market sounds pretty badass, so we thought it would be cool to check out. Turns out it’s a god forsaken tourist trap, so we bailed on it in favor of coffee and people watching.
Squarespace’s blog app was shitily architected (I had a rep explain to me that because of the architecture of their cloud, offline authoring isn’t possible. When I pointed out that humans have been writing without the internet for thousands of years, he didn’t have a good response. I am disappointed), I can only write posts when I’m online. Not say, when I’m on an eight hour train ride.
We spent the afternoon walking around Silom and the Jim Thompson house. Interesting story, not worth the time. After the House though, we hung out at the Silom mall and took stock. I wanted to do that specifically to disabuse myself of the idea that Thailand is all stalls and tuk tuks. It’s not. It’s just as modern, bright, and flashy as the west.
And this cafe wouldn’t be out of place in SF.
commentor: Cindy date: 2015-01-25 07:05:09
Ronald appears to be giving the namaste blessing with, as you noted, a creepy expression. Very mixed messages. Thanks for the posts! Sorry you can only write "live" and can’t write and then upload. How quaint and old-fashioned.