the beginning of the end

 

ok ok - its been a while and we've covered loads of kilometers in the meantime.  but here's some shots from the "beginning of the end" - our last few weeks of wandering.  Upon recommendation of friends we made in Laos, we arrived in southern Thailand and headed straight to Tonsai, a little beach surrounded by limestone cliffs, accessible only by boat.  It was a funny thing - we had absolutely no idea that Tonsai is this rock climbing mecca.  It was equivalent to showing up on the north shore of oahu and saying "oh, there's good surf here?"  So we hooked up with some climbing friends who got us out onto the rock, played on the slacklines set up everywhere (on the beach, at all the bars, and the infamous overwater stretch in the photos), and even went on a "deep water solo" trip to the nearby islands that have all these routes you can climb with no ropes and then jump (or fall) into the sea.

We've since continued on through malaysia and singapore and have finally arrived safe and sound in Australia - promise there will be more photos soon to follow to catch you up with the rest of our travels...

tonsai beach at sunset

a view over Railay beach with Tonsai tucked away at the upper right

from the vista above, a jungle walk and three slippery cliffs took us to this

lagoon in the middle of the peninsula

Pra Nang Cave - on our way to the overwater slackline

the infamous overwater slackline

look closely for the little strip of purple,  after swimming out

you could only climb up onto the rocks at high tide

our friend pete - in good form going for step #3.

clay - in poor form after about step #5.  It was the hardest slackline we'd ever tried.  

We stepped, fell, swam, climbed up and fell again for almost 2 hours.

One dude that followed us out did a full crotch plant on his 2nd attempt - 

the worst slackline fall I've ever seen - definitely shook us up a bit.

Our friends Carman (above) and Pete (below) on the first deep water solo route

some were pretty easy climbs until you got to about 10 meters

suddenly easy became very scary.