Maybe in Oz

After landing in Singapore we found the doctor at the airport and got some X-rays of Phil's rapidly swelling wrist.  Not broken, says the doc.  I continue to be amazed at the cost of healthcare in countries outside the US.  All up, this visit was around $120 AUD.  I can't imagine how much it would have cost someone in the US without insurance. Singapore skyline After the doctor we headed to our friend Missy's place to drop off our bags.  Then we headed into town for a happy hour with some colleagues from the office there.  It was really bizarre for me seeing all these people I knew from the San Diego office who now live in Singapore.  Definitely a small world.  Then Phil and I wandered around and explored this giant 7-story mall that actually turned out to be two 7-story malls next to each other.  Living in Australia, we are rather deprived of shopping so we were both surprisingly happy wandering around the malls.  We even found a...

Our third full day in Thailand we explored the Krabi Town area, starting with Tiger Cave Temple (Wat Tham Sua).   Tiger at Tiger Cave Temple Warrior statue in the temple complex The temple complex has several pretty buildings and statues, but the main Buddha statue is at the top of a 2000' mountain. Entrance to Tiger Cave Temple The way up is via 1237 steps. start of the 1237 steps they aren't joking! These aren't regular steps either.  In many places they are giant steps with hardly any place to stop for a rest. jumbo steps It was lightly raining, and it appeared that we were the first ones up that morning.  We woke the monkeys up, and they swung around the trees and climbed along the banisters to head down the mountain looking for breakfast.  We also woke up three stray dogs taking shelter in a small sanctuary, and there was a cat hanging out on the steps. Mama and baby monkey Almost there! When we finally made it to the top, w...

The second day of our Thailand adventure we took another long tail boat back to Railay to do some rock climbing.  The area around Krabi has some amazing cliffs, so we packed our climbing shoes in the hope that we would get enough sunshine to use them.  We booked a half day trip and ended up doing three climbs each - more than enough for our poor muscles to handle.   amazing cliffs to climb on The first climb had some decent holds and was a good refresher on how to use our legs to push up instead of our arms to pull up.  Using your arms wears you out quicker, but it is a mental game trusting your shoes and the rocks enough to use your feet.  This was Phil's first time outdoor climbing :) repelling after the climb The second climb was easier in some ways because the techniques were fresh in our minds, but harder in some ways because those muscles we rarely use were starting to feel the burn. Who knew I had muscles?!! The last climb we tried wa...