Entry Number 2

I am in Paradise. There is no place that I have ever been that compares to where I am now. No place this beautiful or just so amazing. At the moment I'm out on the island of Koh Pi Pi. Its a pretty small island just south of the Southern Thai penisula. Its actually one of the places that got hit the hardest when the Tsunami came a little while back. But it has been rebuilt is as spectacular as ever. I honestly cannot think of another place like this. If any of you have ever read the book or seen the movie "the Beach" this is EXACTLY that ( I know it sounds nuts, but it really is). This place has it all. White sand. Warm, crystal clear water. Snorkeling. Rock climbing. Diving. The list goes on. There is a great international backpacker scene here too...mostly people from Europe and the UK. Its pretty brillent passing the time with all of them and trying to figure out each others jokes and slang and what not. The Germans and Austrians seem to have the hardest go at it cause they don't speak much english but we're helping them along.
The funniest thing happened when we first checked into the hostel. There is one other American guy that is staying there and it happens that he went to Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. Once that all came out, the three of us had a good laugh reminicing about the town, nights and the Green Lantern and what not.
Before I just go on blabbing about how great this place is and how I might just end up getting lost down here in the islands for some time, let me back up to the ride down from Bangkok.
We hopped on the train out of Hua Lampong train station in Bangkok, little knowing what we were going to be in for. We had bought the cheapest ticket that we saw which ended up being in the third class car. In Thailand, most of the long rail routes have three different classes on their trains. On this paticular train the breakdown was like this: First is with a sleeper car and AC, second with seats kinda like an airplane that lay all the way down (they got AC too) and then the third are just regular seats that dont fold down and no AC but a bunch of rickety fans that move the hot air around the car. Most of the people in the first two classes are travelers that can afford the extra money (mind you for the 14 hour trip it only cost us 12 bucks and to get the first class ammenities its only 4 bucks more). In our class it felt like we were riding on the bottom decks of the Titanic with the "common" people. It was great. They were so nice and all acted like they had barely ever seen a white person before (many of these travellers are from the hill tribes and the country so it might be true). The kids all stared wide eyed and the adults try to share their food and home made whiskey or anything else they have which they think would make you more comfortable. Grayson ate some of these cured meats (who knows what type) and it ended up making him puke for pretty much the entire trip which gave me a good laugh as well. The trip was really long but on these trains they don't care what really happens so you can walk around and even sit on the steps of the cars out in the open air and just watch the Thai night country side fly on by. It was a pretty great experience. When we arrived in Surat Thani we took a bus down to Krabi which is a mostly Muslim town (had some great middle eastern food from a Muslim lady who was extremely nice) down on the ocean and then took a boat over to Koh Pi Pi. We were actually planning on going to Railey first to do some climbing there but ended up at the wrong pier to leave from so we went to Koh Pi Pi instead. I'm pretty glad we did. The climbing here is fantastic and apparently from the other climbers I've been hanging out with they say that its way less crowded then Railey anyhow. Tomorrow I think I'm going to climb Tonsai tower which is a four pitch climb which goes to the highest point on the island so you can see all around. I've also done some good deep water solo stuff where all you got to do is throw out 200 baht (about 7 bucks) which gets you a longtail boat for the entire day and they take you out to whichever cliffs you want you you just climb right off the boat. For those of you who don't know deep water soloing its rock climbing where you don't climb with ropes or anything but your shoes, and when you get to the top or fall you just fall into the water below these straight cliffs with perfectly deep water (mom don't worry its completely safe).
Anyhow this is getting a bit long so I'll sign off for now...keep you posted again soon. I'm having a bit of trouble with getting the pictures on the web for you all but hopefully it will be soon. Also I"ve been out in the sun all day snorkeling (saw a shark) so if there are alot of gramatical errors or parts don't make sense in this post don't hold it against me. Cheers!