Thai Style Head Crackin'

It just isn't a good Siano vacation until I crack my head open. I figure if I don't draw blood, no one will read this blog.

Departing Bangkok in the middle of a tropical downpour, I headed south in search of a sandy beach that would be surrounded by my favorite geographical phenomenon: The KARST TOWER. In fact, this trip, previous to going to Beijing, is all about chasing Karst Towers. Here in the southern Thai town of Krabi, the place is nothing but Karst Towers, one of my next destinations in Halong Bay, Vietnam, again the towers, and finally Guilin China is a limestone paradise of Karst Towers. The minerals that compose these tiny giants actually eat the trees and folliage on top of them as they grow towards the skies creating the coolest and steepest looking hills on earth. Yesterday, just to show those beautiful little mountains how much I love them, I left a little chunk of my head on one of them.

I was climbing in search of distant lagoon, it was extremely muddy and it was raining, not good climbing weather. It was a strenous little hike up a steep cliff, but I took it real slow and paired up with a couple from Quebec, just so we could help each other out in case of emergency, like if someone fell, and cracked their head open. Only, I didn't fall. I was so focused on finding good footing and grabbing strong vines that when I got a solid grip, I just lifted myself up not looking at the rocks ABOVE ME.

Crack!

Blood! That was really stupid, the Quebecouis laughed at me, and we kept heading towards the lagoon. I felt fine, but when I saw the lagoon, we all got really scared. There were two more cliffs with nothing but a muddy rope to let you down. My mom, and Jeanne, and everyone who told me not to go looking for danger would have been proud. We turned back and decided a game of volleyball in the pool was just as rewarding as a lagoon surrounded by cliffs, and far less deadly.

SIDE STORY:

Speaking of deadly, the day before I was hanging out with a young Erika Kuever wannabe, she's studying Mandarin in Shanghai as part of her degree. She is the daughter of two Islamic Tartar Russians, and was born in Tajikistan and grew up in Russia and Germany, and now she studies in China, her name was Louiza. My story was much shorter, "I'm from Seattle, in America, they call me Mark."

We went on an elephant ride through the jungle, it was totally awesome dude! Dude! This elephant is trying to buck me dude, no way Stampy, I'm holding on!!

After the elephant ride, Louiza and I went to pay the nice men, and then a monkey attacked Louiza! It latched onto her face, dug its claws into her neck and bit a chunk out of her ear, Mike Tyson style. I was like "hey, there's a monkey biting your FACE!"

She turned out to be fine, but now we're both really scared of monkeys. Those little suckas are everywhere down here, hiding in the beautiful karst caves, just looking for a friendly face to attack!

I'm getting out of here, next stop, Northern Thailand city of Changmai, and then off to Laos.

That's right,