Cooking and climbing

Hello and happy belated Valentines Day! Since our last post we have become Thai chefs and rad rock climbers. Last week we taught everyday and continued to absolutely love it, the kids just couldn't be more fun! We took a Thai cooking class at the restaurant/bar we frequent and had so much fun learning the Thai culinary arts. Goi, our teacher, took us to the local market to buy all of the ingredients, it was quite an experience. The market has everything from dragonfruit to fresh shrimp paste to pig faces and whole chickens with the heads and feet still attached. We learned how to make red curry with chicken and pineapple, pad thai, papaya salad, spring rolls and bananas in coconut milk. It was a sumptuous feast and we had to teach through food comas after. It was like Thanksgiving. Since we are accustomed to sharing 1 dish per meal, each having our own 5 dishes was a bit overwhelming, but joyous! Now we can't wait to hit up the Asian markets in SF and show off our skills at a family dinner, get excited!

This weekend we headed out of Khao Lak for a weekend on the beaches off of Krabi. We stayed on Ton Sai and also visited Pranang and Railay. The landscape was totally surreal, pictures do no justice. There is just something so cool about limestone cliffs meeting the turquoise water. All of the beaches are only accessible by longtail boats and there are no cars in the little beach towns, it's such a treat. Getting there on Friday was a bit of an ordeal because there were strong winds and rough seas and obese Germans in our little boat and we thought we were going to tip several times, but luckily we made it unscathed. Ton Sai is a total trip. It is a rock climbing haven, most of the people live there for months on end and climb everyday and party every night. The beach bars reeked of reggae and reefer in a good way and the people were beyond chilled. It was one of the first places we met any Americans and it was chock full of Canadians, 4 of which we befriended on the beach and spent Valentines Day dinner with at a lovely Indian restaurant called Tali Leaf, a must visit spot for anyone who finds themselves in Ton Sai. We also treated ourselves to oil massages on Valentines Day, much more relaxing than the traditional Thai massages we experienced last time. This morning we got up bright and early and went climbing. It was totally different climbing on limestone versus what we are used to in the Northeast, each route was so unique. Our arms still feel like jello, but it was a lot of fun and we look forward to returning for some more climbing in the future, maybe after we hit the rock gyms for a bit back home and we will bring all of you climbing fanatics with us!

After 1 longtail boat and 3 buses today for a total of $10 and 5 hours, we are glad to be home and filled up on a dollars worth of our favorite street noodles. This week we plan to be super thrifty and solely survive off of pb & js and street food to save up for our final weekend in Thailand which will be spent on the beaches of Koh Phi Phi. If you need to visualize what that will be like, rent the epic film "The Beach." Hopefully the weird video game drug sequence will not factor in.

Hope all is well back home! Keep us posted on your lives and try to come visit us! We have both been able to get some pics up on facebook so be sure to check them out, more to come soon.

xoxo
T&L