Happy... Happy....

Happy New Year! I hope 2009 blesses you with good health and peace and ice cream and a puppy.

We had a rather eventful ending to 2008, but then again, when is travel with this dynamic duo not eventful? On Christmas Eve, Brett and I hopped on a bus to Krabi. We bought some yummy Thai snacks at a stop along the way and I dozed off and Brett dozed off and we woke up in Krabi a lot of hours later. We hopped off the bus and Brett went digging in my purse for his wallet and couldn’t find it. I stuck my hand into my purse and noticed my big bulky red monstrosity of a wallet was also missing. We found a table. I dumped the contents of my purse onto it. Everything was there…except our wallets. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this is I KNOW BETTER!!!! My wallet was only ever taken from me by threat in Honduras, I slept atop my purse in China. I KNOW BETTER! To my defense, it was an acrobatic feat that our little thief achieved getting past my feet on the window side to steal them. Then again, considering how heavy Brett and I sleep, maybe not. Little bugger. We were stuck in Krabi with absolutely NADA. No CC. No cash in pocket. NADA. The kind people at the Tourist Info were kind enough to give 50 Baht to a songteaw driver to take us into town to the police station. There, many hours later, and with some help from some of you, we got 2 pieces of paper saying our wallets were stolen. I was able to cancel my cards and have them sent to Krabi. Unfortunately, they were then sent to Texas instead. The situation has since been fixed.



Here's a picture of Brett, hoarding his chicken and mr. donuts, pre-fleecing.




Here's me worrying:




Here's Brett worrying:

Here's Brett after he gave up worrying:

Here's why it was easy to give up worrying:

Thanks to the gracious generosity of our friends, Marcus and Pascale, we were still able to enjoy our vacation. We got a wonderful little bungalow and we climbed and ate and ate and climbed and climbed and ate and laid in the sun and ran (one of us for longer distances than the other) and got bitten by mosquitos (one more than the other) and met people and climbed and ate and ate with people and drank and it was all very lovely. I left my camera in my bag most of this trip and took mental photographs instead.

New Years Eve, on our last full day, it was just Brett and I who headed to the crag. We went to Eagle wall and I started the day doing what I’m always scared to do: lead climb. Nothing too challenging.. I got to the anchors. I did something wrong but caught myself and was able to stem my feet so that my hands were free. I fixed it. I came down. My foot hurt. I though I could just walk it off and it was really just stiff, no intense moment of pain just a sudden lack of full movement. I climbed two other climbs - badly. We headed back and I started limping… and it just kept getting worse. By the end of the dinner, every step was painful and bringing me close to tears. I decided I would forgo the festivities since the thought of walking in the sand was making me sad. I said the words: “I’m not going anywhere without a cane or a crutch”. Brett disappeared and reappeared with a crutch. This man is works miracles. He makes crutches appear from thin air. I hobbled to the beach. We drank, we celebrated, we danced (me on 1 foot and a crutch), the tide ate one of my fugly fake crocs and I celebrated even more, we watched paper lanterns create staircases in the sky, and then I went to bed.

The next day we got to Krabi without incident, showed them the lovely slips of paper issued by the efficient and effective Krabi Police Dept. and boarded a plane back to good ‘ol BKK. That evening, Brett met my Dad and Sue. It was lovely. We had a nice dinner which was serendipitously not to far from our place.

The next day, we took Dad and Sue to Lumpini Park, one of our favorite places in BKK. Lumpini Park: BKK as Central Park: NYC. We sat, we chatted, we reminisced, we observed a water monitor creep around the lake and then we ate at a neat restaurant: Cabbages and Condoms. Brett loved hearing my Dad’s mishaps (it runs in the family) and stories, some of which I had never heard before.

On Sunday, they came over for a lunch and we chatted and reminisced some more. We went to one of my favorite restaurants, Three on Convent, for dinner then said goodbye as Dad and Sue would be taking of for Chiang Mai and I to Kuala Lumpur the next day.

I continue with my month and a half long cough. I’ve gotten a number of different suggestions as to how to get rid of it but not much has worked yet. An expensive Doc took chest x-rays and told me it wasn’t TB (yay!) and that it was acute bronchitis. Acute my *ss. This is chronic.

So here I am, in Kuala Lumpur. I’ve found a lovely yoga studio that I like much more than the gym that I was going to last KL ride. After several yoga sessions of the easy and restorative variety, and a week of work and a still swollen ankle, I have taken the weekend to do nothing other than elevate, ice, and heat my ankle. So here I lay, ankle in the air, scouring the net for entertainment and wedding locations, depressing myself with BBC news, and waiting for next weekend when I am hopefully mobile and Brett arrives.