.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

Just reached Kinabalu Pine Lodge, had a shower and backed up the days pictures to my nifty Nexto Di PSD. It's pretty cool here, literally not figuratively speaking. There's no need for aircon and the small fan isn't switched on.

Looking forwards to some nice steamboat for dinner to warm me up! The lodge is good, the mountain peak is just right outside the window towering above us.

It's good to remeber Malaysia has world class beauty and wildlife too. Don't always go looking abroad. Flying back to KL tomorrow evening tho, then it's back to reality.

Will definitely visit this region again for white water rafting and to climb the mountain.

And the last day came as quick as that, it really was fast.

We were up early again for a quick breakfast, then out to the Jungle with the owner of an outfit that does Elephant Jungle Trekking - beat that!

First up we fed the elephants with some small bananas, hmmm...nice!

Meet the Team

Each one of these buggers eats more than 200 tonnes of Pineapple leaves A DAY - amazing eh. Basically...they are either sleeping or eating, because eating so much makes them sleepy.

After that we climbed up a platform which put our feet level with the elephants backs, so we could get on easily. So we mounted up, 2-3 per elephant.

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On the third day it was up early again, a quick breakfast in the hotel and out for some kayaking in the Crocodile Canyon, sounds fun eh? It certainly was.

Although very hot, make sure you've packed a hat and some sun screen or sun block if you are liable to get burnt (as I am being a pale whitey).

The sea kayaks used are the surf-ski models, as opposed to the whitewater craft which are watertight/covered (making them more dangerous for beginners). This makes them more stable - although you are likely to get wet, so dress appropriately.

They do provide you with watertight bags to keep your valuables/camera so they won't get wet in case you do fall in or just get splashed.

The price per canoe was around 900baht including a guide, each kayak can sit two people comfortably, there are some 3-seater models but they aren't so common. The tour would generally last about an hour or 1.5 hours.

The weather was stunning as we set out.

Matthew Ong from the Breakfast Show

The scenery was quite breathtaking there, especially inside the Canyon almost gorge like reminsicent of Gulin, China - it was splendidly hot though...

After a reasonable paddling session we reached the Canyon (known as Crocodile Canyon if I heard correctly)

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After visting Thale Waek in the morning we hopped back on the boat for a short trip to Railay Beach for rock climbing. Krabi is a WORLD famous rock climbing destination with people coming from all over to climb there, with a lot of varied routes and breathtaking scenery when you get up there - I can see why they like it!

This beach is generally divided into two sections, east and west. West Railay provides visitors with peace and quiet as it is a broad sandy beach with fewer facilities than Ao Nang. East Railay which lies across the peninsula from West Railay is different from other beaches in the area as it could actually be classified as a mud flat, especially during low tide. In addition to remarkable views and mangrove forests to the north of the beach, the main attraction for visitors to Hat Railay is the adrenaline pumping activity of cliff climbing. The limestone cliffs on the huge headland between Hat Rai La East and Tham Phra Nang, as well as other nearby islands provide world-class rock climbing facilities against a stunning backdrop of the sea with approximately 700 sport routes of mid to high difficulty ratings.

There are supposed to be over 300 routes ranging from beginner 5a's to classic multipitch 6a's right up to the extremes of 8c (according to the French grading system).

There were people from all over the World climbing there, USA, UK, Italy, Germany and goodness knows where else!

We were supervised by the lovely guys and gals from Nomad Adventure - they are the folks behind Summit Climbing Gym led by Yuen Li (do read her bio).

Yuen Li is extremely passionate about what she does and very experienced, she's quite in demand as a public speaker for motivational seminars and other topics.

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Day two was up early in the morning at 8.30am, breakfast at the hotel and off out to the boat for some island hopping! We were going to go rock climbing first, but due to the tide we decided to go and see Thale Waek (Separated Sea) which is joined at low tide and see the rest of the islands after rock climbing.

The weather was pretty grey, but we still had fun on the way across.

It was pretty dramatic - you can see how clear the water is!

The weather got a little better as we reached Thale Waek, the beach was covered in driftwood though.

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As you've probably noticed, last week I went to Krabi in Thailand for 4 days. Lucky for me it was sponsored by Air Asia and arranged by Nuffnang.

Krabi is pretty close to Phuket if you are familiar with that place, the difference is it's a lot less commercialised - which in my opinion makes it a MUCH better place to go to. It's still pretty quiet, in Krabi center the shops close at 9.30pm and even in the 'tourist' area Ao Nang everything is pretty much closed by midnight.

It's a fairly small city with about 20,000 people and it's the provincial capital of Krabi Province, the province itself has a population of around 340,000 people.

We left from KLIA LCCT at 10am on Tuesday morning. Air Asia has a new facility at LCCT where if you are traveling light you can check in via the bright red Kiosk Check-In and avoid all the queues which is very useful. It's only for those with hand luggage though, but you can save some time if you don't have bags to check in. The Kiosk will scan the barcode from your online ticket print-out and check you in.

This was the inaugural flight for KL-Krabi! Flights to Krabi start from RM49.90.

It was full too, it looks like it's going to be a popular destination.

The plane landed about 6 minutes ahead of schedule! The weather was a bit grey when we arrived, was hoping for blue skies!

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I'm back and still alive...and not intruded upon by too many any lady boys.

Krabi is nice, a rock climbing haven if you are into that kind of thing. Plenty of other things to do and see too, I'll write about the trip properly soon.

Busy, busy busy!

I'm off to Krabi in the morning to massage some Lady boys, back on Friday...hopefully.

Blog might be a bit quiet for a few days, I have scheduled some random stuff to post tho.

Don't miss me too much!

When your appt starts looking like this all the time, these 3 pictures were taken on 3 different occasions (July October and November).

Yeah guess which was taken with SLR..obviously not the one with an SLR in the frame eh? Smart..

Thankfully I don't have to travel like that any more...so things are much tidier now

As I've said before, living out of hotels is really not as glamorous as it seems.

You should check my archives for some of the places I've traveled in the last 2-3 years.

I actually started this post when I was away in Brunei.

Not really..

But guess where I was?

Can you?

I have to admit I know Selangor Valley pretty well, and I've never even heard of this place, let alone been there.

Europe indeed, was a hectic day, need to sleep now...and *sigh* back to work tomorrow, why can't I get the whole week off!

Had a pretty busy few days...need a holiday after that, Mom is having a good time.

Some of her New Zealand pics are awesome, trying to persuade her to blog her trip.

Oh yah, feel free to tell me how awesome my pic is!