Ko Tao

After a few days in Bangkok we took the night train down the coast, got an early morning ferry and found ourselves shepherded to a dive resort on Ko Tao island. Life is good here, although we have found out that it's still monsoon season, as evidenced by no less than 3 episodes of heavy rainfall today. It's a small island with some narrow beaches and steep hills topped by granite boulders. We have been here 3 days now, focusing on eating and swimming. Yesterday I woke up at 5 am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went for a run and ended up running and walking along very steep paths through the jungle, trying to make it to the East coast for sunrise. I ended up at an abandoned construction site on the northern coast, oops and cool. Today Morgan, Alex, a swiss woman we met here and I tried to go to a beach on the east coast, but it started raining very hard. Luckily we were right next to a house and the owners let us wait out the rain on their porch. I wanted to continue on, but the rest of the group was less interested in getting soaked and hiking through the woods. I went up to the to the highest point and the rest of the team waited for a short break in the weather to head back to our room. Tomorrow I will get to the East coast, rain or heavy rain. More to come soon.

lots of love, Rowan

it's a little warmer than Bristol

Hot, hot, hot.

I am sitting outside of the hostel at midnight and sweating. This is a stark contrast to the down jackets and blankets required to stay warm in Bristol. Well, here I am, with all the other tourists, eating pad thai for a dollar and turning down offers for custom made suits every minute. It's great to have Morgan and Alex here already, so I can ease into things and don't have to start fending for myself right off the bat. We're planning on finding a place to have a real thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night and watch some football like good americans. Friday we head down to the island Ko Tao on the East coast of the panhandle. That's all for now.

Landed

I'm safely in Bangkok, now I will head into the city to find my cuz Morgan.
love to all

And we're off. I'm in England for the first time, staying with my friends Raf and Harriet. My first day in the UK was a beautiful, warmish November day and we jumped on it. Raf left work in the morning and we went climbing in a gorge just a 10 minute bike ride from Raf's house. It was the first trad leading I had done in a while, a little scary and a lot of fun.

Hello there,
I'm going to start up this blog again for my travels. Right now I'm still in Switzerland, but that won't last long. I'll keep people posted on what I'm up to. Feel free to read or not read it and feel free to share it with others who might be interested. The easiest way to get updates is to become a follower, all you have to do is click the follow button on the right sidebar.
lots of love to all,
Rowan

Northern California, check.

We left Lopez, Annie and I did. We picked up Liza in Seattle. We went down to Sam's house in Portland next, stopping to see someone in Tacoma, at UPS. More bocce was played. We had a great Portland visit with Sam and his parents, but we didn't stay long, the coast was beckoning. The first night was spent on the Oregon coast near Coos Bay. We woke up in the morning and explored our surroundings, what a beautiful and rugged coast.The beauty of the coast never let up. We drove along it for almost a week and everywhere we stopped it was spectacular. We alternated between coast and redwoods. They were beautiful, grand, red, but no sign could tell Annie their genus. I learned that my great, great, great grandfather was instrumental in creating California's first state park, which was Big Basin Redwood State Park, just outside of San Jose. Although we were unable to visit that park, I felt honored and proud that my ancestor was involved in saving the redwoods.
The evening after seeing our first redwoods, we drove into Arcata. It was immediately clear that this place is special. People looked funny, stuck in time, or stoned. There were characters everywhere. We ended up spending a full day in Arcata. After that we saw more redwoods and more coast as we made our way down highway 1 into San Francisco. Behold:

This was still in Oregon. Sea lions were barking out on the rocks in the background

Liza throwing a bocce ball on another spectacular beach in Northern California.

Annie and Liza at the base of a sizeable redwood tree.

Another beautiful section of coast.

Backcountry Bocce ball

I'm sorry to announce that there will be no bicycle trip down the coast.
But there will be a bocce trip.

The bocce tour began today with a Lopez forest adventure match. Soon our teammate (more like opponent) Liza will return to the states and the true games will begin. Stay tuned.
Here are some pics from Lopez:

Dirty carrot looking very clean right now.

The Holler, Brook's cabin with new improvements such as a solar panel (light) and a propane oven/stove.

Annie and Brook standing by the wooden rowboat sporting rubber boots (all we wore for two weeks). A spectacular sunset row followed.

Love
Fat Stripe Homesteader (Annie) and Dirty Carrot (Rowan)