We would like to apologize to our readers who ask for stories, but frankly we do not want to talk about it a lot - the tragedy in South Asia that is - because it was simply horror.

We did not sleep for many days and now we are glad that we can train and can think about other things. We do not want to profit from human catastrophe, but as demanded by readers, here is a story.

So Thailand in a little bit different way: We like it very much, perhaps mostly because of the warm weather and excellent Thai cooking. We climbed well. In the morning we usually woke up about 8 am, started climbing at 9. We climbed
6-8 routes a day, sometimes more. Two days of climbing and one day of rest. We were able to climb till 2 pm (when the heat prohibits climbing), and then we swam in the warm sea.  Then rocked in a hammock, just resting. We went on trips to islands, snorkeled, and even rented a kayak. And the kayak experiment we were sorry, because the day after everything was painful.  We felt most of the routes we climbed were graded normally, so the grading isn´t soft. Maybe
this myth has its source in the fact that the routes were over graded a long time ago. Now, the locals work hard and they every year publish an updated guide according to their purest conscience. They update the grading even if holds
have broken and the route is harder.

We climbed there:

Tomas: 8b+ PP Project, 8b+/(c)? PP No name, 8b OS Jai Dum, 8b PP Cara cangreso, 8a+ OS 5times, 8a OS 3times.

Helča: 8a+ PP Old chicken, 8a PP Phet maak, 8a PP Mafia conection, 7c+ PP Woodoo doll, 7c flash Hang ten.

Helča was probably the most satisfied, because she did her first 8a+.

Tom a Helča

Editorial remark: The authors of this story translated by Lezec.cz are Tomas Mrazek and Helena Lipenska, the top Czech climbers. Many different photographers took pictures of them on the trip, if you have some please send some to them or to the czechclimbing.com to contribute them to the article.

Editorial remark 2: Attention - we will prepare here on Lezec.cz and its English version CzechClimbing.com an on-line interview with Tomas Mrázek, the winner of World Cup 2004, where you can chat live with him. It will be in Czech language but we will translate some questions and answers into English. It will take place on the beginning of the March 2005. We will set the precise date later. Watch CzechClimbing.com.