Tonsai. A difficult place to leave! But the climbing's over and I'm moving on tomorrow. Today has been beautifully sunny, but there have also been days of torrential rain. In fact, the cool rainy days spent on overhanging, stalactite-encrusted limestone have been brilliant, even though I find the climbing intimidating and mentally exhausting. It's sooo steep!

Apart from a half-morning wasted with an unfortunate choice of partner (a tosser from Essex, who annoyed me so much I gave up climbing for the day and went to a Thai cookery class instead), all the climbing has been good or brilliant, and here's a list of the best. Climbers who have no interest in Thailand should look away now. Anyone else will give up soon enough...

Best crags: The Keep, Thaiwand, Eagle Wall, The Nest/Wild Kingdom.
Best routes: everything at The Keep, including Nutcracker (6c, technical wall) and Medusa's Lover (easy 6c); One-Two-Three: busy and polished but Make a Way (6a+) is smart; The Defile: Baboon's Ass (6b, reachy, slopey and pumpy), Monkey Gone to Heaven (6b, weird rounded groove, hard), Mai Pen Rai (6a+, good slab shock-horror!!); Thaiwand: Equatorial (6c, didn't bag this one, but one day), Circus Oz (p1 6a+, good position), Tyrolean Wall: Missing Snow (6b+, steep face); Ton Sai Wall: Humanality (5, 6a, 6b, 6b+, 6b, blank wall on p4 calls for a spacey 'behind you' stalactite manouvre); Eagle wall: Desayuno de Nono (6b), Lost in Space (6b), Where Eagles Don't Dare (6a+); The Nest/Wild Kingdom: Dozer Days (6c, wild overhanging stalactite) and Mutual of Omaha (6c, steep pump on good holds).