Got up early, made myself some breakfast as the kitchen doesn't open until 8am, & walked into town. I thought I knew where I was going but then it ended up being a little further than I was remembering so I took a tuk-tuk for the last part of the journey.

Got all my climbing gear sorted & met my guide: Gee. He's been climbing for 12 years & knows many of the routes at Crazy Horse, the most popular crag nearby.

Apparently in summer, you could have a hundred people climbing there but no many today! Just a few small groups.

We had the perfect day for climbing: overcast & not ridiculously hot! Seemed to be a bit cooler out there compared to the city.

I climbed 6 routes. The first 5 were reasonably easy & I led most of them plus cleaned up as well.

The last one "Happy Birthday" was grade 20 & turned out to be a different story. It had a degree of overhang but wasn't too bad so I thought I'd give it a go as I'd seen a couple of other girls try it (the one I watched didn't make it past the 2nd clip)!

I managed to get the first 2 clips in, then with some struggle, got the third one in, but ran out of arm strength to get the rope in plus I was a little scared of falling. As this was a much higher grade than I'd ever led before, I decided to come down & let Gee lead it so I could top rope it instead.

He made it look easy so I tried again. I made it a little further than before with his help, but just didn't have the arm strength to make it up as it was quite "pumpy" (uses up your arms a lot).

After trying & failing for about 15min, I gave up & came down. I'll have to leave that one for another day!

Compared to Perth's lovely granite & sandstone, the limestone of Crazy Horse was quite slippery in places, especially where it had been worn down by climbers' boots plus the shoes I had were really digging into my left foot. Not sure I could have made it even with my own shoes, but these things didn't help.

After climbing, we headed back into town & I was intending to go straight back to the house. I wandered up to the centre of the old town & happened to come across some markets that Gee had told me about.

These were huge markets that stretched across many streets. I started having a look around & bought a few things, including some dinner but after a while, all the stalls looked the same & the crowds were increasing so I departed through the Tha Pae gate.

I was very impressed that in the food stall area, they not only have 4 bins for different types of waste, they also have someone there making sure you put the right things in each bin! She'd take your plates, scrape the food into the food bin, then separate what's left.

I walked down to take a look at a beautiful temple I'd seen from the road the night before. Fortunately it was open so I went inside to have a brief look around.

There was beautiful gold plated everything there plus a few cool looking monks, although they're surprisingly quick & difficult to photograph!

Caught a tuk tuk back to the house & finally had a shower to wash the sweat, dirt & sunscreen off - I really needed it!