The Scary Kind of Fun

The Mission

Stand on top of Polish Pillar, that tall, slender, topsy-turvy spire jutting up from the emerald water far to the north between home and Ha Long Bay.

The Crew

• Luca, an Italian volunteer who speaks five languages fluently and a bit of Arabic on the side. The guy climbs hard and has extensive experience on the wall, both clipping bolts and placing gear. New rock releases Luca’s inner eager puppy, and he’s been on a roll putting up first ascents in the bay since his arrival.

• Liz, a badass volunteer out of Minnesota who’s been traveling SE Asia and extended her stay with us from one month to two after the earthquake nixed her plans to continue into Nepal. Our similar personalities and philosophies on a lot of aspects in life have led to a fantastic partnership, both as roommates and on the wall. The girl is most definitely my new favorite climbing partner.

• Mike and Vince, two Canadian travelers along for the ride.

• Myself.

Amongst us, we compile a modgepodge of gear. We bring Luca’s single rack of finger-to-hand sized cams and my armful of single- and double-length slings. The goods also include three small coils of retired rope, ten well-loved wires of varying sizes and brands and five or six even better-loved cams of random sizes scavenged from the shop’s gear box.

Our basket boat takes us an hour and a half up through Lan Ha Bay, rounding a slender point into the channel separating us from Ha Long Bay. The pillar rises from a small cove just on the channel’s side. Swell rocks the tiny boat as Liz and I gear up, yarding ourselves and our rope onto a tiny sloping ledge to set up a belay, and I begin to climb.

I soon realize that it’s been close to a year since I climbed in the traditional style, placing my own pieces of hardware into the wall to clip into and protect myself as I continue upward. Although the climbing itself is technically fairly easy, it’s also terrifying. I’m well-versed in effective gear placement, but I’m working with unfamiliar pieces on unfamiliar rock. And I know how this rock is formed, dissolving from the inside out, and that it’s not exactly the most intact material in the world. … Did I mention this spire in particular is forecasted to have toppled just about yesterday?

My route wanders into a section of white and tan blocks, comprised of minerals left behind as water seepage evaporates. It’s the exact same stuff that’s broken off in my hands before, leaving me on my butt on a beach in front of several good-humored customers (I don’t think they realized how damn close my head came to a boulder on the way down).

I waffle as I decide whether to place a cam to protect this section of the route, weighing the potential consequences of prying off a block in case of a fall (dropping a boulder on Liz, cutting my rope, dislodging who knows how many more blocks barely held in place in front of me) against the security of having a piece of protection placed just below me as I navigate the upcoming minefield of choss.

I place the piece and pray.

As I move upward, the rock surrounding me rings hollow. Ledges and points and bars, all easy to cling to and stand on, hold to the pillar through crumbling connections. As I cautiously shift my weight across the rock, my right foot swings abruptly into the air. The spur I’d been standing on on bounces down the pillar and zings past Liz into a wash of emerald water below. I take a moment to gather myself, tapping the rock supporting my left foot, and it vibrates beneath me.

I promptly decide that climbing this pile of crumbling crap in a remote bay off Vietnam’s north coast is pretty much as Stupid as it gets. Ego be damned, I’m terrified and it’s time to downclimb.

Then I compare the crumbling rock I’ll have to navigate to retreat against my potential traverse toward solid rock above me and rapidly reverse my decision; at this point, continuing upward is actually the safer decision. A body length up and two steps sideways bring me back onto blessedly sturdy black limestone. Another ten feet up through seeping rock I sling a slender tree, eliminating for good the possibility of hurtling myself into the sea on a misstep.

The rest of the route is relatively straightforward: I pull over a couple of ledges and push through a pocket of brush, disturbing a nest of fire ants in the process. My surroundings seem to drop away as I press forward away from the insects. I collect an ancient quickdraw placed some years earlier in the rock, clipping into the attached wire (booty!) before making a few airy steps up a final corner to build a big, beautiful anchor within the shade of a big, beautiful tree hanging out over the water thirty some-odd meters below. 

Somehow, between four harnesses and two ropes, we get all five of us on top of the pillar at once   (there may have been some impatient free solo action on Luca’s part). We open the summit register to pen in our names– the first additions in three years.

__________

The weight of what we’re doing really falls on me as we prepare to rappel back down to sea. Climbing is such a contentious endeavor in this area– as much as we explain over and over and over again about climbing safety and ropes and bolts and anchors, local police and tourism officials view climbing as Very Dangerous. As evidenced through the regional fallout in boat tourism after the South Korean ferry disaster last year, an accident in one area can have far-reaching ramifications. Were an accident to occur on rope in the Ha Long Bay area, it could very potentially result in a shut down of climbing in the region and come down on Asia Outdoors as the face of outdoor climbing in Vietnam.

I collaborate with Luca to build a bomber rappel anchor and he heads down first. I then freak out a little bit inside when I realize I’m now the most experienced member of the party, tasked with ensuring every person is set up for a safe, long-ass, free-hanging return to the boat below. Convincing a couple of guys I’ve just met who are having the time of their lives that I need them to listen to me, and that rappelling from a giant natural spire is a little different from working on a ropes course, proves a bit of a task. Although I know what I’m doing, I still find myself feeling insecure.

After my feet touch down and we pull ropes and step back onto the boat (the tide has risen a meter or so since we arrived), I take a breath and dive into the bay before heading home.

Last week I led one of the scariest and proudest routes of my life.

Been there, Done that, Never again.

Connections

This train of thought began after my friend Dasan died back in January. It’s changed a bit and been added onto since then….

I had a point, not long after arriving on the island, when I began to doubt the way of life I’ve fallen into and followed the past three years. I didn’t question so much my pattern of floating from place to place, or picking up jobs as needed, but rather the types of relationships I build through this way of life. I look home to friends who’ve lived primarily in one place for years at a time, and former classmates, married, having kids. I begin to wonder whether the path I’m on disallows those strong, steady long-term friendships and relationships– those given strength through time as we watch each other grow and lend each support through triumphs and challenges as years pass. I realize that– aside from family– I no longer really have those people in any one place, a circle of friends built into my life story, as it were, to step back into upon my return home. I question whether living without relationships of that strength, depth and duration is right for me.

The people I’m surrounded by on the island here come and go. Although I meet people constantly– the island is a well-known tourist and backpacker destination– I say goodbye just as frequently. Being in the tourism industry can feel like a viscous cycle of loneliness, at times: People pass through in a matter of days. I find myself engaged in the same conversation with each new person: Where are you from, How long have you been traveling, Where are you headed next? The vast majority of talks are absolutely mind-numbing.

A few months into my time here I understand why some coworkers pick and choose who they spend time with, often opting to keep their distance rather than getting to know backpackers on a more-than-superficial level. They’re simply proactively shielding themselves from the pang of saying goodbye and parting with pieces of themselves, over and over and over.

The Asia Outdoors staff fall into another category entirely. We are in essence an island, the only expats living on Cat Ba. We work together, we drink together and we climb together on our days off. We share our dreams with each other, teach each other, get frustrated with each other, cry on each others’ shoulders and tease each other about girls (and boys). Though our time with each other is shorter than it might be at home, our relationships gain intensity far more rapidly.

We have to accept that those relationships we build amongst ourselves are potentially short-lived. My life crosses paths with some coworkers for only a month or two, others for a year or more. The beginning of this month was hard– half of our staff reached the end of their contracts and left within a week of each other.

Thanh is very possibly one of the smartest (and most hyperactive) people I’ve ever met. In the past three years, courtesy of a lot of American TV coupled with a ridiculous outgoing and mischevious personality, the kid taught himself English and took point on managing the company’s ridiculously convoluted finances. He’s well-known for chucking harnesses across the room as he shouts, “No fighting in the office!” On a whim he flings snakes across courtyards, shoots crossbows across the bar and topples head-height cairns meticulously erected on beaches. His favorite phrases include “Don’t be sorry…. just don’t do again.” “Sorry….. Not sorry.” “We all gonna die!” And, "Let's go to the beach!" (With Thanh's Vietnamese accent, "beach" sounds like a very different word.) His high voice (the most common rumor has it he yelled and screamed so much as a kid he wrecked his vocal cords) just amplifies his impish personality. Thanh headed back to Hue, his home city, to go to school for business. He’s going to absolutely kill it.

Mervil is a soft- spoken Filipino with one of the strongest, gentlest spirits I’ve ever met. He has some of the prettiest footwork on the wall that I’ve ever seen and pursues projects with determination and passion. Honest and loyal to a fault, when that kid had something to say, you listened. Sometimes you gained serious insight into gear maintenance. Other times his quiet humor showed through, and you walked away with the valuable knowledge that Filipino slang for a But-Her-Face is "Shrimp–" because you eat the body and tail and chuck the head.

Ben is a happy-go-lucky climber from the UK, always glad to hand out a hug or a lopsided smile. We may or may not have bonded over Game of Thrones episodes leaked and pirated far in advance of official release dates.

I’m going to miss these guys like hell. There’s a good chance that I’ll never see some of them again. Seeing them leave hurts every time, but in the meantime I’ve found a surprisingly strong family in this tiny, constantly shifting community. No matter where we come from and what our experience is upon arrival, we have a common basis in that we’ve all consciously chosen this lifestyle. Despite how we arrived and whether or not we realized what it entailed, we’ve all postponed that security of long-term connections for the uncertainty of who we’ll meet and where we’ll go next; what we’ll learn and how we’ll grow through our time here. That commonality provides an incredibly strong mutual root for all of us.

And, for the time being, I’m ok with that.