Taken for Granted

Today I lead a climbing trip, packing a myriad of gear with a fellow guide before heading out on the same boat as our kayakers. I look at the karsts with new eyes today: The little geology remaining in my brain from college, coupled with a small amount of intuition and sizable input from my coworkers, Google, Neagha (our local conservationist) and a pretty cool movie on bolting routes in Thailand tell me that the limestone karsts surrounding us were laid down over 200 million years by layer upon layer upon layer of shredded sea shell. Tectonic movement then edged the sea floor in under the limestone, buckling and shoving the rock over a kilometer and a half into the sky, where it was eventually exposed through erosion to display individual layers of deep gray rock in clear-cut angles rising from the sea. As coastal weather wore peaks down to their present heights through physical erosion, tidal sea life aided the process along the water line. Shellfish, clamped onto towers in the tidal zone, release gasses that combine with water to create a weak sulfuric acid and wear away the bottom of the towers through chemical erosion. They accelerate the erosion in process from the bay’s battering waves, undercutting the mountainous features and leaving arches, caves and tunnels. Mussel-covered pillars drop from ceilings, countering looming outcrops and rocks just below the surface. As tides rise arches disappear, waves shrouding undercut cliffs and restoring an illusion of simple islands rising from the sea. Occasionally undercut walls fall into the sea, taking with them blankets of vegetation and revealing stark new faces.

Additionally, water soaking into the rock absorbs carbon dioxide released form roots put down by jungle vegetation, forming carbonic acid that dissolves the limestone as it moves downward. When water seeps out of the sides and base of the towers and evaporates, it forms tufas and stalactites as minerals are left behind. In the meantime, hollow spaces left behind in the towers eventually collapse in on themselves, creating massive sinkholes that will eventually connect with the bay to become lagoons.

Local legend ditches all the fancy science and informs us that Once Upon a Time pirates attacked, sending the island into terror. A huge dragon descended from the sky, spewing fireballs and jewels and jade into the bay as she destroyed the invaders. Islands were raised in a maze to keep invaders at bay in the future, causing shipwrecks when attempts were made. The dragon’s children then decided to remain in the bay, living beneath the water among the towers.

Given the breathy trumpets released from the rock as waves move in to fill caves and tunnels, this legend seems almost plausible.

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Some time later we clamber from our junk boat onto a smaller tender boat from the channel’s center between a couple of smaller karsts, past an archway and onto tide-dependent oyster-covered rocks onto Moody Beach, ringed by vertical walls. A small patch of jungle divides the beach, doubling as cover for a narrow, winding bunker that hid artillery during the war. We spend the next three hours setting climbs and belaying customers, coaching them through the fear, uncertainty and unfamiliar body movement that I remember so clearly from my first days on the wall. I’m reminded daily of the trust given to us as we tie unfamiliar knots through our customers’ harnesses, threading rope through oddly shaped metal devices and instruct them, an hour after our lives intersect, to place their lives in our hands. 

The point is driven home today, especially, as I've woken to discover a friend’s death in a mountaineering accident overnight in Alaska. I’ve never dealt with death easily, and this is the first time I’ve experienced the loss of a friend my age. It’s also the first time I’ve been in this situation far from home. Even not having crossed paths with Dasan for some time, the news of his fall wrenches me. Dasan was a careful, extremely competent and experienced climber, full of passion and genuine good. He was an absolute inspiration, and I would have put my life in his hands without hesitation. I still would.

It’s so important to remember that we’re human– and to double- and triple-check everything that we do. Everyone makes mistakes. Recognizing the blind faith and confidence given to us by the vast majority of our customers is humbling.

And so I think today about the lives I hold in my own hands, and how Dasan’s passing has reminded me once again to live life to the fullest. I like to believe he’s at peace in the mountains.

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After lunch, the climbing guides normally hop on a smaller basket boat to “Castaway Island,” where Vietnam Backpackers hosts dozens of young(er) adults in a day and night, or two, or three, of continuous drinking and debauchery. We pick up a predetermined (yet most definitely susceptible to change) number of climbers, ferry them to another beach and set a different pair of routes, practicing patience and tact at their highest levels along the way. I suppose the folks who board our basket boat constitute the higher-IQ population the island, since they’ve foregone the more popular “Booze Cruise” (beer most definitely not free) to let us put them on rope and experience something a little different in life. Ergo, we find ourselves unsurprised when faced with a very hairy-chested man in a teeny tiny pink and black string bikini, holding a beer as he attempts to jump through a hula hoop on the beach.

Today, however, I’m shown clearly how quickly and fully I’ve been welcomed as family amongst Asia Outdoors and our boat crew. As I finally have a chance to begin processing the news of Dasan’s passing, taking a moment to cry on a colleague’s shoulder, the crew vehemently insist that I return to town and another staff member step into my overnight shift on the boat (we’ve got people who’ve signed up to sleep under the stars). I turn down compassionate offers from other guides on the boat and we come to a compromise, shuffling guides so I can take the afternoon for myself. Once the afternoon kayakers have been sent off, Anh Son builds me a nest in the low-ceilinged cabin above the captain’s seat and kitchen, which I’m pretty sure is his small territory on the boat. His ever-present smile touched with concern, he beckons me through the low door and insists I sleep. And so I do, waking to the kayakers’ return and able to fully enjoy the evening as we eat a feast of squid, fish, fruit, rice and spring rolls; drink whiskey and beer; sing karaoke (English songs primarily selected by the Vietnamese present, consisting of christmas carols, the YMCA and Nsync), and play cards on a floating house (above the planks that hide Bova’s ridiculously giant lucky grouper) before settling down for the night on thin pads and beneath the comforting weight of thick blankets on the top deck.

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The bay has stilled. Dogs bark in the distance, an occasional basket boat passes through the channel, and light seeps around the surrounding karsts as the junk boat rotates gently on the water’s glassy surface above our anchor.