Three and a half hours southwest of Hanoi a long, narrow
valley curves and twists amongst the mountains near the Vietnamese- Laotian
border. A small river meanders through gently terraced rice paddies which blaze
green from the valley floor, disappearing from sight as they curl around bends.
Light bamboo forest bordering the valley gives way to steep slopes laid thick
with jungle.
Along the valley’s single main road lies the town of Mai
Chau, a kilometer of pho restaurants, old motorbikes (decals tell us there’s a
Mai Chau Minsk Club), scattered bakeries and ladies selling fruit and a tiny
bus station.
Up and down the valley from Mai Chau, slim concrete causeways
cut across rice paddies to scattered Hmong villages, houses clustered by the
dozen or two under the bamboo. Raised on stilts to avoid the monsoon’s
floodwaters, the houses’ intricate woodwork shines gold in the morning sun.
I’m in Mai Chau with Dan, a colleague, to head up guiding
for one of Vietnam’s international schools on an annual “cooperation and
teamwork” trip. Call it a working vacation, if you will– I’m back in the
mountains for the first time in a long, long while.
We have two main missions while we’re here: first, to work
alongside local guides with the international school. Sons and daughters of
diplomats, ministers and Vietnam’s elite, they come from countries and
backgrounds all over the world. Over the course of two days the six of us– four
guides from Mai Cahu Lodge, Dan and myself– tie in ninety 12-year-olds and
several teachers, coaching them up the wall at the local crag.
Some kids struggle: a boy who excels in math and traditional
Chinese schooling can barely make it off the ground. Some kids unused to being
pushed balk at grabbing the sharp rock. Some climb with ease.
And others shock their teachers in the best way possible. A
girl struggling with learning disabilities in the classroom, wearing a dozen
friendship bracelets (“they’ll be all the way to my elbow before I leave!”)
pulls herself together to concentrate more fully than her teachers have ever
witnessed. A slight boy to whom carbs and gravity simply don’t apply overcomes
initial terror to display the most natural movement I’ve ever seen from anyone
their first time on the rock, utilizing advanced technique without coaching.
Later he returns to try the same route again, climbing without a single fall.
His teachers tell me the boy is so scatterbrained he often doesn’t know where
he is in space as he walks down the hall. His mother has almost given up on
him. They’re going home to tell her to get him climbing– it may well finally
introduce positivity, confidence and success into his life.
It’s been almost a year since I worked with kids this age.
The work is still utterly exhausting. However, it also reminds me of the fulfillment
I get through helping kids discover the outdoors and exit their comfort zones
as they get out of the classroom to explore the world around them.
Our second objective this week is to check over the Mai Chau
Lodge’s climbing gear. Sine the lodge and Asia Outdoors share a parent company,
we outfit the lodge and ensure gear is replaced as needed. It’s an easy job;
the guides are meticulous in their work and climbing gear is almost obsessively
cared for, catalogues and kept immaculate.
For three evenings, we live in luxury at the lodge. We swim
in the pool beneath the stars. We bask in fully functioning air conditioning
and soft beds with even softer comforters and lightning-fast wifi. We cycle
into the nearby village to feast on platters of banana flower salad and meat
rolled in leaves and dumplings and fried chicken. We wander through alleys full of scarves and looms where women weave beneath hanging lightbulbs. And in the morning we wake
surrounded by mountains. The sun emerges as mist curls through the valley over
rice farmers in wide bamboo hats as they begin the day’s work in fields of
green.
