This was supposed to be a post on my Krabi trip, 1 – 8 Jan 2014. However, as I've yet to complete drafting the entry and it has been over a month now, I'm posting this up in parts. Hopefully this will inspire myself, being my own most avid reader (yes I do realize how sad that sounds), to complete the other parts in my effort to chronicle some of my trip memories as well as useful info for (again, my #storyofmylife) future reference. Not sure how that works - is the reader me supposed to wait with bated breath as the writer me chews on the metaphoric rubber end of my metaphoric pencil? I mean, both of me know the same things so... Whatever, here it goes:
What a way to bring in a new year! Should this become a personal tradition? Experiencing something I never had before on the first day of every new year? A way to refresh and inject some energy into the next 365 days (or so)?
 |
| Ton Sai Beach Photo Credit: Zhuo Yi |
The Climbing
At the heart of it, this was to be a climbing trip. In
retrospect, it’s the first climbing trip I’m taking with people (save two) who
hadn’t been around me when I first learnt the very ropes of climbing, technical
and otherwise – the passion for a route, the joy when overcoming your own
limitations, the focused calm and shrinking of the world into face of rock in
front of you. In short, when I first fell in love with climbing I suppose. I’m
a sentimental bugger, so it did feel somewhat momentous, as if I’m leaving that
part of my life behind and moving on (somewhere; don’t know where).
We climbed at Fire Wall on 2nd Jan (access
through a 4C “rabbit hole” from the right-most end of Ton Sai beach, when
facing the water, behind Dream Valley Info / Minimart) where I flashed the
first pitch of 25m Groovetube (6A I
think, plenty of bridging and small-ish footholds) and 30m For
Helga (6A+, a long warm climb with a dodgy over-a-smooth-boulder ending). The
route grades were within my comfort zone and I’d envisioned slowly moving out
of it like a crab gingerly peeking out of its shell as we climbed more over the
days. We met and talked to other climbers at / passing through Fire Wall. The
families and couples are much friendlier than the groups of dudes, whom I guess
may be too focused on their routes/projects to pay other people much heed.
On 3rd Jan, we ventured over to Railay but the
search for a wall did not go as seamlessly as hoped. It was high tide, so
access to Thaiwand Wall (Railay Beach West on the left-most side when facing
the water) through a trek into the jungle was blocked. We tried walking over to
Escher Wall, passing One-Two-Three Wall (easy routes, crowded as heck) in a big
round around the island thanks to luxurious (compared with Ton Sai) gated
resorts sprawled across Railay. Upon reaching Escher Wall after wading through
waist-high waters (high tide), we discovered that many of the bolts on the
routes within our “gradability” were rusty and a climber belaying at the only
other do-able route discouraged us from climbing those. Bummer. However, as
luck would have it, we spotted 2 men walking purposefully past Escher Wall and
heading towards the cave. Knowing that there’s a throughway via the cave to Thaiwand
Wall on the other side, we enquired as to their destination and found out that one
of the guys is from Singapore and the other was bringing him through the cave to
the Thaiwand Wall side. Bingo! We followed; it was a 15-20min journey of mostly
darkness, and rappelled down the other side to Thaiwand Wall. Yippee! SY, Jason,
Crystal and I attempted Circus Oz, a 6a+,
6b+, 7a, 6b multi-pitch and made it past the first pitch before Jason climbed
the 2nd route himself. Brushed up on our technical knowledge of
multi-pitching (ropes, draws issues). Fu Zhuo, Zhuo Yi and Lydia worked on the
first pitch of Caveman, a 6a+, 7a+
multi-pitch. If we’d had more time (ie. arrived earlier) and were more pro (ie.
had trained harder) it would have been nice to try more routes on this wall,
including Equatorial (6c) which a
lady highly recommended at Fire Wall. Thaiwand Wall is well-known as a “classic”
and “must-try” for Krabi climbing, so I’m glad I encountered it and hopefully
can do better on its routes next time.
 |
| View of Ton Sai Beach from atop a route Photo Credit: Lydia |
 |
| Multi pitching party on Thaiwand Wall overlooking Railay Beach Photo Credit: Si Ying |
On 4th Jan, I did my scariest shit of the trip –
Deep Water Solo. We’d made reservations on the night on 2nd Jan (3rd
Jan was fully booked by then) and gathered at 10.20am at Basecamp Tonsai DWS
hut to select some old climbing shoes. The longtail brought us to 2 climbing
sites, with routes marked out and all, with lunch and some basic snorkelling
(aka looking at fish and luring them with rice) at nearby Poda Island in
between. The first site was already crowded by the time we arrived, with people
lining up (in the water) at the dangling rope which would assist us in getting
onto the rocks. The climbing part was okay, after getting over the discomfort
of lack of chalk and wet rock. It was the deliberate fall into the waters below
that was bloody scary. At the first site, I fell from conservative heights of I
think roughly 4 metres. Scary, but as there wasn’t much time to think during
the relatively short fall, it was quickly over. At the second site, there were
far fewer people. I was half-hearted about going up again, but Lydia was going
and she didn’t want to go it alone (FZ and Jason had already gone ahead) so I
joined her canoe over to the rock. First, we climbed a 6a. The route was easy
enough (less than 6a I think) and the rock here was dry, so that felt more reassuring.
But the route ended SO high up; Lydia and I perched at the top on a small ledge
and wondered aloud if we would dare jump from here. We did not (It. Was. Crazy.
High.), and eventually down-climbed (who would’ve thought!) back where Lydia
proceeded to try a 6b and I held back, intending to jump down soon. But she did
the 6b pretty smoothly, with some guidance from the boatman in a canoe below
“Lower! Go lower!” and reached across the water from the wall to an overhanging
stalactite where she perched happily in the shade. Emboldened and tempted by
her climb, I climbed over too. The cross over to the stalactite must have
sapped every ounce of bravery I might have had in my being. There were no
“absolutely good” handholds from which I could comfortably hang to cross my
feet over from, and I would need to bridge across the waters way below. Cursing
hotly (I could hear the guy after me traversing the 6b doing the same thing,
with desperation, and with every single breath he was taking) I somehow managed
to bridge over and pull myself onto the stalactite where Lydia and I perched
and asked ourselves why in the freaking world we’d be doing something this
crazy. Finally jumped again (it’s the only way but boy did I take a long time
mustering the courage) but it wasn’t as clean a fall as previously and I hurt
my butt a bit. Don’t ask how; water has a force of its own.
 |
| Deep Water Solo - We were crapping our pants up there Photo Credit: Zhuo Yi |
After 2 rest days from climbing, we decided to attempt Humanality (6a+, 6b, 6b+, 6b, 6a), the
famous multi-pitch on Ton Sai Wall. The first pitch would begin 15 metres above
ground, and we discovered it takes a damn real while for 5 people to
multi-pitch together, and a damn lot of water to do it on a sun-drenched wall
(it was in the shade till 1pm; we started around 11 or 12?). In the end, we
managed 2 pitches of feeble attempts of communication (“I can hear that she’s
shouting, but not what she’s saying!” and “Is he up? He’s been pulling at the
rope for a while now, should I remove it from belaying device” were some
potentially life-threatening conversations we had) and the hot hot HOT sun
sapping all traces of H2O from our bodies and burning up our rubber-bound feet.
We survived, after some heat-induced anxiety and angst, and were met with
NESTLE WATER, GATORADE and MANGO LASSI upon reaching back on the ground. Heaven
on earth. There being no more time (and us having no more energy) to head over
to Cobra Wall that day, we ambled over to the beach where Jason, FZ and Si Ying
took on the notorious lunge on Beauty and
the Beast (6c, due to said lunge) amid a growing crowd of curious
on-lookers. Jason made friends with a climber on the adjacent route, which he
later climbed as well, then headed over on his recommendation to a 7a at dusk
where the rest of us witnessed his “levelling up” while being attacked by
blood-suckers on the beach. Mozzies 1 – Speed of applying repellent 0. We had dinner
at Ton Sai Bay Resort with the climbing couple, Richard and Magda from Austria,
and found out about their other adventures, like climbing in Kalymnos, Greece
and Turkey. Wanderlust activated!
 |
| Gearing up for the popular Humanality on Ton Sai Wall Photo Credit: Zhuo Yi |
(Planned) parts to come:
The Traveling &
Other Activities
The Falling Ill
The Company
The Logistics
No comments:
Post a Comment