Deep water soloing and Blind folded climbing

(Sydney International Airport 1:30pm 10.28.08)
Early next morning (10.2.08) I was woke up by Jess lightly knocking on my door “Tim…. Tim” I answered and she asked if I could work again. I agreed and quickly got ready and grabbed breakfast. This time I was sent to do the transfer by myself and when we got back to tiger beach I was also sent out on the kayak tour by myself. I thought to myself, “wow, that was a quick training period!” I had around 16 kayakers and this time several people bought the photo package. I took them the same route we had done the day before it was quite challenging keeping everyone together with only one guide. After our break on the beach we headed back to the boat however two kayaks were trailing pretty far behind. The number were uneven so I had a girl on the front of my kayak and she had cut her finger while at the beach so she couldn’t paddle. I yelled back to the two kayaks to come along, they had tied their kayaks together and were playing tug-a-war. The lead kayaks had already made their way around a corner so I could no longer see them, which worried me a lil bit. I spun around and paddled to the trailing kayaks who didn’t listen and were still tied together. “Un-tie the f*cking kayaks and start paddling, the rest of the group is already around the corner!” Then I hightailed it back to the rest of the group. When I got around the corner I shocked to find that one of the kayaks was full of water and barely afloat while another couple was trying to help them get it back out of the water. Apparently they thought it would be funny to flip their friends kayak over in the middle of the channel. There was obviously no thought about the fact that these sit inside kayaks could easily fill up with water! The rest of the group was sitting in their kayaks watching and making jokes so I told them to paddle back to the boat around the corner. I honestly didn’t think we were going to be able to get the boat back out of the water. However we some how managed, after several unsuccessful attempts, to get just enough water out to allow them to paddle back. Back on the boat I told Slo and Jess about my kayak tour from hell and started to question whether or not I was willing to be a kayak guide. The problem is that is in Southeast Asia people get accustomed to not having any rules. In countries like these pretty much anything goes if you are a westerner spending money. So I would basically be dealing with college aged kids that were are just looking to get shit faced and party everyday, most of who are hung over or drinking on the kayak tour. I big difference than the cliental I’m use to on Maui. Later at the bar I decided rather than refusing drinks when people offer to buy me a shot, I’d just do a shot of “vodka” (water in a vodka bottle) and keep the money from the shot. I ended up making a decent amount of money with my new plan coupled with the tip jar I decided to put out. Next morning (10.3.08) I went out on the tour myself. There were no climbers and only two kayakers. I decided that rather than taking the normal route I would start to explore the area a little bit. I decided to bring Mr. Tien a Vietnamese guy along as a safety incase we got lost in the maze of islands so he could speak to some of the fisherman and get us back where we needed to be. After lunch I gave the guys the option to kayak more, hang at the beach or head back to Cat Ba early since they were the only ones on the tour. They opted to head back early. When I got back Jess and Luke were on their way to climb at the harbor so I tagged along to take pictures and attempt some more climbing. I tried a route called “animal” which is rated 7B and got shut down not even half way up. It was a pretty technical climb they told me and I realized that climbing is a very humbling sport! With only two people on the tour it proved to be a quiet night at the bar so I closed around 11pm so I could get some sleep. Next Morning (10. 4.08) I woke up around 11am and used the day to catch up on emails that had been neglected due to my work all day and all night schedule I had the 3 days prior. In the afternoon Luke, Dinh and I headed back to the harbor for some climbing. I was really disappointed as I began to climb and realized the shoes I had on had almost no grip whatsoever. I made it where I had been shut down the day before but only attempted it once before giving up due to the shitty shoes I had on. I really didn’t have a shot in the world making any progress with those shoes on. I caught a ride back to Noble house with the tour group that had just pulled up to the dock and got ready for a night at the bar. Next morning (10.5.08) it was back to the old routine of waking up at 7am to play kayak guide. Another small group of 3 allowed for more exploring of new routes and I was thoroughly impressed with what I had found. Towards the beginning of the tour I saw a small A-frame passage through the side of one of the islands that were able to paddle through. Then around the corner I found a nice rock face that looked perfect for deep water solo’ing. Solo’ing is when you climb without harness or ropes and deep water just means you do it over water so when you fall or let go you simply hit water instead of rocks! We paddled on and found a beach to stop. I swam across the channel and attempted to do some solo’ing on another face but wasn’t able to get more that 10 feet up the wall. Which was probably good since the water wasn’t sooo deep. I fell once and cut myself on the oyster shells on the rocks underwater which convinced to give up. As we paddled back I asked the guys if they would be ok with me attempting to solo the first face I found. They agreed so I showed one of them how to work my camera and paddled over to the wall. I started the climb from my kayak and was soon about 40 feet up the wall. It looked a lot higher from up there. I decided that it was probably high enough and leaped outwards for the water below!!! Back at boat we joined the climbers for lunch and I pitched them on a photo package for climbing. There was one taker so I climbed the 5th route and took pictures as she climbed up the 4th. They turned out pretty good and I was able to get some pics of Luke and Tim climbing a separate, harder, route as well. Somehow we got to betting on who could climb which routes and so on, I ended up betting Joe that he couldn’t climb the 5th route blindfolded and to my surprise he took the bet. The prize: one pack of oriel cookies! The negotiations over the rules began: “ok you only get 10 minutes” I told him. “No, no, no. No time limit. And Luke gets to coach me through it” he responded. “Ok 15 minutes and Luke can only tell you whether you are hot or cold” I countered. We finally settled on 18 minutes and Luke only being able to say the two words: Hot or Cold. To mine, and I think everyone there’s, surprise…. He actually climbed the entire route blind folded!!!! Now is a good time to mention that Joe was once one of the top climbers in the world. Again after 10 hours at "work" i ended the night with another night at the bar!

Wanna get high?

(Sydney International Airport 12:45pm 10.28.08)
Next Morning (9.30.08) we woke up around 11 a.m. and made our way down for breaky. The Vietnamese girls that worked at the Noble House commented on my “very good friend”, telling me how beautiful she was. I downplayed it and told them she was just a “good friend” and “yeah, she looks ok”. They got a kick out of me. After breaky I called Antwon and he brought a motorbike over for us to use. I had got reprimanded by Slo for using Tim’s motorbike the day before without asking for first. I figured it was ok since me and Mr. ha had used it earlier and I had filled the tank with 200,000 VND worth of gas. We decided to go to the Cat Ba National Park and go on a hike to the observation tower. On our trek through the woods we kept hearing and loud banging noise like someone slamming a heavy object against a metal container. After about an hour trek we reached the observation tower and realized what the noise had been. One of the pieces of sheet metal was loose on the roof and slamming back and forth in the strong winds. The tower looked soooooo dodgy (dodgy is a new word I’ve learned which is equivalent to sketchy) but we climbed it anyways. It had to be at least 150 ft high and when we got to the top we noticed that the boards on the floor of the observation deck weren’t even secured down. They were just sitting across the metal support beams and some were missing!!! We took few minutes to take in the 360 views of the island and then made our way back down. It was another busy night at the bar, I guess since there weren’t tours for a few days due to the storm they were having larger groups now. Again the talent at the bar made me wish I didn’t already have a guest in my room, who was strictly just a friend…not a “very good friend” as the Vietnamese would say. Next morning (10.01.08) I was woke up by Kat who told me that Slo had just come to the door asking if I wanted to work for them today. I was confused and in a sleepy stupor made my way downstairs to see what was up. He told me they needed me to work the day after next as a kayak guide and could train today if I was up for it. I was suppose to go climbing with Luke but decided getting out in the water for a paddle would amazing since I hadn’t paddled in nearly a month. I quickly ate breakfast and joined the rest of the people on the tour. Kat decided the night before that she was leaving today so it actually worked out quite well. I went with Jess on the boat to transfer the guest from the day before for the new guest while Tim, Slo and Dinh set the ropes up for the rock climbers. When we got back to Tiger beach I was told I would be going out on the Kayak tour with Dinh to see how the tours are run. We had about 10 people who had signed up for a kayak tour and there were another dozen or so that signed up for the rock climbing tour. I offered the guest a photo package, just as I do on Maui, however instead of $60 per CD the price was drastically reduced to $7 per CD to coincide with the prices of Vietnam. Surprisingly I got one couple to take advantage of the offer. Dinh lead the tour and I followed the last kayak, every once in a while paddling up to take pictures of my guest. We paddled through a maze of islands and stopped on a secluded lil beach so the guest could go for a swim and relax a lil bit. The kayaks were sit inside kayaks that weighed close to 100lbs and had seen better days; some even had holes in them! After about a 30 minute break we paddled back to the boat for lunch where we were joined by the rock climbers. After lunch we took a motorized basket boat to Tiger Beach for the second set of climbs for the climbers while the kayakers were able to hang out and relax on the beach or boat. Tiger beach is a small stretch of beach about 100-150 yards and Tim, one of the climbing guides, had made a makeshift house on the beach. He lives there along with two other Vietnamese workers. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was working for a rock climbing company and I asked if I could try climbing one of the routes. The climbers had already climbed 3 routes on an island across from tiger beach while we were kayaking. They get to do 5 climbs and each one gets harder as they go along. Only about 80 percent of the group usually attempts the 4th climb and only about 20 percent attempt the 5th climb. Of those that attempt the 5th climb only about 15 percent actually make it up. So naturally for my first climb ever, I went for the 5th climb!! It’s rated a 6B, whatever that means. I eventually made it to the top after falling twice! Around 430pm we loaded back on the boat and headed to Cat Ba island. The guest checked into their hotel and met at the noble house for dinner while I took a shower, grabbed dinner and headed to the bar for another long night at work.

Kat, Bats and Caves

Next morning (9.29.08) I woke up at 7am to see the tour group off and meet Kat. The Hanoi Backpacker tours also eat breakfast at the Noble house before they jump back on the boat for Hanoi. After breaky Kat dropped her bags in my room and we took off to explore the island. I had worked out an agreement with Mr. Antwon, Ms. Oanh’s brother who owned another hotel and rented motorbikes, that if I sent travelers to his hotel and got them to rent motorbikes from him, he’d give me free motorbike’s for my use whenever I needed provided that I paid for the gas. However I decided to take Tim’s motorbike, an old beat up Minsk (sp?) Motorcycle from Russia. It had to be kick started, had no horn, lights or signals!! It was my kind of bike! As we drove down the road we passed the bunker we explored on the first day and just passed it on the other side was a locked gate with a sign stating there was a cave. I pulled in and stashed the bike in some bushes out of sight; did I mention the bike doesn’t need a key to be started? We jumped the locked gate and walked briskly up the pathway. When we got to opening we were surprised by another locked gate. This time we had to shimmy around the side of it, hanging over a cliff! Once inside we realized we hadn’t planned this out to well, since it was pitch black and didn’t have a flashlight. I used the flash on my camera to light up the tunnels as we cautiously explored the first couple of chambers. I then remembered that my cell phone had a small light on the top!! I turned it on and it was actually bright enough to illuminate the pathways enough for us to press on into the mountain. It was moist and narrow in some areas and everyone once in a while we would hear the flapping of wings swooping by our heads and duck! The passages just kept going and going. We I stopped momentarily to take pictures but was trying to keep a good pace as Kat was starting to get weary and wanted to turn around. We eventually made it to a section where we were being dive bombed by bats every two seconds and had to pass thru a low tunnel that they were flying out of. I decided that maybe this was far enough! I somehow convinced Kat to push thru it with me. On the other side I used the flash on my camera to get a better look around and was shocked by what I saw… there were literally hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling of the cave and wires that lights ran along (the power to the lights was off) right above our heads. I took a pic and then decided to try to get a lil closer for another. I kept inching closer with each picture and was amazed that the bats weren’t bothered by the flash which was literally 6 inches from them. Every once in a while a bat would take off and send me falling to floor to get out of the way. Kat meanwhile was definitely ready to get out of the caves so we turned back made our way out. After working our way back around the gate, Kat slipped on the slimy stairs and nearly busted her head open. She did get some nice scrapes and bruises. I made my way around and in suit slipped as well; I miraculously was able to stay upright as one foot after the other slipped out from under me as if I was running in place trying to get a foot planted. Back on the motorcycle we headed to the same harbor I saw the day before and then made our way to a fish farm for lunch. Jess had told me about a cute lil restaurant on a fish farm where they will let you catch your own fish and then cook it for you. We looked for the bamboo structure as Jess had described it and were more than happy when we finally arrived. I was about to eat my hand and Kat’s stomach had already been eating itself for the last two hours! We were greeted by a not so friendly dog, that later took a liking to me, followed by Vin who was the son of the family that ran the restaurant/farm. He gave us bamboo poles with a line tied to end and he stuck a blade of grass on the hook for our bait. The line had a small piece of styrofoam which was the bobber. I threw my line out and was robbed of my bait three times in rapid succession. Eat time the Styrofoam dipped down I pulled back on the poll but just came up with a clean hook. Vin asked if I wanted him to show me how to catch a fish. I agreed despite my ego yelling “No, I think I can handle catching a fish in a fish farm, thanks” Vin threw the line out and in a second had a huge fish on the hook. He handed the pole to Kat who proceeded to pull the fish in. Vin took it off the hook and let her pose for photo opts before taking it to the kitchen to cook it for us. Now I was determined to catch a fish. I grabbed some more bait and cast away. On my second attempt I got a strong bite. This time I waited a second before I pulled to set the hook and it worked!!!! I too pulled in a fish, a lil bigger than Vins too, if you ask me anyways. Feeling no that my pride had been restored I walked to the waters edge to where I noticed a small wooden boat with a bamboo pole. I had seen people using this style boat on TV the night before and felt that was all the training I needed to give it a go. I stepped in and used the pole to push myself along in the pond, similar to the way a gondola boat is pushed down the canal. The light breeze made it a lil challenging to keep it going straight but by the time I was done I felt I had mastered the art of bamboo boat pushing. Lunch was ready and it was absolutely amazing; steamed FRESH fish with veggies and rice. After lunch we made our way to the harbor I came in at when we pulled up I noticed a few basket boats tied to the shore. These were the basket boats that the Vietnamese used to paddle in the ocean with two oars. I had wanted to try it out so I asked the people how much it would cost to give it a go. He told me 200,000 VND! I laughed and told him 20,000 and the game began. He dropped his price and I slowly raised mine and we eventually agreed on 50,000 VND which was still pretty expensive. The small basket boat had seen better days and had a huge hole up front which let plenty of water spill in. It was a lot harder than those small Vietnamese ladies make it look!! And the wind that started blowing didn’t make it much easier either. I couldn’t even figure out how to do it. I started at first by facing forward in the boat and pushing the oars handles forward thru the water, that didn’t seem to work so well so I turned around. Now I was facing backwards and pulling the oar handles towards me thru the water, but I kept hitting my knees with the handles. Finally after an attempted rescue by two boys in another basket boat I untied one oar and used it like a stand up paddle out of desperation. This actually worked but with the wind we spun around several times. I took the boat back to shore half full of water and in worse shape then I took it. They seemed happy with the 50,000 VND and we later joked that they laughed to themselves “we were gonna sell that piece of crap for 25,000 VND anyways!” We returned to the Noble house and got ready for my night behind the bar. It turned out to be a fairly busy night with a large tour group from Hanoi Backpackers. There were some really cute girls in the group and I definitely doubted my decision to let Kat spend the night with me! I closed the bar around 1am and headed to bed.