Climbing climbing climbing yep, up early and headed out for Breakfast, 9am I was to meet at the climbing shop and then we would be off for the morning, I was ready for breakfast 1 hour before and had ordered as soon as I arrived, time ticket by, now I know Asians have a totally different clock to everyone else and it works a lot slower than a normal clock, but I had been waiting for over half an hour and still no food. Time was ticking away. Finally I had had enough and asked where was breakfast was, the girl who had taken my order looked at me as though she had never seen me before the a spark lit up her face and she goes, “Muesli fruit yogurt” well done were the hell is it, she turns and walks off, and does not bother to come back, its now close to 9am, finally at 5 minutes to 9 she brings my breakfast and looks at me as though I should not have had a problem, So at Ya ya resort waiting one hour for food is normal. Great. Get there before you are hungry and order then by the time you get your food, you might feel like eating it, chances are you will feel like something else by then.
Back to the climbing
There was four of us heading out climbing, 2 French guys a kiwi girl and myself with our guild Nong, the tide was in so we had to head to the inland cliffs to climb, not I was the only one in the group who had climbed before so had to head up the wall first. The first climb was about 20meters the rock is pretty good to climb on and offers hand holds, easy rock to climb on, which I have to say was quite nice to start out on. Tania the Kiwi girl was next and she had a great time going up the wall but did make a lot of noise, fear is such a wonderful thing, it fact I did not think she would go up again, but when she finally got back down she had a big smile on her face. Must have had fun.
Then one of the French guys climbed, it was his first climb as well and he made it up not to bad for a first timer, when he came down though he was nothing but complaining, our guide Nong was belaying him and he was just complain complain complain, the rope was not tight enough, Nong was not watching enough, he had not told him were to go what to do, on and on it went, I ended up jumping in and helping Nong out and explaining to the French guy why he was not looking all the time and finally I got him to understand but it did take a while.
We only managed to do three climbs in the morning and I was not really that impressed with how many we did, Nong was really cool, the French guy was still complaining and asking how much to do the rest of the day, our guide keep saying 800baht to them then when we were walking back he said to me if I wanted to do the rest of the day I could do it for 500baht, which sounded pretty good to me so I booked in for the afternoon.
After a very yummy chicken soup for lunch we headed off again but this time we were climbing in the harbor area, we had to wait for the tide to go out a bit before we could climb. We had lost the French and gained a German couple. I belayed while our Nong went up and set up the first climb, it was about 25 meters and gave great views out over the bay, I had Tania belaying me so as I do when I am being belayed by someone new I jumped off the rock to make sure they are ok with how everything works, the rope had a little more stretch then I thought, I was maybe two to three meters off the ground and made it right back down, luckily with the rope stretch softened my landing, but I must have had a bit of a shocked look on my face because Nong asked me if I was alright, yep no problems, I managed to do the climb with no problems but the top 5 meters were pretty tricky but I struggled through.
The rest climbed it at different rates of speed and some with a lot of encouragement from Nong, we had set up another climb and I whipped up that pretty quick, it was a easy climb with lots of ledges to sit on and rest not that I really needed to so just bounded up the rock. We set another climb up which started up a stalactite and carried on up that for 15 meters of so then finished with a bit flatish rock at the end. It was a really good climb the hardest part was the start but the rest was really nice with good moves and nice hand holds. The last climb of the day I was going to lead up, had to remember how to lead climb and what to do at the top, managed the climb fairly easily but half way I got a bit of cramp in my hands it was about time to call it quits for the day, I managed to get up the rest of the climb, when I made it to the top I got set up and changed the rope over I had unclicked the quick draw holding me to the wall and then because my fingers were tired I dropped it. Luckily it missed everyone and dropped to the floor.
So that was all for me that day, my hands were tired but the rest of me was in good health. We headed back and Tania headed off on the boat as she was staying in Ao Nang, me and the Germans stopped for a drink and chatted for an hour, then I headed off for a shower and so did they, we were going to meet up for dinner. By the time I got back for dinner I was starving so made my order, I was lucky there was a crowd of people after me. I sat down the then the Germans arrived and ordered their dinner, mine came within about 45 minutes so not too bad it was over an hour and a half before the Germans dinner came, by that time I had ordered a Banana Pancake and eaten that, lets just say they were not impressed.
What was funny was when we were working out the bill and who paid what I was taking it apart and all of a sudden there were three of them around me looking at me as though I had just killed there first born child, it was unbelievable. Makes some of the restaurants in Auckland look good really. It is one thing the Asians really have not got down yet on a whole is customer service. One day maybe one day.
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