Green Climber's Home, Part 2

08 Feb Green Climber’s Home, Part 2

Posted at 06:34h in Blog, Personal, Travel by Mallory 1 Comment

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Climbing, climbing, and more climbing. Socializing. Card games and Speedminton. Yoga, acro, slack lining. Occasional bonfires, music, and deep conversations between different languages and cultural backgrounds.

Life is easy at Green Climber’s Home. Vividly painted butterflies follow you up steep routes, and the biggest challenges are avoiding manure on your way back for lunch and protecting gear or snacks from the wandering goats and cows. Their bells clang in the distance, giving the place a monastic feeling.

It’s what some of us call paradise, and many people stay for weeks or months at a time. I have been here for almost 3 weeks now and I feel it is time to move on. I could stay much longer exploring local swimming holes and challenging myself yet further in climbing, but I am in Laos for the first time. I would like to see a bit of the local culture before I have to go.

I definitely feel as if I have improved these last couple of weeks. My head-space often limits me much more than my actual strength in climbing, and it’s something I have been trying to work on. Friends and strangers offer support and advice, but certain partners have been particularly helpful in forcing me out of that panic zone. Just the other day I climbed 8 routes with my friend Marleen and led all of them with no takes or falls, while she schooled me on foot placement and body position. Another day, Armand refused to ‘take’ me (so I could rest). I yell ‘take!’, he says ‘ok!’, and I fall 5 feet into open air. It definitely depends on the route as far as how scared I get, but practicing and spending time with inspiring and strong people is making a major difference. I even tried my first 6c lead climb called ‘Things That Make You Stronger’. The name is definitely appropriate.

While most days run together, a few other noteworthy (or rather, comical) events have come to pass:

Girls’ Day Out

Marleen, Sophie, and I went to a climbing area called The Canyon. It’s a long, scrambling climb in, then a vertical descent via knotted rope down a large boulder to a wooden bridge that was built as a belay stand. The walls are close, just several feet apart, and rise high to give some of the longer routes in the area. Marleen brought her fancy camera and we all had a chance to photograph each other climbing, resulting in a couple of really awesome shots. I also climbed my favorite route so far, a 6a called Kim and Struppi, where I was close enough to lean out and high five the guy climbing the wall across from me when we both reached the top.

After climbing we had a canyoneering adventure into the small drop below the bridge where I ran into some very large spiders, failed miserably at tossing some old water bottles up to the girls (I never was good at sports), and nearly died laughing. The real adventure was getting me back out, and after(quite) a few attempts with both of them pulling up slack while I jumped into the air I was finally lifted off the boulder I was standing on. There were no handholds, so I stretched my body out completely and stemmed up the wall, both legs and arms fully outstretched. It was one hell of an awesome day. I love climbing with other girls!!

Teacher Training

While hanging out in the yard outside of the restaurant I have been practicing yoga, slack lining, and handstands. A few people saw me one day and asked if I could help them or teach them how to do handstands. I thought why not, and we had a small group playing together. Someone asked me to show them something specific later on, and I think climbers were returning from their day out, because all of a sudden I had about 10 or so people asking for tips and rolling around on the ground practicing hollow body position. They all asked if I would teach a class, so I asked around and was told to just make a flyer and go for it.

I am not a teacher and have not had much experience instructing others. I made a flyer for both camps and planned to meet at the yoga studio for an hour and see how it all turned out. About 12 people showed up for the class, and it went much better than I expected. I was nervous the whole time and kept making really bad jokes, and I worried that the warm up and exercises were boring people, but that’s me being paranoid. It seemed that everyone was having a great time and the only feedback I got was that they all wished the class was longer. I’ve since done a few ‘private lessons’ for people who missed the class, and now I know that when I come back to this place a handstand weekly workshop is on the books.
Make the Dude face! Acro fun
What’s next?My shoes are wrecked and I’ve given my rope away, so climbing is out of the picture for a while. Just a small tour of southern Laos, I think. Marleen has decided to travel with me for the week, and we are tentatively planning a motorcycle loop. The real question is where to?

GCH for Dirtbags

Green Climber’s Home is a wonderful place supporting a wonderful community. However, I’m sure I’m not the only dirtbag traveling around trying to stretch my dollar, so here are a few tips to make your stay a bit thriftier.

1. Buy your own tent/hammock. My friend got a camo hammock with padding and a zip over mosquito net for about 10$ in Thakhek. Having your own sleeping arrangement is only 25,000K as compared with 50,000K for a one person or 60,000K for a two person tent that they rent you. If you stay more than a couple of days it is well worth the investment, and you can just leave it behind or pass it on if you like.

2. Rotate meals. The cheapest and heartiest things on the menu are the noodle soup or rice soup. I splurged on smoothies quite a bit, but for meals I generally rotated between two eggs and baguette (11,000K), homemade yogurt with fruit (16,000K), and the veggie noodle soup, sometimes with an egg on top (13,000K or 17,000K). I tried getting my own fruit and adding it to the plain yogurt, but it was more trouble than the couple of dollars it may have saved me. I like fruit variety.

3. Buy your own coffee. And snacks, for that matter. Nescafe is 6,000K per cup at GCH, or I got a huge jar of the powder in town for 55,000K. I also picked up a 6 pack of coconut milk (Aroy-D brand is the bomb) because that powdered milk shit is nowhere near as good. I also like to have packs of cookies around, and fruit in Thakhek is DIRT CHEAP and makes for awesome snacks. Especially the mini bananas and longan fruits.

4. Drink whiskey or beer. Large Beer Lao is only 12,000K or 1.50$, but a rather large shot of whiskey is only 4,000K or 0.50$. You can also buy an entire bottle of the stuff in town for 12,000K. Pick your poison. I drank beer mostly because I would end up finishing the whiskey too fast.

5.Pay either in Baht or in Kip at the end of your stay. I paid half and half to use up the Baht I had left, and per their conversion I ended up getting overcharged by 40,000K. I didn’t bother to argue because it’s not a big deal in the long run, but that’s another night’s lodging. Just something worth keeping in mind.

In 20 days I spent just over 200$ (just in town and at GCH, so excluding visa, SIM, and transport), and that is with smoothies and snacks and beer to keep me going. You can be thrifty dirtbags, but don’t let it steal the joy from a pineapple lassi in the middle of a sweltering day of climbing.