Wow. I just got back from an AMAZING day of rock climbing. We all piled into 2 rot dangs (our beloved red buses, run by the mafia) and drove 45 minutes out of Chiang Mai to a place called Crazy Horse. It's known by this name because at the top of the cliffs, there is a rock formation which look somewhat like a horse. (I couldn't see the resemblance... maybe you will?) We got there at about 9 and split into two groups (the Tigers and the Monkeys, each complete with team cheers and hand signals!) We then split up and headed out to different parts of the cliffs.
Our group, the Tigers, headed over to some of the easier routes to get warmed up and started ascending with a great deal of enthusiasm. I've only ever climbed on indoor walls, so I was particularly excited to clamber up my first real rock. My friend Ben and I were sharing shoes (there were limited numbers of various sizes) so I started out just belaying him as he raced up the wall with incredible finesse. I wasn't quite so suave in my climb, but I was really excited that I made it to the top. There were some really tricky parts, including avoiding bees nests, but I let out our team's roar when I made it to the top! The French climbers who were further down the cliffs gave us quite strange looks as we let out growls and roars all the way up!!
(starting the climb)
(treacherous bees' nests)
After a few gorgeous climbs up the rocks (the views from the top were absolutely amazing,) we headed back down to the basecamp to have ourselves a quintessential Thai lunch of fried rice and spicy chicken! Pi Aaron (one of the trip leaders) and John (a NOLS leader we recruited a week ago) were with our group and regailed us with hilarious stories of Critical Mass and John's attempts to become a Mai Thai pro!
Then, after lunch, we headed up to the caves in the cliff for an exciting afternoon of spelunking! We began by hiking pretty high up to reach the caves, before climbing a small cliff to reach the mouth of the caves. From this point, we each began a Tyrolean Traverse across the gorge of the cave. A Tyrolean Traverse is somehwat like a zipline, but using caribeners, rather than a zipline device. Once we traversed about 100m we switched over onto a new belay device and rappeled down another 100m!! (A rappel is when you lower yourself down on a self-controlled belay device, generally through thin air. Awesome!) Once we had lowered ourselves down, we found ourselves in a stunning cave, with beautiful sunlight pouring in from a hole far above where we'd entered the cave. We hung out for about an hour, waiting for everyone to make it across, and then hiked onward to another cave. In this cave, we talked about the formations of caves and stalactites, and paid respect to the Buddha who lives in the cave. This cave is a haven for traveling monks, so there were lots of candles and rings of stones, from where they stayed to rest.
By the end of all this, we were pretty filthy, so we were quite a bedraggled bunch as we headed back to ISDSI in our rot dang. Our host parents then picked us up and we headed back home for a very Thai weekend!!!
(I'll add some pictures to this as soon as I can find a camera cable to upload my pictures! You'll be able to get a better idea of how amazing the climbing was!)
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