Dripping with sweat in the tropical heat, I heaved air into my lungs and flexed my screaming muscles. The anchor point for the rope in which I was harnessed into was only another five meters above my head but already I was higher than I’ve ever climbed on anything before. I was mentally preparing for the last surge of energy that would bring me to the top of the climbing route when I heard a rustle in the bushes and a less than friendly growl. Suddenly, a monkey the size of a house cat jumped into view and effortlessly rushed toward me on the near vertical wall. I screamed. He screeched. I screamed some more. ‘Monkey! There’s a monkey up here! AHHHHHH!’ My last terrifying yell caused the monkey to bare his fangs before disappearing silently out of sight. Dave, the cruisey and calm guy who was belaying me asked if I wanted to come down. I tried to gain some sort of composure, thought about being attacked by an 8lb monkey on his home turf, and decided not to push my luck.
Once my feet were back on horizontal ground, Connor pointed over to two others in our rock climbing party. Both Mandy (a ripped Aussie who climbs like it’s her birthright) and Katrina were climbing to our right, directly below a cave. Somehow during my short climb a clan of 40 or 50 monkeys had descended into the cave. Our friends were surrounded. To their credit, Mandy and Katrina quietly got off the wall and calmly moved away from the primate family.
That’s when the first rock flew past my head.
Confused as to how a rock had landed so close to me when I was so far from the wall, I looked up just in time to see a juvenile monkey huck a rock that nearly caught me in the shoulder. ‘Uh guys? I think the monkeys are throwing rocks at us!’ I called out.
‘Really?’ Dave asked incredulously.
‘Monkeys don’t know how to throw rocks at people.’ Connor answered, just as another rock exploded on the boulder directly in front of him. ‘Sh*t ! The monkeys are throwing rocks!’ He laughed out as he and the others rushed closer to the cliff wall and out of the monkey’s range. I waited for Curious George to leave his post (probably to reload) before making a mad dash myself.
For the better part of a half hour ,the five of us ‘superior’ primates lay helplessly pinned against a wall as a three-year-old monkey pelted rocks from his perch every minute or so. Mandy pointed out that I had started this whole guerilla warfare when earlier in the day I had thrown a rock at some monkeys who had been trying to get into our gear… I still claim innocence.
As soon as they had arrived, the crew of monkeys left and we were finally able to move from our shelter. Scanning the mouth of the cave, we noticed the smart little buggers had left two or three of their family members behind to guard the cave. Over the next hour we proceeded to climb quietly and cautiously. It seemed that without the rest of the family around we posed less of a threat. After several climbs each we finally packed up our gear and called it a day. Definitely the most exciting one in Ton Sai to date!
I arrived in the tiny climbing mecca of Ton Sai a week ago. My expectations were to check out the sights, play on the beach, watch people climb some of the most famous cliffs in the world, and just maybe - give climbing a go myself. Then I met who I refer to as the “Colorado Boys”. This crew of seven young men are a combination of childhood friends, school/work mates, and Sebastian, the token Canadian. All the boys are accomplished rock climbers with Tyson having climbed the longest and Seb having less than a year under his belt (but don’t let that fool you, he climbs things that scare me to look at). Mike and Thew (a much more original shortened Mathew) are brothers and Connor and Jeremy are their childhood friends. Dave is the groups lone-ranger who also doubles as Mike’s best friend.
The irony of meeting these boys began before I had even met them. In one of my ‘what am I going to do with my life?’ Internet searches, I had come across an adventure travel company called Bold Earth Adventures. Within minutes of surfing their website I added it to my list of “Jobs you would sell your soul to have” and thought I would look into it further when I got home. Low and behold within a half hour of meeting the Colorado Boys over lunch they began to asked the typical series of questions one traveler asks another including, ‘So what do you do for work?’ I half explained a handful of the jobs I’ve had over the past few years before saying that what I really wanted to do is work for an adventure travel company. Suddenly Thew perks up and tells me that’s what most of the group does every summer and that his brother Mike is one of the managers for a company in Colorado. I ask the name and nearly die when he says, Bold Earth Adventures. High on the ironies of life, I show him my notebook and turn to the “Jobs you would sell your soul to have” list and he is almost as surprised as I am by the coincidence. As if I had spoken some secret password, I was in like flynn with the Boys and we haven’t looked back.
Then something happened that I had never expected: I fell in love… with rock climbing. The Colorado Boys invited me to come climbing with them despite my lack of experience (note: my experience = zero if you don’t count the time I went rock climbing indoors with girl scouts). After borrowing what seemed like a piece of equipment from almost everyone, I was shakily taking my first steps on vertical rock. Tyson looked as if he might fall asleep at any moment while belaying me (meaning the climb was that easy) while I, on the other hand, would climb a few feet before stupidly looking down and becoming paralyzed with fear. A few confident words of encouragement from Tyson and I would relax enough to move up a bit more. I finally made the ascent and heaved an exhilarated sigh of relief as rush of adrenaline coursed through me.
Over the past few days I have done a number of climbs of varying levels of difficulty, but always with an extremely supportive and helpful crew of fellow climbers. A few routes have left me too pumped to send (translation for normal people: some climbs were too hard for me to get to the top) but for maybe the first time in my sporting career; I’m not too bothered by my lack of ability. Just getting on the wall and doing a move that I didn’t think I could do, or getting higher than I expected to get, is enough to leave me smiling for hours. The vibe here is unreal and my two-day stopover has turned into a two-week adrenaline-filled adventure! And to top it all off (Desi), I’ve even started doing Yoga. =)
-Ash
Fun Fact: Minutes before the 2004 Tsunami hit the west coast of Thailand, climbers high on the cliffs above Ton Sai Bay could see the massive wave coming and were able to warn everyone below to run to high ground. Unfortunately, many climbers did not have time to rappel to safety and were forced to clip into the rock walls and pray. Luckily no climbers were hurt, though many were stuck for hours, and in some cases, through the night before rescue was possible.
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