New Country Who Dis

Catching up on the blog from a very rainy Vang Vieng in Laos. But before I get to Laos, I need to catch up on the weekend.

Saturday morning, Kat, Patch, Reuvan and I went to Hữu Lũng, about two hours northeast of Hanoi. Hữu Lũng is one of the premiere climbings areas in Vietnam, and we arranged the trip through VietClimb, the bouldering gym and center for all things climbing in Hanoi. A driver picked us up around 8am, and then we were supposed to go pickup our guide (Jean) at the gym. There was apparently some miscommunication though, and the driver started heading right for Hữu Lũng – luckily I was able to get ahold of Jean and he got us back on track, with only a minor delay.

We got to the crag around noon, and started climbing right away. Hữu Lũng has something like 18 different climbing areas, spread across numerous karst limestone cliffs. It’s stunningly gorgeous, even in the cool and overcast weather we had. Apparently in the summer, the landscape is gorgeously green, but the weather is unbearable hot and humid. I’ll take slightly muted and less sweaty any day.

VietClimb operates two homestays in the area – traditional houses with kitchens to feed the climbers and basic facilities. The folks at the homestay also offer lunch delivery, so in the early afternoon a man on a scooter turned up with a cooler full of rice, pork, tofu and veggies. Quite a service! Maybe not as a fancy as the juice bar at the crag in Morocco, but still pretty sweet.

The climbing was really good, but very tough. The karst is incredibly sharp, which I remember from climbing in Ha Long Bay years ago. You’re essentially either climbing with razor sharp pockets or open hand pinches on tufa – in either case, my weak and gym-adapted climbing muscles were a little ill-prepared! In the gym, I’ll generally flash a 5.12a and project 5.13a. At Hữu Lũng, I struggled my way up a 5.11d/5.12a, drenched in tweak and barely able to untie my rope afterwards. Give me microscopic crimps any day!

I think we climbed 6 or 7 different routes on the first day – maybe more, I kind of lost track. There were a few other folks at the same crag, mostly Brits who were on extended visits to the area. Around 5pm, we headed to our homestay – the VietClimb spaces were full so we were in another homestay, which was relatively new and perfectly functional. Nothing fancy – just a couple big rooms with mattresses on the floors and a couple shared bathrooms – but gorgeous surroundings and fun kids to play with. We walked to the main VietClimb homestay for dinner, then crashed out early – we were all pretty exhausted.

In the morning, we got up and got breakfast at the VietClimb homestay, then went to another crag. It was pretty similar, though a little more polished (it’s easy to access off the main road) and with some cool cave features. We climbed everything in the 5.10/5.11 range. I wasn’t feeling up for leading a really hard route, so we got Jean to lead a 5.12a so that we could top rope it. It was a really fun climb, but I was super glad not to be leading it.

We left the crag around 3pm to head back to the city. Traffic was bad, so we didn’t make it home until around 6:30pm. We all showered, then Kat and I went out for some food and a last stroll before parting ways in the morning.

Monday morning, we got up very early to head to the airport. Kat had to head back to Minnesota, and the rest of us were heading for Laos. We made it to Laos around noon, and then took a car across town to the train station. We had plenty of time to kill – we’d opted for a later train because we weren’t sure how long immigration would take. The train station is newly built by the Chinese, as is the high speed rail network. Impressively grand, even if it’s only serving a few trains a day.

By around 5:30pm, we were in Vang Vieng, a tourist mecca in the northern mountains. A few years ago, it had a reputation for true lawlessness – drug menus in the restaurants, zombie tourists wandering around, sex trafficking, etc. The government cracked down, and while I’m sure there’s still some of that, today it’s mostly just a jumping off point for adventure travel. Still plenty of white folks eating pizza and listening to Bob Marley.

The reason we came to Vang Vieng was to climb – the main climbing spots in Laos are further south, and not easily accessible with a day long bus ride, so this was a good compromise for a short trip. Unfortunately, Tuesday morning (today as I write this), we woke up to pouring rain. We waited for a bit to see if it might lightened up, but eventually our guide pulled the plug – oh well. Tomorrow, we’re off to Nam Ha for some trekking, which promises to be beautiful and very, very hot.