Life
of Joe
I
can honestly say this is the last thing, the last place the last sport I
ever saw myself doing.
Somehow
and thankfully so I find myself happy and doing things I really enjoy. It
all started in a little town in Canada. After graduating from
college with a degree in Policing I decided I needed to do something
different. One day I saw a flyer on a wall looking for people to teach
english in Korea.
Korea???
What do I know about Korea?
I thought OK this is what I need, an adventure something totally foreign to
me. Within a month I found myself on an airplane headed to Pusan, South
Korea. April 11, 2001 I signed a
contract to teach young students at an academy in the second largest city
in Korea.
I must say the money was amazing. I had two jobs the first teaching young
kids the second teaching inmates at one of the local prisons. I spent my
year eating the most amazing food in my life and hangin out with the
locals, many of whom I still keep in close contact with.
I
could have stayed on but I decided I needed to move on. Now this is where
things get interesting. My plan was to go to Thailand
and try to meet some people who would be interested in traveling around for
a month or 2 and then I would return home to Canada. However, I found myself
in Bangkok
for a week not having much luck in finding people with the same plans as
mine. That's when I began to realize plans suck! I woke up one morning and
went to the travel agent in my hotel. Behind the desk was a huge map. I
closed my eyes said goodbye to my plans and pinned the tail on the donkey.
I opened my eyes and told him to send me there. There was Krabi. Next thing
I knew I was on a 16 hour bus ride south.. I hate
buses! In Krabi I headed to Ao Nang and got myself a bungalo. While doing
some emailing I met a local who said I should check out Ton Sai and Railey
so that night we headed to a party at the gecko bar. Unbeleivable!!
Tomorrow I am moving here. After to much Thai hospitality I wound up
sleeping at the bar. The next morning packed my crap and moved to Ton Sai.
Now anybody who has been to Thailand
probably knows Tula
at Andamans. What a guy! This was to be my new home for the totally
unexpected time of 4 months. I met a Swedish couple after a couple of days
and they told me they were going rock climbing. Rock climbing?? They asked
me if I wanted to watch I said why not. Off to the beach we go. We headed
to Dums Kitchen and they got set to climb the 6A. They both went up and came down and it looked
interesting. This is when life as I knew it changed forever. They asked me
if I wanted to try. They tied me in to a harness and said go. So go I did.
Up the 6A I
climbed and I couldn't believe the feeling. When I came down they said I
should take a course. I was hooked. I took a 3 day course then headed to
Cliffmans and bought my first pair of climbing shoes (Anasazi lace-ups) and
a chock bag. I think I was very lucky in Thailand I arrived in Krabi May
1st 2002 when there are few tourists yet die hard climbers from around the
world abound. These guys and girls became my partners and mentors and after
3 and a half months of climbing I finished my stay
in Krabi with the completion of Rieser Baby on Andaman Beach
a 7A+ on my
second attempt. Before leaving Ton Sai I met and climbed with Simon Foley.
You might know him he has an excellent climbing website at www.simonfoley.com. 10
of us decided a Road Trip was in order so we all packed into the back of
his mini pickup for the first leg of the trip, a border run. After 4 or 5
days we were on Koh Tao and I was bouldering everyday with James March an
amazing boulderer living on the island and seen in many climbing mags and
videos. After a week it was time to go. Since the weather sucked in Krabi
as it was monsoon season, two Americans, one African and myself
decided to try our luck in China
studying Kung Fu in a Buddist
Temple in the
mountains of Dali. August 10th 2002 we flew into Kunming, China.
After
a week in Kunming
we headed to Dali. The temple was up in the mountains minus electricty and
with a bathroom about a hundred meters outside the compound, and for good
reason. After a week of kicks and flips and punches and breaking things
over our heads my friends couldn't take it anymore and booked it for
Lijiang. I moved to Kunming
and lived there for the next 6 months. I studied chinese and integrated
myself as fully as possible into there culture. Most of my friends were
chinese and most of them could not speak english. What an amazing time I
had in Kunming,
so many stories and to much excitement that I just
had to move on. I went to Shen Zhen to stay with a girl I met in Kunming. I was there
for 2 months and this was were I was able to start
climbing again. After 8 months I was hurting. I was climbing in this very
small climbing bar and the only holds they had were all crimpers. The great
thing about this was that some of the climbers at this bar were planning a
trip to Yang Shuo to climb outdoors.
And after this long long introduction we finally arrive in Yang Shuo. When
we all come from Shen Zhen to Yang Shuo I knew that this would be my new
home for the next while. So May 1st 2003, exactly 1 year after moving to
Krabi I wound up in my next climbing mecca.
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