SWEAT IN THE CITY – I’ve always been envious of friends who went rock climbing at the beaches in Railay. I’d always intended to join in, but there were so many cool beers to be drunk on the beach that I never got around to strapping on a harness.
But, who needs real rock faces when you can rock climb right here in the heart of BKK?
Every week before I take a new class, I consider the possible difficulties I might face – usually embarrassment or muscle pain. But, when I went climbing, I decided there wouldn’t be any difficulties because I have fairly strong arms. So, with a cocky swagger, I turned up to the Bangkok Racquet Club for an hour’s worth of climbing with a belayer to help me learn the ropes.
I swapped my trainers for some rock climbing shoes, shimmied into the harness and chalked up my hands. At that point I felt like a badass.
Then, my belayer pointed to an eight metre high blue wall, peppered with faux rocks and told me to climb. So I did. Until I got up about two metres (perhaps less), looked down and freaked out.
“Erm. How will I get down when I get to the top?”
As you’ve probably experienced at some point, it’s sometimes really easy to get yourself into a situation but then really hard to get out of it.
“You just need to let go” he said.
“Right. I’m coming down now.”
“No! Keep climbing!” he said.
“No. I want to come down”.
“Ok,” he sighed. “Just let go”.
It took me about two minutes to build up the courage to let go, even though, even without the ropes and support, falling from two meters would barely result in a scratch. When I got to the bottom, my heart was racing and I had to go and buy a bottle of water to calm myself down. How could I have forgotten that I’m petrified of heights?
My second time climbing up was somewhat less terrifying. I managed to get to the top, pulling myself up on the ‘rocks’ with a little guidance from my belayer. Heart still racing, I progressed to the second wall, a green one of the same height but with fewer rocks and some smaller and smoother rocks that were trickier to grab hold of. This time, I sped to the top and barely felt scared when it came to letting go and abseiling down the side of the rock. It was even rather fun.
The third and fourth rocks were harder still, and the heavy rain made it harder to hear when the belayer was offering me advice on where I should move my legs and arms. It took me two efforts to get to the top of the third and, by the fourth I was so pleased with myself for actually managing to get to the top of these rocks and also a little tired from nearly an hour of pulling myself up and gripping on the rocks that I only climbed halfway up before I decided I’d had enough.
For the upper body, it’s a tough workout to beat in terms of the fun factor. I loved the problem solving element and the novelty of hoisting myself vertically. That said, it was my grip that really felt the effects afterwards. I must have been clinging on for dear life the entire hour because my hands and arms ached the next day.
After winding down my session, I bumped into lakorn heart throb Nadech who was also sweating after a tough workout. I had my photo taken with him whilst I gushingly told him that his programmes help me learn Thai (no shame). I can only blame my tired grip for the fact he’s not still in my grasp now.
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Rock Climbing at The Racquet Club
THB525 plus THB75 for a belayer during off-peak times. Check the online schedule at www.rqclub.com for more information.
