Phuket Dude, let's go diving...

...at the Similan Islands

This man needs to sell more records.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera **

Not very funny and totally forgettable.

Patang, Phuket Island.

A fun place for all the family. Let me out of here. I'm off to the Similan Islands for a dive or ten...

Ao Nang Tower is a multi-pitch route I wanted to climb today, but arrived too late last night to fix up a partner in Tonsai. As we sliced past it on the longtail boat this morning, a team were in situ on the first pitch; looked awesome.

Tonsai village was visibly enlarged compared with last year, and rumour has it that an access road and a big resort development are on the cards next year. This will ruin it, which is a shame as it's one of only a handful of places in the world where you can just show up, stay around for any amount of time from days to months on a low budget, and find people to climb with on hundreds of routes that are all within walking distance.

Still good coffee at Wee's though ('Welcome, welcome, don't be shy, wake up wake up, coffee coffee, museli breakfast, guete Morgen'). Bumped into an old acquaintance from Leeds who I climbed on Dow Crag with in about 1993, and some of last year's familiar faces at Dum's Kitchen (which is in fact a crag, not food preparation area), and bouldered on it with some hardcore dude and ripped my fingers to shreds in about 30 minutes. One weird thing about limestone sea cliffs is that the sharpest rock is always in the tidal zone, where you'd expect it to be washed smooth. A result of this manifest paradox was that I soon pressed on to Railay, arriving in time to jump on the 2.00 pm snorkelling trip out to the islands.

It was a stormy afternoon and the rain fell in strange analogies (stair rods, cats and dogs, wellingtons), but the visibility was OK and I found a big chest of gold doubloons, wrestled for my life with a giant squid, and hitched a ride on the tail fin of a blue whale.

OK, I lied. But I did see a black tip reef shark, and it was massive. Honest.

I guess it's fair enough when you pay about 15 quid for a flight that it will be delayed, but Air Asia eventually got me to Krabi today, 2 hours late, following the Lao Airlines flight that got me from Vientiane to Bangkok. Incidentally, I can report that if I'm similarly late flying from Phuket to Bangkok on Saturday, I might be late for work next week. I can also report that Lao Airlines seem to be a thoroughly competent outfit despite rumours about their safety record...or rather, their reluctance to publish their safety record, even since ditching their black-spot 'Laos Aviation' moniker.

It's good to be back in Thailand, which is a veritable land of plenty compared with Laos. One major drag in Laos is carrying around vast wads of hyperinflated currency...there are no coins, and the biggest note is 2000 kip which equates to about a quid. My wallet burst at the seams within seconds of drawing cash out of the first Lao bank.

Having said that, Laos should be contextualised as being a poor country only in the setting of SE Asia. If you beamed out of anywhere in, say, sub-Saharan Africa and found yourself in Laos, you'd be a happy eater.

Pha That Liang!

...is not a command. It's a stupa. The most impo monument in Laos is a curvilinear spire, representing a submerged germinating orchid whose growth to the light symbolises the striving for, and achievement of, Buddhist enlightenment.

Moreover, it's surrounded by an architectural depiction of the Buddhist universe, symbolised by 30 more modest spires, several hundred lotus leaves, and other stuff that means something or other. I'm a bit sketchy on the detail.

We drove today through ever more densely populated areas as we approached Vientiane, the Lao capital. There were a few active rice paddies with carpets of six-inch long shoots poking up, but being the dry season, most of the fields were being burned and overlaid with plant material ready for next year.

Another dry-season ritual is more baffling. After the rains, there is a frantic erection of bamboo bridges that join up all sorts of bits of countryside normally cut off from each other during the rainy season. The bridge builders charge a toll because of the huge effort involved in construction, and make lots of money as people visit and trade with their neighbours, in the larger market towns. When the rains come again, the bridges simply get washed away til next year.

Here in Vientiane the civic atmosphere is pretty scruffy, and there are plenty of holes in the pavement above the sewers that are big enough for you to fall into, should you happen to be staggering home after dark. A game I'm looking forward to playing later.

Speaking of infrastructure, the Mekong, which I expected to look quite impressive, is a mostly dry river bed about half-a-mile wide. Maybe its more of a sight when the rains are on.

Yet the city has some good points, a major one being that it isn't Veng Viang. Another is the presence of Pha That Liang, and a third is that lots of proper local stuff is happening like markets and bustle and that.

Pedalled out to see a few caves around Tham Phu Kham today, in incredible heat. There are limestone towers all the way out there, mostly covered in jungle (imagine the Dolomites covered in green snow). The first cave featured a huge cavern just inside the rock, with some good formations and an inevitable bronze reclining Buddha. Impressive bright green moss was growing on the stalactites that stood in a blazing ray of direct sunlight coming through a high entrance. Nevertheless, it deepened my conviction that if you've seen one cave you've seen them all, especially if that cave is Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico.

I'm using the Lonely Planet guide in Laos, and the Rough Guide in Thailand. One thing you notice is that the LP guide is desperate to have an opinion, and often makes sweeping generalisations and judgemental statements that turn out to be wrong. One example is that all the restaurants in Vang Vieng have the same menu which has been photocopied from an original, and just the header changed. However, I've never seen the same menu twice and there are two fantastic Indian restaurants (read wooden shacks that do good food) that have menus similar to their English counterparts but the food is incredibly good and costs next to nothing. Plus, among the generic fare offered by the mainstream eateries (which are legion) there are bakeries with fresh baguettes, pain au chocolate, and addictive banana yoghurt shakes. Another is that the town has lost its soul due to the influx of travellers, but the truth is that we stay in a southern suburb on Highway 13 that caters only for itinerants, while the local businesses, market, wats and pulse of the town remain untouched 2km up the road. The Rough Guide is cautious in its proclamations, and benefits by comparison.

One of the Indian restaurants' menus mis-spells the word gravy so it becomes an useful adjective, viz: 'comes in a spicy gravey sauce'.

You can get the BBC World News on the TV in my room, but the rest of the available fare comprises endless sport and Thai soaps. Therefore, have been reading. Hence the reappearance of that long-absent straightjacket of verbal discipline, the two-line review...

Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard ****
As to war as Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is to Ireland, this is really a novel about recollections of growing up; in this case the backdrop is Shanghai during the Japanese invasion of WWII. Our hero Jim is increasingly subsumed and feralised by his survival instincts following separation from his parents - instincts that sustain him through years of internment in a brutal Japanese prison camp where people either looked out for themselves or died.

The Farenheight 9/11 Reader by Michael Moore ****
Lest we forget, the American administration let dozens of Osama bin Laden's rich, Saudi relatives fly out of the USA in the first few days after 9/11 when all other flights in the country were grounded, rather than detaining them for questioning like they would in any routine case and as they did with dozens of Arabs who had no connection with the bin Ladens. Lest we also forget, George W Bush lied to Congress about WMDs, has friends making huge amounts of money from the war, and was filmed teaching primary school kids to read a book about goats for a whole seven minutes after an aide came into the classroom and told him that the north tower of the World Trade Centre had been hit, looking like a complete moron - if you haven't seen the film, this bit is essential viewing that wasn't screened by the puppet American TV news channels despite being widely available on the Internet. This is a third sentence, but hey, this book has the whole screenplay of the documentary film, and it's assembled with the passion of true art.

Fear and Loathing in Vang Vieng

There comes an occasional time when the people you are meeting are less interesting than the book you happen to be reading. At times like this, whether you're in one of civilisation's last outposts or in the bath at home, it's essential to one's sanity to plug into the lyrical driven-beat vision of the Mighty Fall, who's music and lyrics steamroll over all things false, insubstantial or inconsequential...



Glam Racket

Stop eating all that chocolate

Eat salad instead

In fact, you're a half-wit from somewhere or other

Why don't you bog off back to Xanadu in Ireland or wherever it is

Glam Rick

You cut my income by one third

You are working on a video project

You hog the bathroom

And never put your hand in your pocket

Glam Rick

You're Glam Rick

You hang around with camera crews in shell-suits

You lecture on sweets

You read Viz comic

Glam Rick

You're paging Malaga in Spain

But can't read between the lines

Your price, cut down is amazing

You're one of the best songs I've ever heard by Stephen King

Your Clearasil produces Richthofen rashes

Sideboard-like on mountains

You post out sixty-page computer printouts

On the end of the world's forests

All the above will come back to you

And confirm you as a damn pest

Glam Rick
You're Glam Rick

Vang Vieng is a Glam Rick convention. The less interesting their utterances, the louder their voices. I can't stand to have another conversation about how long I'm travelling for and where I've been with someone who won't remember it, or me, tomorrow.

I'm going to get a badge instead: Deaf mute. Manchester. Three weeks.

The music they tolerate or even like, such as the pumping Bee Gees and techno at the riverside bars, is unlistenable most of the time. Yesterday at the bar near the crag the drunken tubers were wiggling to horrible beats for hours, apparently enjoying themselves. Just like drunken Brits in Benidorm. This has always been a mystery to me.

Mind you, last night I bumped into the two refreshingly quiet and intelligent Swedish girls who were on the kayaking trip a couple of days ago. Hours of decent conversation! They don't seem very interested in most other people here either, and have a neat trick of pretending not to understand anybody they don't like. I think I'll pretend to be Swedish from now on.

Meanwhile, news from Fall-land: new album out in February, which Glam Ricks everywhere will fail to understand and find unlistenable. But that will come back to them, and confirm them as damn pests!

Had a really excellent afternoon at the local crag, Sleeping Wall a couple of Km uptown, with the locals and international locals, one of whom gave me a lift up there on the back of his scooter.

Vang Vieng is only slightly less scooterised than Chiang Mai, and I theorise that the agency that has most contributed to Laos' and Thailand's development is Honda.

Plenty of banter at the crag: a group of three girls learning with a guide, and a couple of strong yoofs from Aus and Germany who are teaching English in the area. And Adam of

http://laosrockclimbing.com/

where he says: Climbing is a lot more than just physical strength. Technique and your mental problem-solving ability are just as important. So anyone can do…
COME CLIMB IT

He's a thoroughly nice chap and a really good partner for the day. If you need a partner or want to take a course around here, seek out Adam!

The World's wiggliest road was traversed by bus today, on a journey of 230 km that should have taken 5 hours but actually took 8. The road was not too bad (Highway 13, reputedly the fastest road link between Bangkok and China and metalled all the way) but the bus kept losing power and stopping on the uphill stretches. Someone would jump out, fiddle with the engine until it fired up again and off we went. This happened about 30 times.

It was a VIP bus, the most expensive option ($13), with aircon and terrible Thai pop videos that were mercifully switched off for most of the journey (the sort where the band look like they want to be in The Clash but are playing wimpy teen-pop karaoke that's about as rebellious as vanilla ice cream). Although several of the cheaper buses were due to set off soon after us, we were never overtaken so I can only assume they took even longer.

The scenery was spectacular, similar to the foothills of the Himalaya in Nepal but much less densely inhabited and no terraces on the hillsides. Some of the poorest people I've seen in Asia, or indeed anywhere, were living in bamboo huts by the side of the road. They looked healthy enough, and certainly aren't bothered by heavy traffic problems. As we neared Veng Viang, dozens of pointy limestone peaks came into view. This is the karst landscape full of caves for which the town is slightly famous - looks a bit like the pics I've seen of Yangshuo in China.

Veng Viang is backpacker central, more so than Luang Prabang because it doesn't have an airport (except the disused Lima 29 that the CIA built) or the same type of sightseer-tourist draws. But not a chainstore, chain-restaurant or high-rise building in sight, and the cheapest place I've ever been. But we won't go into that - it's the most boring topic under the sun. The most successful backpacker is the one having the most fun, not the one saving the most money.

More thoughts on Laos....

As I write this, there are several young monks with orange robes and shaved heads playing about on the computers around me.

I haven't seen any monks in the town (or its wats) over the age of about 20. Maybe the older ones are busy chanting, or maybe they've given up and gone home...

The spectacular failure of history to bear out Kennedy's Domino Theory of Communism, with which he is said to have sold the Vietnam war to the post-McCarthy voters of the US, seems to have been forgotten since he was assassinated. Yet history has been kind to Kennedy. One can only assume it's because he was shot before having the chance to become a hopeless failure, like every US president since.

Freedom for all? Tell that to the poor Lao who were bombed with the collusion of their own corrupt Royal leaders. Laos is a communist state now because of a backlash against the post-colonial, aid-hungry, US-friendly administration of old.

How communist is Laos exactly? There are no newspapers on sale in Luang Prabang as far as I can see, but they are available in the capital Vientiane, or so I'm told by a tour-guide from the city. And they are allowed journalistic free-speech on Page 2, apparently, which I'm told gets the men talking in the pub. Apart from the lack of newspapers, which may be down to demand rather than supply, the signs are that the free market is in ascendancy.

But, calling this place The Peoples' Democracy of Laos? Give us all a break...

OK, rant over, I'm back on my hols til tomorrow...

A plan seems to be emerging (with dates and everything)...

This morning: mould the ever-changing plan into recognisable shape thus

This afternoon: minivan to Lao's biggest waterfall and some local villages

Tomorrow: bus to Vien Viang for climbing, kayaking and tubing

Dec 9: bus to Vientiane; do Vientiane

Dec 10: fly to Krabi, bus and boat to Railay/Tonsai; go climbing

Dec12: bus to Khao Lak; go scuba diving at the Similan Islands, end up in Phuket

Dec 15/16: fly home

Kayaked to a fantastic waterfall today (check this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY4s44PIeaE&search=waterfall%20laos%20luang%20prabang )
that looked like it had been artificially terraced out of the hillside and had special clear water imported from the coast flown in to complete the idyll. There was, therefore, a good bit of noisy splashing about and swimming before lunch.

The kayaking continued for a further 12 km or so, mostly down slow-going river but with some easy rapids thrown in. Very relaxing. There was plenty of local activity on the river, from collecting weeds to kids playing, and the banks were dotted with smallholdings amid the jungle, growing cucumbers, lettuce, peanuts and other crops. High karst mountain ridges formed the backdrop, all covered in dense jungle.

A young monk similar to one I chatted to today. He spending 2 years in a single monastary, getting up at 4 am to chant, then meditate, then free time, then more of the same in the evening. 'No freedom', he said, 'same every day.' When I asked him why he'd signed up for so long he said something about family expectations.

The oldest and most important wat in Luang Prabang pictured (more pics swiped from t'internet until I get around to posting my own) is rather splendid, and has several satellite buildings one of which is a kind of garage for the last king's hearse, which is itself also rather impressive. Overall the style is architecturally similar to the wats in Chiang Mai, but details such as the layered roofs and roof-corner ornamentation differ. Also, the sculpted depiction of the Buddha differs in some respects, and has an emphasis on the standing 'praying for rain' posture.

The Luang Prabang museum is housed in the old king's palace, which was built by the French. In it there are wonderfully airy chambers sparsely furnished with, among other things, very old lockers for leaf-paper inscriptions. Among the gifts on display the most incongruous is a model of the lunar module of Apollo 11 and a piece of moon rock (actually missing) which was sent with a personal message from Richard Nixon in the early 70s, stating that the Lao flag was on board when the module landed. I don't know if every world leader received such a gift, but I found out today that Laos is the most-bombed nation per capita in the history of warfare. Even more incongruous to find, then, that the country was neutral throughout the Vietnam war, and that the CIA illegally (against the Geneva convention) operated bombing raids from Laos using agents and pilots ostensibly positioned as aid and development workers. The bombs were dropped by American pilots returning from raids, in order to comply with orders to come back with bomb bays empty. Operations from Laos were carried out in secret, and unlike Nam, no media correspondents were allowed in the area. The American public never even knew. So much for democracy.

As for the Communist North Vietnamese, they also occupied parts of Laos illegally, stationing huge numbers of troops in the north east of the country.

The years after the end of American withdrawal and the fall of South Vietnam were turbulent for the Lao. The King and his family, imprisoned in a cave by the Communists who wrested long-term power after a series of coups and counter-coups in 1975, died of neglect, starvation and disease within a few years.

Now it seems the ruling Party, despite the presence of an old-guard educated in hard-line Vietnam, are gradually modernising and liberalising in the face of a sceptical peasant power-base who would rather get on with life in the manner that the Thais, their closest historical and cultural allies, have done all along.

Anyway, Laos today seems to be thriving. I had an excellent day pedalling between the wats, around the markets, and out to the local countryside, and watching the sun set over the might Mekong was really rather special. Tomorrow I'm going kayaking with a mixed bunch of tourists and travellers, so back to the Lonely Planet talk...

The view from the hilltop wat in Luang Prabang

Well, here I am in Laos, a country I don't think I'd ever heard of until I came to Thailand last year, but one that is bigger than the UK.

Population: not many; religion 60% Buddhist; governmental system: communist.

The Laos Airlines flight to Luang Prabang took an hour, over green-ridged hills and cultivated valleys. The airport is tiny, and had one other plane on the tarmac. I arrived without either Kip or $US, and bought a visa for 1500 Thai Baht and a taxi ride into town for 300 Baht to a place called the Heritage Guest House, where a decent room with aircon and private shower costs $11. It's in the part of town lying on the peninsula formed by the meeting of the mighty Mekong river and a tributary coming in from the east, and is right next to a Buddhist temple where I went and sat with some young monks who were chanting with much gusto as the sun went down at about 6 pm.

The main drag just around the corner is full of travellers restaurants and eco-tourism offices, a seemingly thriving hive of free-enterprise, and I've rented a mountain bike for $5 for the whole day tomorrow, when I'm planning to check out the city itself and some of the surrounding countryside. I've been forced to get money from a travel agency on my credit card, where I got a useless exchange rate plus a 6% commission charge, but it serves me right I suppose, as I didn't read the Lonely Planet guide's simple sentence 'There are no ATMs in Laos at the time of writing' until it was too late. Anyway, it's so cheap here that it's not worth worrying about.

There are about 50 temples in the city, which is small (population 26,000) and historic. It is supposedly the best-preserved city in South East Asia due to the facts that its typical layout of small village units linked by roads is uniquely preserved, and that many of its original religious and civic buildings still stand. It was also a French colonial centre, as plenty of grand houses testify, and it was not seriously damaged by American bombing in the 60's and 70's, unlike much of the country to the east where the Ho Chi Minh Trail (or Trails, more accurately) sustained the supply routes supporting the guerrilas in South Vietnam.

The whole city became a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995.

Another great day at Crazy Horse yesterday, culminating in a failed onsight attempt on Blood, Love and Steel (6c+), the crux of which I fell off half-a-dozen times. Two consecutive on-off moves on paltry sidepulls and woeful smears. When I finally bagged the moves I was frazzled with a combination of airtime and climbing in the sun all day, and felt too pooped to haul up to the anchors. Josh II, who is 6' 1" and has an ape-index of about +6, simply reached past the crux and cruised on up. Bah! As for me, I'll just have to come back next year...

Singha, Leo and Chang beer was variously consumed in some quantity by the Crazy Horse International Climbers Drinking Team last night, in which an impressive performance was put in by the Norwegian contingent.

Now it's just a couple of hours until I board a Laos Airlines flight to Luang Prabang. Should be interesting...

http://www.mountainbikingchiangmai.com/downhill.html#trip4

Some more stolen images from the link above. Had a totally brilliant day downhill mountainbiking on the forested slopes above Chiang Mai today. About 1200 m of descent, mostly on quite technical singletrack. A big group to start with, we peeled off with the main guide into a group of 5; me, two personal trainers from Newcastle who work in Dubai at a sports club for rich people, a large American who seems to run this particular outfit, and a local guide; to do this route, which took about 4 hours. Plenty of stops though. Everyone fell off several times. The most sustained singletrack ride I've ever done.

But still, the most dangerous bit was getting back to the rental office in the Chiang Mai rush hour - well scary, especially as the most common form of transport, the scooter (which often has whole families aboard) vies for position relentlessly with cars, minibuses and tuk-tuks, there don't seem to be any rules of the road, and no-one takes much notice of traffic lights (even if they work).

Climbing at Crazy Horse Buttress, 50 km from Chiang Mai. A good day was had by all, including today's random partners Josh II, Arizona Kevin and myself. Somehow I forgot my camera, so here are a few pics courtesy of Chaing Mai Rock Climbing Adventures, who I'm sure won't mind.

One of these routes I led today - The Gatekeeper (graded F6b locally, but a crack climb, and consensus 5.8+ or hardish VS 4c for anybody brought up on handjamming). The other two I did last year. All excellent.

Caught myself yawning quite a lot today, still under the insidious influence of jetlag. But not quite as sleepy as the giant pandas I saw yesterday in Chiang Mai zoo. I don't think I've seen pandas in the flesh before. Despite the koala-esque demeanor they adopt when munching their bamboo leaves, they are basically big bears with impressive claws and teeth, and I suspect they could swipe your leg off and bite you to bits within seconds if they felt like it. As could Thai boxers...slight, barely-muscled men moving barefoot on tiptoe who could kick seventeen colours of living shit out of you at the mere suspicion that you might have the vaguest notion of considering ever dropping a hat. I watched some of the weekly Monday-night show last night: blink and doof-doof-doof-blam, you've missed a knockout.

Chiang Mai, northern Thailand

Passport stamped 26 Nov 2006: exactly one year since I last entered Thailand. Jumped on a plane to Chiang Mai, found a guesthouse in the centre of town, and slept all afternoon.

In Bangkok airport they were just opening up the shops as I wandered from international arrivals to domestic departures. I had about 2 hours to kill, and needed a coffee. The coffee was good, and I went to pay at a till near the exit.

The cash-till woman was engrossed in an eleborate doodle on a small sketch pad, and was completely lost in her own thoughts. At first, I didn't realise this, and thought she was totting up an urgent bill or something, so I said nothing and waited. My flight wasn't for an hour, so I wasn't in a hurry. As her sketch grew, it became obvious that her hard pen-work was a distraction that disguised something that was occupying her mind, which was elsewhere completely: maybe thinking about her boyfriend, or sick mother, or unpaid bills, or boddhidharma, or whatever people think about when they are filling in time between tasks in the job they get paid to do.

I stood for about 30 seconds, the comedy of the situation growing with each passing moment. Her colleague on the next till noticed and said something in Thai. My till-woman looked up, registered a sort of self-conscious surprise and gasped in apology.

"Why you not tell me?!" she says.
"I though you were busy" I say back.
'No, no, not busy! Sorry sorry!"
'That's OK, there's no hurry!". We both smile, she embarrassed, me a jet-lagged tourist who was doing a job at a desk, in front of a computer not so very different from hers, less than 36 hours ago in a town several thousand miles away in a different culture on a different continent.

You know it when you read something written by someone who's had the same experience as you...'Towards the end of this dive and in just 6m of water we came across one of the most impressive and memorable things I have seen whilst diving - a ball of jacks spiralling from 6m to the surface. There were simply thousands, their silver bodies flashing as they twisted and caught the light from the surface. At one point they were actually spiralling around us encasing us in a giant swirling, living sphere. This is something I will never forget and what we didn't know at this stage is that the very next day we would find ourselves caught in an even denser ball, with even more jacks and this time with white-tip reef sharks circling the perimeter at a nearby dive site called Turtle Patch. The photographs I have of this phenomenon in no way do it justice and by no means illustrate the enormous number of fish involved, so it's lucky I videoed it too! This can now be seen on the Turtle Patch page.'

Shark's Fin Soup

We're talking Shark’s Fin Soup (1986; 6m, once HS 4c, currently HVS 4c), Burbage North, Peak District, here. Someone's recently climbed the relatively trivial Shark's Fin on a boulder somewhere in the Himalaya, but this thread is about 'Soup' (as it's known by the cogniscenti) and where it might actually go. One other person, at least, is interested.

Here’s a tale of history being made, unmade, falsely recorded, then falsehood becoming reality, possibly a mistaken reality at that. Even Joseph Stalin would have been impressed, if it wasn’t so completely trivial.

Shark’s Fin Soup (1986; 6m, HS 4c). It was my first new route.

Now, if you've ever had the misfortune to be involved in writing a guidebook or guidebook chapter, you'll know that most new route descriptions (scribbled in the New Route Book in the caff, online at Peak New Routes, wherever) are terrible. Some are just a bit crap, but most are really, really crap. You’re lucky if you can find the start of the route, let alone where it’s supposed to go. Plus, all new-route descriptions, without exception, feature the word ‘obvious’, however obscure, featureless and eliminate the route might be. Sometimes someone knows the name of the first ascentionist (their mate met them in a pub in Pembroke in 1963), sometimes you track down a phone number and found they moved out years ago. Even if you manage to locate them they usually can’t remember a thing, except why their amusing name was so brilliant. In the end you have to go back to first principles: here’s a crag, here’s a list of routes that may or may not be all the same, ignore the word ‘obvious’, and be sceptical of the given grade on the basis that, until proved otherwise, no single human being can grade more accurately than any other.

Shark’s Fin Soup. I was so pleased with myself, and so eager to write it up in the Stoney Café route book I forgot to take note of where it actually was. I think I described it as being half-way between Mutiny Crack and Long Tall Sally, which is a pretty accurate description of where it ended up in the Froggatt guide of 1991.

In fact the route had been done about a year before by Steve Bancroft, as Barry Manilow (VS 5a), and its right next to a whole bunch of other routes that are easy to find and describe. Like The Knight’s Move, for instance. I was surprised. Did no-one check these things? I felt quite guilty for a bit, but what do you do? Then, as now, there is no process for undoing new routes that have made their way into the annals of guidebook immortality. Rather than mess with history, I decided to see if there was potential for a route in the place where the description went. There was, just. I found a crappy little buttress, climbed an arête, and made the guidebook true again (except this was 1992 or so). It seemed to be a reasonable way to restore personal honour and guidebook accuracy at a single stroke.

Trouble was, even on this occasion (which might accurately be termed a ‘retro-first ascent’), I was still a new-route newbie, and I didn't make any notes. So I’m not certain where Shark’s Fin Soup (1992) goes, but I do remember it was a bit easier than Barry Manilow, at about Severe. Then again, no single human being can grade accurately from one decade to the next.

Anyway, I was surprised to see Sharks Fin Soup (sic) in the 2005 Burbage guide (at an astonishing HVS 4c) with an admission of semi-bafflement from the crag writer David Musgrove, who describes it thus: ‘presumably takes the bold and reachy overhang direct on good but suspect holds, about 25m left of Gargoyle Buttress'. Despite having done the first ascent twice already, my name has (disappointingly, I feel) disappeared from the first-ascent list.

Sharks Fin Soup 2005. Where does it go? I’ve no idea, but I plan to go and find it again, wherever it is, and re-live a second rush of retro-first-ascent glory. And I don’t feel guilty any more, in fact I think it’s all rather amusing. Since 2002 I’ve done loads of completely insignificant, obscure, featureless and eliminate new routes, and I don’t mind if Sharks Fin Soup (sic) remains a bit enigmatic.

I do worry about the missing apostrophe though, and even if it was in the right place to begin with. Could it be that the transience and mutability of the apostrophe were destined to reflect the qualities of the elusive route itself? Could it also be that Sharks Fin Soup is Dave Musgrove’s, and Shark’s fin Soup is mine, and they are completely different routes? We may never know.

Finally, has anyone noticed the unlikely symmetry between sharks’ fins and Barry Manilow’s nose? Convergent evolution or mere random biological similarity? As ecological disasters, noses and soup seldom get the discussion they deserve. Barry certainly has the bigger nostrils. Nose Soup – now there’s a brilliant route name.

 

 

 

Canyon de Notre Dame, Moustieres St Marie, Provence. A smart little defile leading to an excellent rock-backdropped Provence village.

Incredible vegetables in Provence, Sept 2006

"I have a mantra that I chant when I get writer's block. I'm gonna keep well my vegetables / cart off and sell my vegetables / I love you most of all / my favorite vegetable / I'm gonna be round my vegetables / I'm gonna chow down my vegetables / I love you most of all / my favorite vegetable. If I have cucumbers nearby, or zucchini, I use them as drum sticks. Celery, never, for they have poor acoustics." Brian Wilson

Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?
Museum Girl: Committing suicide.
Allan: OK, what about Friday night?

Woo-hoo... new photo/slide scanner is up and running.

Left: Rachel Johnston on Lucky Strike (E2 5b), Rusty Walls, Pembroke.

Below: Nick Wheeler on pitch 1 of Encouragement (E1 5b, 5b), Hen Cloud, Derbyshire.