Now that I am not drinking a whole lot the range of activities that I have available to me have changed quite a lot. In the past I never struggled finding something to do because basically any destination that had beer, which is most of them, would suffice. Now that I have been focusing my time and attention on people and places that do not involve alcohol, we have to be a bit more choosy about where we go.
So when someone suggested archery I was just thinking why not? I'm gonna suck at it but everyone sucks at something that they do the first time, right?
Now this place wasn't exacctly a training ground for the Olympics or anything like that but I do believe it has been designed so that there is very little chance that someone could hurt themselves or other people. The targets are just about 8-10 meters away and they are posted on thick foam so our arrows go into them pretty easily.
That's true and all but the bows we were given, as well as the arrows, were not playthings.
The arrows and bows are graphite or whatever that stuff that is like steel but more lightweight is called. They really could fly with a "whoosh" if you wanted them to but they had special tips on them so that if you did fire them at a person it probably wouldn't pierce the skin.
I have to say that this experience was rather humbling and made me appreciate the people that are good at this or barring that, simply better than I am.
The good news is that everyone that was there was just as bad as I am and actually if we were to have a competition just of the people that were paying customers, I might have been in the top 3.
I learned a few things about archery that day and some of there were
- It is a lot more difficult to nock an arrow, get it in the ready position that is, than I thought it would be
- It is quite painful to hold the bow string at a fully pulled length for aiming it for any long period of time
- It is very difficult to figure out how to aim the arrow at all
Much of the time our arrows were in the target, but they didn't exactly fly straight and were hanging out of the target at a strange angle. This could be due to the fact that the arrows were intentionally not very sharp. Every now and then the arrow would land straight and make a cool sound and those must have been the few times that I did it in some sort of correct fashion.
The place was nearly completely packed and they don't even sell booze there, so this was perfect given my new set of requirements for going out with friends.
I tend to forget about things like this because I have lived in Asia for so long, but there is no way that a place like this would be legal in my home country. There was almost zero safety precautions in place and the only thing really stopping us from running out in front of people that were currently shooting arrows was our own desire to not have arrows sticking out of our bodies.
I like this about Vietnam and other countries around here: If people are dumb enough to run into the middle of an archery range, that person just ends up getting hit by arrows. There's no wrongful death lawsuit, no over-the-top security that makes the entire event not fun, and the cost was damn-near-free. Try pulling that off back in the States. I think they only way you would ever just go and have a go at shooing a bow and arrow would be if a friend of yours just happened to own a bow and arrow.
I can't say that I will exactly come rushing back to this place because I didn't even use the full hour that I paid for and my fingers that were used for pulling the string back still kind of hurt today. It is NOT easy to hold that kind of pressure with just 3 fingers and now I will look at archery events with a great deal more admiration.
An hour at this place costs just over 80,000 VND so just a bit over $3. I thought it was a lot of fun and you should check it out if you are looking for something different to do that doesn't involve booze. here it is on the map if you are interested.