Long tail boats are the taxi service to Tonsai and neighbouring Railay

This is Thailand’s premier climbing destination. Tonsai has more climbing shops and climbing schools per square mile than any other place on the planet. The smattering of non-climbing tourists who come here to soak up the relaxed atmosphere, sit in one of the many reggae bars, smoke drugs and lie on the beach almost always end up being tempted into trying out the rock at least once.  As a result, the orange limestone is quickly becoming like soap in places and like soapy ice in others.  Polish is the name of the game here.
The other problem here is rust. Many of the bolts and anchors are suffering badly in the hostile salty sea air and stories of bolts simply popping out of the rock are passed around amongst the hoards of climbers that gather here.  As a result a major process of rebolting has been going on, with the old stainless steel bolts being replaced with expensive but corrosion resistant titanium glue in bolts.

Danny starting up Tonsai roof

Despite the polish and sometimes iffy bolting, the climbing here is astonishing.  There is so much to do, it is possible to find climbs that perfectly match anyone’s climbing style.  There is a bit of a shortage in the easier grades, and those that exist see large numbers from the climbing schools up and down them every day, so everyone is having to push their climbing into the harder grades. I’ve already onsighted a 6b+ and am working on a couple of 6Cs.
Evenings here are quiet, especially when compared to the hedonistic chaos of Bangkok. Despite the beach being lined with bars, they are rarely pulsating with people and instead have a smattering of drinkers who combine alcohol with some slack lining, ping pong or pool.
A couple of days ago we did some deep water soloing, or DWS, for the first time.  This is climbing, apparently in its purest form.  We piled into long tail boats which took out to one of the nearby islands where the ocean has eroded the rock to form deep pools beneath the cliff faces.  Here we had to climb free, without ropes, dropping into the water if we fell off.
At first the rock does not look that high, just a short hop rather than a big, gut wrenching jump.  I felt sure I had jumped off bigger things when canyoning.  Once on the rock, however, the changed perspective makes the drop into the water seem far more frightening.
Climbing off the kayak that ferried us from the boats to the rock was hard enough. We had to haul ourselves up on fixed ropes and ladders to reach the rock and as the day wore on the distance we had to climb increased with the falling tide.
Once on the rock, you chalk up your hands, rubbing extra chalk on your forearms to use when you start to sweat.  At first I traversed, low along the overhanging rock on pockets, tufas and crimps until my arms could not hold me any longer and I dropped three metres into the water.  After swimming back to the rock and allowing my hands to dry (I expected wet climbing shoes to be a problem, but in fact it was wet hands, which made the rock slippery, that were more problematic), I tried another tact, climbing upwards.

Me jumping off

On top of a series of tufas, I looked down, horrified to see how much distance had opened up between me and the sea.   Our guide on the boat tried to encourage me upwards – apparently I was at the bottom of a 14 metre 6b route up some tufas above, yet already I was too high up for me to want to fall.

I climbed up a bit further, but my nerves got the better of me and I was forced to climb back down to around 10 metres from the sea. Even from here the jump seemed intimidating and the fall lasted far longer than I had expected before my feet finally broke the water. As I fell, my cheeks flapped around in the air rushing past me.  I also tried very overhanging climb that moved along a roof on tufas but the rock was razor sharp from the shells that had become encrusted into it. With cuts deep into my hands, I dropped off, admitting defeat.
Deep water soloing may be the purest form of climbing, but it is not for me.  I think I’ll stick to the impure, safer forms.

We travelled here after spending two days in Bangkok, catching up with some lost members of our group. It appeared a lot had been happening since they left us to go on ahead to sort out some visas. One guy, we shall call him Ed, found himself on the wrong end of a crocodile after trying to pet one in a pool in a bar. It bit him on the hand and resulted in a night in hospital being stitched up while still clutching the super strong cocktail that had driven him to believe it was a good idea to stroke a large two metre long reptile with jaws like a bear trap. Another member of our team, we will call him Matt, had a no less dangerous encounter with an old Thai lady and a soup bowl, which combined managed to split his head open. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to these two rather accident prone adventurers and move on to our next location. The monks and nuns at Wat Pa Suwannahong were welcoming and allowed us to camp in the grounds of their monastery, provided we abided by a few rules and kept the rippling muscles on our torsos covered up. To climb on the cliffs above their monastery, the monks ask that climbers also sign in and out so they can be sure no one has had an accident or got lost on the mountain. The routes were beautiful and often long. Not an inch of the crag is polished, and I climbed a couple of brilliant 6bs and 6b+s. On one day Danny and I took a trip to the aptly named Easter Island – a pinnacle of rock shaped like an Easter Island head. After a bit of jungle trekking and a scramble down a rather leafy and steep slope, we found the start of a sharp but wonderful multipitch climb that winds its way up this tower of rock. Up close, it barely seems like the pinnacle can stay upright as it slants at an improbably angle on top of a narrow shaft at around mid height. Yet it is there, still standing, gifting climbers with beautiful views of the sunflower filled fields that surround the area. Danny did have a near miss with a large bird of prey that took umbrage with being disturbed on this seemingly isolated outcrop of rock, but the route up was fairly straight forward. We later abseiled into an area known as secret garden, the rock covered in fantastical vines and strange vegetation, it felt like something from Never never land. After just four days in this wonderful area, we had to move on again.

Verony enjoys the climbing at Chang Mai

There is quite a range to choose from – long easy slabs; short, pumpy routes; technical, crimpy walls; and multipitches inside a massive cave.  We spent more than a week here exploring the different areas. There are dozens and while we were there we heard of more being developed.
It was a place where everyone managed to push their grades. If we had been able to get more sleep at nights, we probably could have done even more.  Unfortunately, we had to share our campsite with around 300 Thai boy and girl scouts who were woken at 5am by loud whistling and a man shouting into a microphone.

Danny commits to the dyno at the Anthill

The late night come-by-yah around the bonfire, however, was a riot.  All the troops took a part while the scout leader sang into the microphone, pointing at each of the troops in turn when it came to their part in the sing along.  It seemed that one group of girls had the job of simply screaming at the top of their lungs.
Still, I am climbing more confidently at the end of Chang Mai thanks to the style of climbing here.  It is limestone sport climbing at its very best. Compared to other destinations in Thailand, this area does not suffer from the problem of polish that afflicts many.  As the traffic on the routes and popularity of this area increases, however, this may change.

See what they did with the steps...

Angkor Wat itself, is awe-inspiring, with the steep stairs and graduated sections built on top of one another to create an optical illusion that, from the bottom, makes it appear far taller than it really is. Little now remains of the jungle that once must have twisted and grown over these ruins. Vegetation grows quickly in this part of the world and it wouldn’t have taken long for the forests to reclaim the land the ancient Khmer empire had claimed from it. Strangely, walking through the ruins today is more like a trip to Richmond park or a stroll through the sandy, open forests of Fontainebleau. The dense tangle of plants and vines are absent. Instead broad avenues lined by tall, broad trees and tame stretches of grass take visitors between each of the ruins.

One of the buildings where the jungle has moved in

One of the local climbers at Angkor Wat

The only reminder of the jungle near by are the monkeys that venture into the ruins and one ruin where the trees that invaded it have been allowed to remain. It is more of a jungle of tourists and hawkers, desperately selling underripe mangos and photocopies of guidebooks. There is also, sadly, a lack of information about the ruins, who built them, what they were used for and when they fell into disrepair. In exasperation, I opted to buy a guidebook from one of the hawkers and found myself being bustled towards their stall where they said I could only look at the book if I paid them one dollar first. I walked away.

In comparison, the killing fields and torture prisons of the Khmer Rouge are a more sobering experience. The concept of making tourist capital out of events that are too horrible to comprehend is difficult for me, but the museum and memorials at the killing fields, where thousands of victims of Pol Pots regieme were murdered and buried in mass graves, serve as a reminder of terrible crimes that should never happen again. I still struggle to understand how humans can batter other defenceless men, woman, children and babies to death on such a scale. The array of wounds left on the skulls that have been interred by the forensics experts show the brutality of what happened. Victims were driven in trucks to killing factories in former orchards, farms and wells where they were imprisoned in sheds at the killing sites, manacled with home made shackles while they waited their turn for the killing squads to get to them. Many were beaten to death with sticks, or bludgeoned with axes and machetes. The luckier ones were shot in the top of the head, while young children and babies were simply picked up by their feet and smashed against a tree until they stopped screaming. Mothers had their heads cut off after watching their children killed and some were simply pushed into village wells. In the capital of Phnom Penh, any who were considered to be a threat to the regime were taken to a former high school which had been turned into the S21 torture prison. Prisoners were shackled in tiny, makeshift cells before being taken to the former class rooms for torture. Most were tortured to death. Ghoulish pictures of the dead are now set in long galleries through many of the rooms. Watching many of the tourists walking around taking idle snapshots of the metal beds where victims were tortured and of the images of those who had died, I couldn’t help feeling that they had missed the point. Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to take pictures here – I felt words were a better way of remembering what went on.

Fashion sense aside, the people are extremely friendly. Our first night saw us receive an armed guard from the Cambodian army, who were concerned about our safety camped at the side of the road. Although they were there to protect us, there is something deeply unsettling about waking up at dawn to see the silhouettes of several men with machine guns against the sun rise. I’m not sure I’ll forget the image of the soldiers with their guns up on their shoulders, arms hooked over them in a half nelson.  I just wish I had my camera in the tent with me that night.

Our climbing destination is in southern Cambodia – on granite.  It is the first granite climbing of the trip for me and unusually it had been bolted rather than being left for the trad climbers.  It is probably just as well, as there was little to no gear.   Rather disappointingly, many of the climbs had only been bolted with top anchors and so could only be climbing on top rope. Those that had bolts all the way up tended to be run out – with large distances between the clips. One route had just three bolts to clip into on its entire 25 metres. Mercifully, it was very easy.

The climbs went up a granite outcrop that afforded spectacular views of the surrounding area. It seemed to be a peculiarity in an otherwise flat and rather waterlogged landscape.  The rock itself was extremely grippy, if a little fragile. Many of us spent the first few climbs pulling flakes and hand holds off as we climbed.

Zamora starts up the newly bolted route

Although the climbing was good, it was pretty limited.  We worked our way through the crimpy, delicate slab climbing over three days, every minute watched by gapping locals who found our every movement fascinating.  The biggest crowds seemed to be drawn when we chopped vegetables for our evening meal…

A crowd of locals gather to watch Danny climb the newly bolted route

Danny bolted an unfinished route here, which was ridiculously hard. With more time we could have established a few more routes here and even some new boulder problems on the granite boulders that littered the village.  Instead, however, it was time to take part in some more traditional tourist activities at Angkor Wat.

The locals gather for another Hot Rock spectical

We stumbled across this amazing place by chance. A wrong turn took us 100km further south than we intended, through the empty  and rugged Phou Hi Poun.

Getting back on route, sadly, was not fun. The road we needed to take turned rapidly into a dusty, pot-holed track, that shook the truck, rattled all those inside and loosened nuts and screws that held it together. The driver, Pete, had been doing some repairs on the springs before we left Vientienne, and now on this bone-rattling road, he was concerned that the might come loose without the proper tools to tighten them. The wheel nuts also started to loosen under the battering they took.  After an uncomfortable bush camp overnight, we eventually reached a small town with a mechanic and asked them to help us tighten up all the loosening bits.  Meanwhile the rest of the town gathered round in wonder at the group of westerners who had just rolled into town in a large red truck to cook some breakfast.

The climbing area we were headed for was Khammouan – an awe-inspiring overhanging system of cliffs and caves that rise up hundreds of metres to a jagged limestone ridge that runs alone one side of a wide flat valley.  On the opposite side, another limestone ridge runs off into the distance where it seems to meet its neighbour.

The climbing here is hard. Very hard. There are few climbs below 6b and only a couple below 6c.  The only routes easier than that were solos that could then  have a top rope set up for beginners.  The rock itself was a thing of beauty. Tufas seem to tangle with other tufas, with the routes springing out of the caves along them.  A small group of us began on the easiest route at the crag, a tough 6b up a corner. It felt more like traditional climbing in the UK than limestone sport climbing.  The pumpy set of moves out of the corner onto the face above claimed a few victims, including Alice’s t-shirt, which she ripped in three separate places on different attempts at moving out of the small cave and into the sun that dappled the face above.

I found more interest in the bouldering in this location. The low caves, with stone rails on the walls and low hanging tufas dangling from the ceiling, made it an exciting place to explore without a rope.  Pete, Sam and myself worked a new boulder problem we christened “the Splitter” on account of two members of our group splitting the seams of their trousers while attempting it.  The problem itself involved a physical start on strange pocketed rock, needing a heel hook to over come it, before more strenuous moves to get onto a rail that ran along the cave to some more tufas.

Sadly, this was our last destination in Laos, before we headed to the border and crossed into Cambodia.

Danny places the first few bolts on the hardest route on the wall

It was the first time I have bolted. It is both an exhilarating and frightening process. Imagine hanging from a rope, 10 to 20 metres above the ground, suspended only by a metal hook desperately placed behind a tiny flake of rock and a sling, flung around the top of a tufa. Using this set up Danny bolted the first line, a long 25 metre route down a corner between the flat overhanging face of the wall and a large tufa that descends the entire right hand side of the wall and projects more than 3 metres outwards.  It is fun but funky climbing.

Then it was my turn. I climbed up to where Danny had placed his anchor points at the top of his climb and set up my rope to abseil down. A few metres down, with Danny pulling hard on the bottom the rope, I swung five metres to the left to where a large hanging tufa met the wall. Frantically I grabbed for holds, trying to stick to the rock before I swung away again. Eventually I managed to throw a sky hook – basically a small piece of metal that hooks into features in the rock – into a pocket.

Me, straddling the tufa attached to the wall by a sky hook

Stupidly, in my inexperience, I had forgotten to actually attach the sky hook to my harness and so was instead left hanging in mid-air, clinging to the sky hook with my right arm, unwilling to let go now I had got an attachment to the rock. With a great deal of pulling and unattractive grunting, I managed to drag myself close enough to clip in with my harness, ready for the fun to begin.
Drills are not light pieces of equipment, especially when they have to be powerful enough to drill several inches into hard limestone. Add to that several stainless steel bolts, hangers, brushes, a hammer and a spanner and that is a fair weight to haul up on a rope while all the time expecting the sky hook to blow from the rock at any moment.
Let me talk you through bolting. First the hole has to be drilled. Keeping enough pressure on the drill for the hammer mechanism to work and ensuring it stays straight while dangling from a swaying rope is not easy. When the hole is deep enough, it needs to be cleaned. We use a length of tubing which fits inside the hole, allowing us to blow out the dust inside. If this is not done, the lifespan of the bolt is dramatically reduced as it increases its vulnerability to corrosion.

Danny Mickers bolting on Hangover wall

Then the metal bolt itself, with hanger and nut attached, must be hammered into the hole in the rock until the hanger is flush with the wall. We were using expansion bolts, so the nut is then tightened, which pulls the bolt forward in the hole, causing a soft metal sheath around it to slide back over a wider part of the bolt and so jam securely in the hole. The bolt is then ready to be clipped.
I repeated this process eight times down the wall, each time having to swing in and attach myself due to the overhang. When it was complete, we had a new climb. All that was left was to climb it.
The first ascent was a struggle for me, but the route started up the right hand side of a small tufa to some beautiful pockets before the crux. The key to the hardest section of the climb was to pinch an awkward tufa while using an under cling until pockets between two tufas could be reached. From here, it was a case of getting my feet high, pinching the top of the tufa and pushing up for the huge holds at the top. It was probably a 6b+ or 6C.

Over the next three days, Danny and I bolted another three routes – all hard and overhanging. My favourite was a 6b route that followed a shallow groove up the rock to some sharp conglomerate rock and a large tufa above that was full of holds. An interesting move near the top forces the climber to swing round, or barn door as it is known, from the groove into a large jug like hold to get the second last clip before pulling up on the tufa on the left to the top. This route, however, also left me with some injuries – while bolting, I had to clean off a large dead vine that hung down the groove. Unfortunately this appeared to be home to some flying ants and other biting insects that took umbrage at their home being destroyed. By the evening my hands and arms were swollen with bites.

Bolting my first climb

We have opted to call the place Hangover Wall.  “It’s funny ‘cos it is over-hanging, ja?”  It is actually named in honour of a movie we have been watching rather than the state we were in when we bolted it.  However, being sited so close to the party capital of Laos, Vang Vieng, it is perhaps appropriate. Definitely worth a visit after several free shots of Lao Lao…

Danny climbing on Hangover Wall

Sadly we have now moved to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, to sort out some visas before we head to the next climbing destination and then into Cambodia. We had hoped to leave today, but the truck is undergoing some major surgery and so will be stuck here for another day. Fortunately there is apparently plenty more routes to bolt at the new area we are going to, so in the meantime I will nurse the cuts, bites and grazes to ready myself for the next bolting adventure.

Now, I am in a more relaxed country, hopefully the blogs should flow easier, internet connections allowing.

The contrast between Laos and China is stark. Almost as soon as we crossed the border the roads deteriorated into pot-holed, dust lined tracks. It was slow going in the truck, as the roads wound around the countryside, through small villages of wooden houses built on stilts with woven reeds for walls and roofing material. Outside the buildings mats covered in corn and chillies dried in the sun. The people looked bewildered as the heavy, rattling bulk of Birt shuddered along their roads through their villages, but they gave friendly waves as we passed. Loas is far friendlier and more relaxed than China. The landscape seemed to change almost instantly, as if the Chinese had bent their environment to their iron will, while the Lao seemed happy to meander up and down the jungle covered mountainsides. The air also suddenly cleared on the Laos side of the border, the smog and haze that obscured the horizon in China lifted to give clear vistas of the mountains and blue sky above them. The contrast across the border could not be greater, but already I like the Laos better. It seems more relaxed and friendlier. The weather too is different – more humid, stickier and every night we are treated to impressive thunder storms that accompany the downpours of rain.

The Mekong from Luang Prabang

We arrived in Luang Perbang after nearly 8 hours of driving on the poorly constructed roads, passing through the occasional village, rich with the smell of wood smoke. In one the entire ground of a cemetery was covered in yellow of drying corn. As we got closer to the city, signs of development became more apparent – telephone wires, electricity pylons, satellite dishes outside the basic buildings. Breeze blocks and bricks also became a more common building material.

A novice monk in Luang Prebang

Luang Perbang itself is a tourist’s town, crawling with westerners gap year students looking to find themselves, French visitors and elderly Germans. The city, if you can call it that, is little bigger some of the towns in China we visited, contains around a dozen wats, the Buddhist temples and accommodation for Monks. We visited a couple of these and I met a young novice monk called Phet who spoke very good English. He had been training for three years already and had at least another three before he would qualify as a monk. Being a novice, however, had given him the opportunity to go to school and college, something that the families of most of the novices in the Wat were unable to afford normally, he said.

Barbequed street food is very popular in Laos. We have been living off the grilled chicken, pork chops and fish it is possible to buy at the stalls. There are also stalls selling fresh coffee – something I have been craving all through China – and freshly made fruit shakes.

Luang Prabang market

The truck has been running low on wood and charcoal so I managed to make a deal with one of the stalls to buy 4 huge bags of charcoal for 72,000 Kip, which is about £5.50. Unfortunately carrying it to the truck and loading it into the top locker at the back meant I became covered in the fine black dust. I drew some funny glances from the locals as I walked back to the hostel blacked up like a minstrel.

After a couple of days in Luang Perbang we then moved to a bush camp near one of the climbing areas. Unfortunately we were visited by some guys with Kalashnikov rifles during the night, along with a couple of police officers, who told us we had to leave as camping was not allowed. We argued for some time with them and in the end Graham had to agree to visit the police station the next morning to talk to their boss. During the night, however, the heavens opened and turned our already slightly muddy and humid camp into a swamp, complete with leaches. We were not sad to be told we had to pack up and leave when Graham returned. We are now, instead, stationed in a very nice little guesthouse about 2km outside of Vang Vieng.

The climbing here is good, but a lot more scattered than in China. The crags are smaller, but the rock is sound with overhanging tufas, conglomerate rock and awkward limestone pockets and cracks. In places, despite the relatively low traffic in Laos, it is already becoming polished. A couple of members of the group have already bolted one new route in the first area we visited, Na Pha Daeng. It is follows some interesting tufas up a steep over hanging wall, and is probably graded about 6b.

Sam and I are planning on bolting a couple of routes at a place called Pha Daeng Mountain at a crag called Lucy’s cave. Here the limestone falls in large, solid looking tufas that form a shallow cave behind them.

Mustard powering up 7a at Pha Daeng Mountain - Lucy's Cave

Out on the front, although it is in the sun in the morning, are some potential routes that we are hoping to put in place. We have another week here before moving on to the next area in Laos, so there is plenty of time to explore some more areas too.

A group of us have already had a rather messy day on the infamous river tubing in Viang Viene. This town is known as the party capital of Laos, and for good reason. Drunken westerners stagger about the streets for most of the day and night, and almost everyone takes part in the aquatic pub crawl that is tubing. Using giant inflatable rings, participants float down the river, stopping every 10 yards or so on either side of the river at the many bars there to have free shots of Lao Whisky (or Lao Lao) and to drink buckets of cocktails. Many of the bars have swings, mud pits, zip lines and jumps into the river that we monkeyed around on. At one bar, the staff were a bit surprised when all eight of us managed to clamber along a wire out to a bucket and return with a chip that earned us a free drink. It turned into a rather messy night in the end, and we floated back to the guesthouse in the dark as rain and thunder storms started to batter down. We managed to loose quite a few of the group along the way, but fortunately no-one was permanently lost and we found most of the strays drinking at various bars in town. The only real injuries were the hangovers the next morning and some bruised shins on my part after holding on for too long on a zip line… Ouch.

Dog meat on sale in Yangshuo food market

It brings a new perspective of man sleeping side by side with his best friend. Behind her cages were filled with other dogs – all the same breed with golden brown coats. They seemed calm, but must surely have been aware of what had happened to their less fortunate kin.
Another woman and a man hunched over the body of a newly killed dog as they skinned it, crouching as they worked. Beside them large pots steamed. On the floor, large lumps of fat lay strewn across the passageways between the stalls. Liquid soaked into my flipflops and made me shudder when it squelched between my toes. It was a foul soup of flesh, tepid fat, blood, and juices from the raw meat that sat on the stalls.
In some parts of the market, locals haggled and bickered as they bought, while in others, sellers gathered together to play cards under umbrellas beside their stalls. At one end, women chopped and rolled out ingredients to make sweet cakes and dumplings. Most of the people there were friendly, if a little amused by our repulsed reactions in the meat market. Only one reacted badly when we tried to take photos of him, shooing us on.