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General Climbing Discussion

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Climbing Holiday destinations in Asia 17-Jul-2007 At 9:50:58 AM dr_fil_good

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I was in Halong Bay July last year and looking for people to climb with. I had no luck. I chartered a boat solo looking for good cliffs and still had no luck. A lot of the bases of the cliffs are really *** sharp from the waves beating against the rock ... perhaps high-tide is the time to climb? Much to my dismay, I found that a lot of the rock was not fun to climb simply because it's so uncomfortable in terms of sharp edges on holds and poor landings in the water sometimes.

I have some friends in the States who climbed there in May last year, they said that they had gps coordinates to get to the good rock - they had a brilliant time! They said that the GPS coordinates helped a lot with getting to cliffs - they also had a map with markings of locations on it, but when they showed the various captains, they had never read a map before so they couldn't interpret the locations!!! If you decide to go to Halong, let me know and I will email my mates and ask them for the gps coordinates that they were given.

The climbing in Dalat in Vietnam was pretty average. I have, however, heard amazing things about climbing in Laos. I'm yet to go there this Christmas / New Year. Halong Bay is an amazing place and I highly recommend you go there just for the scenery! Hanoi is a really fun city! Sapa is an incredible place to go if you get off the beaten track. And al this is only about two days of incredibly fun travelling from Yangshuo (the border crossing between Hanoi and Nanning is an incredible experience!!!).

I'm sure that if you stay out of the busy cities of Malaysia you will have an amazing time regardless of where you go in South East Asia!!!

p.s. Climbing the quarries in Singapore sucks dead dingos fetid innards, don't do it! (although they do have a very amusing belay technique)