Australia to Thailand

Blue mountains Katoomba

Rolanda and I had heard from Paul and others that the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney was home to some excellent sport climbing and some great hikes. What’s more, it was relatively easy to get to with public transit. We bought train tickets for about $7 each and in a couple hours we stepped out into Katoomba, some 65km outside of Sydney city limits. It was a cute little town, full of bakeries, used bookstores, and adventure tourism places. We stayed at the YHA there which had used to be a boarding house back in the 1920s complete with a grand ballroom filled with couches for chillin’. The front desk loaned us a copy of the Blue Mountains climbing guidebook and gave us a map of local hikes.



We spent a day hiking the perimeter of the Bluies fault to see the Three Sisters, a set of sandstone pillars with a couple of excellent easy ~6 pitch climbs (around Ewbanks 12 – Yosemite 5.5) on them that were closed several years ago. Instead, Rolls and I walked down the 900 steps to the bottom, then along the forest floor past waterfalls for a few kilometers and back up via 723 steps and back to the hostel.



The following day we took the train two more stops to Blackheath and hit up Upper Shipley crag with Jackie, a German girl we had met at Paynes Ford in NZ, and two friends she had made in Sydney. It was a good day, although it got wicked hot later in the afternoon. Rolanda and I each led 5 pitches on interesting sandstone climbs heavily featured with in-cut crimps and jugs made up of veins of some other very hard stone of which I cannot remember the name.


Flying to Indonesia

The alarm went off at 6am. We finished packing, made breakfast and lunch, checked out and took the train from Katoomba to the airport. When we tried to check in with JetStar they told us we needed proof of a flight out of Indonesia before they would issue boarding passes. This meant I had less than 60 minutes to find and book a flight online, try to print the confirmation email and fail, convince them to accept the confirmation displayed on my laptop, check our bags and get boarding passes, clear security and get on the plane. But we made it to Denpasar, Bali about 18 hours later after a boring and foodless stopover in Darwin. Never fly with JetStar. They suck.


Kuta

It was pouring rain in Denpasar when we landed at 11pm and we ended up getting ripped off by a taxi driver for three times the normal fare because we couldn’t be bothered walking 1km to a registered taksi stand. But we did find a nice guesthouse called Palm Gardens on Poppies II in Bali’s Kuta; the Miama of Indonesia.



YES - SUNNYS AND SINGLET – CHEAP CHEAP – HELLO HAVE A LOOK – MORNING PRICE FOR YOU SIR – TRANSPORT? TRANSPORT? Kuta is loud and dirty, with unending streams of scooters and taxis, and the thousands of street vendors can get pretty aggressive vying for tourist dollars, but as a Hindu island it is a safe place for the most part. It’s annoying to constantly have to say “no thank you” a million times each day, but there are some deals to be had if you are willing to haggle a bit. Meals are simple and cost about a dollar or two from lots of warung food stands. Also, the local beer Bintang is very good and available ice cold absolutely everywhere for about $1.50/bottle.



Lombongan

We took a slow outrigger boat from Sanyur to the island of Lombongan, two hours off shore from Bali, but still almost in the shadow of BIG VOLCANO on the main island. Lombongan was much more chilled out than Kuta and a welcome change. Lembongan, like Bali, is mostly Hindu, so there are shrines and temples everywhere. Locals place offerings of incense, rice and other foods at the entrance to their homes and businesses in small boxes weaved from palm fronds. By the end of the day there are hundreds of these things scattered everywhere on the roads and sidewalks. It seems as though the offering has done its thing immediately upon being placed on the ground because no one seems upset when people step on or drive over them or chickens, dogs, and rodents get into a pile of offerings.



There are a number of nice beaches around and Rolanda and I spent time at Dream Beach and Mushroom Beach, doing some reef snorkeling at the latter, but for the most part Lembongan is actually a pretty dirty island. There is garbage everywhere along the coastline and all over the roads and paths. Rolanda and I rented bicycles for a day and stumbled across the island dump on the northern side of the island, with many smoldering fires. Our guest house was also downwind from a house that routinely burned bonfires of plastic bottles and the hundreds of scooters everywhere produced a fair bit of exhaust fumes.



But the food was cheap and tasty.

Gili islands

A stomach churning speedboat ride later, we found ourselves on Gili Trawanagan, the largest and most populated of the three Gilis. At first glance, it was paradise. Clean white sand beaches encircling the island, quiet cafes and dive shops on the main drag, and most importantly no scooters or motorized vehicles of any kind – only horse drawn carts.



After realizing neither of us could do a SCUBA course due to various lung and ear ailments, we resolved ourselves to lots of snorkeling and laying on the beach. I got a great deal on a snorkel set that turned out to be much too small, but we made it work. The reefs off the coast are teeming with brightly coloured fishes of all shapes and sizes and efforts are being made to preserve what’s left of the live coral. There’s also a sea turtle fostering program on Gili T and the baby turtles are just about the cutest things you’ll ever see.



Christmas was just another hot and sunny day, except that Rolls and I each got a couple hours of Skyping in with family which was a nice treat. I went snorkeling and saw not one but two adult sea turtles close enough that I could have touched them (but I didn’t).
Sadly, my underwater digital camera leaked on Lembongan and decided to pack it up the first time we used it on Gili.



Padang Bai and Ubud

Gili T exploded with tourists on Xmas day so we decided to hightail it out of there. We took the most unpleasant speedboat ride of our lives back to the east coast of Bali to the port of Padang Bai where we hung out for a day and enjoyed our first fresh water shower in weeks. We checked out Blue Lagoon Beach (small and dirty) in the day and dodged fireworks thrown by local children.



Then it was off to Ubud, the “cultural center” of Bali and apparently the setting for some Julia Roberts movie that was playing at every restaurant every night. Traffic was congested and the streets were loud at night (compared to Gili where there are no cars at all of course). We went to the market and bought some souvenirs, read our books, avoided all culturally enriching performances and events, and visited the monkey forest sanctuary.



I really liked the monkeys but Rolls assured me that they weren’t cuddly or cute when they attacked people – which we observed on several occasions during our visit. Never hide a banana from a monkey.

Malaysia

After spending half a night in Kuta again, we took a taxi to the airport at 3am through the insane nightlife of drunken shirtless poorly tattooed Australians, child pickpockets, and miniskirted ladyboy prostitutes. Rolls and I flew into Kuala Lumpur on New Years Eve and eventually found the hostel we had booked and checked in. Going on very little sleep, we walked around the city and went to see the Petronas Towers.



We also strolled through the overpriced mall there and visited a free art gallery that was actually quite good. Leaving the air-conditioned mall was a tough choice, but we followed the disgusting river through town to a huge mosque the old cricket grounds at Little India. There was a huge stage and a large orchestra set up and ready to perform a free concert to ring in the new year. We rested our legs and hung out for a while enjoying the orchestra’s sound tests, and not really enjoying the video clips from last year featuring Malaysia’s hottest pop music stars.



The Victorian architecture around the cricket grounds was beautiful, but we soon realized that we were the focus of most people’s attention. We were the only people in the audience not wearing long sleeved shirts and long pants and obviously Rolanda was not sporting a headscarf. Several groups approached and asked to have their photos taken with us and I was interviewed on camera by a television reporter anxious to know what two obviously out-of-place blond westerners thought of Kuala Lumpur. It all became a bit much so we left to go get some food before the event got underway at 9pm. Leaving the heavily policed venue and entering the night market, Rolanda quickly became the target of lots of loud and aggressive catcalling and we both began to feel rather uncomfortable so we hopped on the monorail back to Bukit Bintang where we were staying. There was another massive gathering in progress there but with lots more westerners and even some people drinking alcohol. We ate traditional Malaysian McDonalds for dinner, I had a nap, and Rolls woke me up at midnight to see no less than three simultaneous fireworks displays on different sides of our hostel.

The next morning we learned that Kuala Lumpur has excellent rock climbing around Batu Caves, the largest Hindu temple outside of India. It is even easy to get to on public transit, but sadly we had to leave and didn’t get to check it out.

Thailand

Rolanda was very excited to be back in Krabi and impressed with how painless it was this time around to get a shuttle from the airport to Ao Nang beach and then a longtail boat over to Tonsai. Apparently the locals have really gotten their tourist act together in the last couple years.

Tonsai and Railey beach is quite possibly the best climbing destination in the world. The scenery is spectacular, with overhanging limestone faces and huge stalactites clinging to the cliffs, some hundreds of meters up. The guidebook is very comprehensive and up to date, although the French grades are a bit soft when scaled against the Yosemite decimal system, but more accurate against the Ewbanks Australian grades*.

Rolanda and I found that we were onsighting around 6a+ which meant there were dozens of climbs available to us within a short walk from our cabin. We chase the shade around to avoid the hot sun and usually eat a large late breakfast at Chicken Mamas’ and then return at sundown for another huge meal of Pad Thai, curry, or similar delicious food. During the day we subsist on bananas and banana bread.



The climbing is awesome and we are both getting stronger and better at climbing on lead. It’s hard to take photos since we are only two people but hopefully I will update soon with some dramatic lead shots if we can find a third. Everything is really steep and overhanging, but with big holds and usually very polished feet. Especially on the Ton Sai Roof which rises up out of the beach and holds some of the most accessible hard climbing in the area. At sundown we usually hang out with the crowd and watch people work on crazy 8a routes and take big falls.

Rolls is leaving soon to fly back to Canada without me. I’m sad about this and wish she could stay with me for the rest of the trip, but it looks like I’ll be on my own for the rest of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and maybe China before heading back to Canada at the end of March (or first of April?) with no money and a great tan.




*As an aside, the Yosemite decimal system is ridiculous and should be abandoned in favor of just about any other system [except the English system; that’s definitely the worst]. “5.12d+” is complex and superfluous; the Australians would grade the same climb as a “30” and be done with it.