Climbing Report Vietnam

If you are looking for climbing destinations go and look somewhere else. If you wanna develop a climbing area you are welcome to this nice but sometimes exhausting country. Vietnam is nice but not yet developed. Onslow and his buddy Eric
are very slowly doing this job on cat ba island, a part of the ha long bay. For more infos www.slopony.com
The guys are here since 10 months but it took them 5 months to get the OK from the government for bolting some routes. On the island are about 12 climbs bolted yet, that's nothing compared to the potential (there is space for thousends more) and in the bay are over 2000 islands and on a few of them you can go deep water soloing, but... But! and this is important, the water is not really visible, a friend of Klem Loskot got injured by falling into the water. And they thought it is ok, but even with snorkeling gear the water ist not really visible. Thailand is safer! And please don't climb on the old bolts from Tod Skinner and Lynn Hill, it actually happened that a bolt came off and the girl on the climb had to go to the hospital.
Another region which we recommend is Ninh Binh and surroundings. It is a copy from the ha long bay but surrounded by ricefields instead of saltwater. On one of these thousends of small mountains/rocks we saw the only five bolted routes. I did the hardest one onsight. At that point we'd like to have a drill with us. Wouldn't it be great to carry a few drills and hundreds of bolts to complete our other luggage (crashpad, backpacks...). Anyway, it was fun to play with the farmers and farmers children, we were the main attraction of the day (year?).
There are a few dirty boulders in north vietnam near Sa Pa. (but I'm sure you can find more). Close to Hue (south) are landscapes full of boulders! Will it become Viet Nam's Fontainebleau?
So this is for everybody: please come and develop this wonderful area. We can't because at the moment one taifun after the other is coming to central vietnam. (Rainseason from Sept to Dez) For details please contact us. And if you have motivation to bolt on the island here, now it should be ok. We were there, on the historic day when the politicans from this area came and saw what climbing looks like, and we had to drink a lot with these guys and I ate goatblood with some weird vegetables in it, see what we are doing just to develop climbing in Vietnam!
So alltogether, if you wanna climb stay in ton sai, but if you wanna eat weird things and develop a lot, vietnam is your choice.
P.S.: snake is yummy, dog stays in the tummy like a stone.

Klaus

Vietnam - Klettern