I would say the best place to start if you are doing research for a trip is SimonFoley.com's website in the S. E. Asia section and forum. Since starting this trip I have also found out about a book called "Exotic Rock" that looks as though it may cover climbing in a lot of these areas. I have to get a copy to confirm how good or up to date it is though.
- Vietnam:
- Halong Bay
- Dalat
- Laos:
- Vang Vieng
- Vang Vieng 2
- Vang Vieng 3
- SimonFoley.com's section on Laos and the forum there has more info on the history of this area and the areas North in Luang Prabang.
- Philippines:
- Apo Island
- Dumagete area at Mabinay (on Negros Oriental)
- Alona Beach Boulders (off Bohol on Panglao)
- Iloilo area at Dingle, Panay Isle
- We heard about a Gym at Tacloban and some new routes at a resort across the bridge on Samar but cannot confirm either.
- There is also plenty of indoor and outdoor climbing around Manila that we did not get to access due to time constraints and the holidays. The SCAPI website is a pretty good link into that scene, but we never had good results emailing. Call or show up.
- East Malaysia (Borneo): (New Climb Malaysia book)
- Bako National Park
- There is potentially climbing in the Mt Kinabalu and cave areas in Sabah but I have not heard of any development there.
- West Malaysia: (New Climbing Malaysia Book)
- Indoor Climbing near Kuala Lumpur
- Batu Caves: Damai Wall
- Batu Caves: Nyamuc Wall
- There is also some serious multipitch alpine mountaineering climbing on the Dragon's Horns on the isle of Palau Tioman of the East coast of Malaysia. There is beta on this in the new Climbing Malaysia book.
- Our pics of Malaysia can be seen ON THIS LINK
- Thailand:
- The best info we got ahead of time was from SimonFoley.com's discussion forum
- Our pics can be seen ON THIS LINK
- We picked up 'Wees Rocks' which has less detailed info than Kings, but what is there is less wrong. I will be publishing all the errata I found in both books here soon. (one of the climbers with us also had the Kings Book)
- There was at least one great rebolting effort I saw going on by one guy. I donated 1000 baht to him when I saw him. My only wish was that I had brough more slings and beaners etc to donate to anchors and threads that really needed them.
- I have also submitted all my GPS points to http://colororange.com/
