BKK/KK 2017

One travel post to rule them all this year, and to end it off. The first 6 days this December I spent in Thailand, more specifically Bangkok and Khon Kaen, on what was primarily a climbing trip. But that doesn't mean we didn't do other things hahaha. Thinking back, there were minimal "blank moments" and everything was pretty much packed into one smooth happening [figuratively speaking only as the rocks were anything but smooth]. I wish I could include every detail [hmm ok maybe not all of them...], but instead, here are the things I find most worth remembering :)

Prologue (1-2 Dec)

The plan was to fly into BKK, spend some hours as tourists, then get on the night train to KK and start our outdoor climbs bright and early on the second day. And then we managed to book train tix for the wrong night, even with three pairs of eyes looking at the same laptop screen. This I still find pretty funny lol. Hence, we ended up with one more day to spend as tourists in BKK.

So of course we decided to go (indoor) climbing on that extra day. [Much to the horror of some ppl I mentioned the plan to--so much for a chance to just shop and chill but nope that's not how we roll] Before that, a few other things worth mentioning coz it's BKK after all, such as this particular tom yum from The New Rot Fai Market Ratchada. But first, there was the getting there.

Now I really KNOW the importance of having "public transport with its own right of way". This pic was taken in a pretty screwed position, with every car trying to make a U-turn effectively removing one lane from an already congested road.

3 km/h is a frustrating speed to travel at under any circumstance, not to mention when one is hungry. Story goes that we decided to take a Grab since it was about 30 baht more expensive than the equivalent BTS (the BKK MRT) ride and we wouldn't have to walk 10 mins out to the station. Bad decision. I should've seen the signs, especially when the driver accepted the booking from 3 streets and "4 mins" away, only to arrive close to 30 mins later. It took an hour after that for us to cover a distance we could've walked in 30 mins. At least we learnt the lesson with no major consequence and from there, it was "trust public transport only" for getting to the train ride/flight out of BKK.

And back to the tom yum. Along with the accompanying drinks, this gets the joint title of "best thing eaten on this trip" with one other dinner to be mentioned later. It's also the kind of thing one snaps a picture of to send to friends back home who are not on holiday hehe. Just look at the picture! There's maggi hiding at the bottom, soaking up all the just-the-right-level-of-spicy goodness. On hindsight, one thing I'm not sure of is why we decided to challenge ourselves by shelling the prawns and crab legs with chopsticks, instead of our fingers (dunno is it subconsciously preserving them for the climbing days ahead or what). Anyhow, the seafood all tasted good once we coaxed them into the open. When paired with large cups of iced Thai/green milk tea... Heaven. Hmm actually, "large" isn't accurate; when J returned with the drinks it honestly looked like she was holding brightly coloured flowerpots, the genuine ceramic kind.

To give a sense of scale, the larger mussel is palm-sized.

This was followed by a good sleep and the first of 4 consecutive climbing days, but indoors instead of out. In practically an immediate reaction to our gaffe with the train tix, we'd gone to google for climbing gyms in BKK. Like plan to climb for 4 days so MUST climb for 4 days. Or prob coz none of us shop much anyway. After lazing around until we got tired of lazing (just as well, we'd be waking well before 7am on every day that followed), it was off to the first climb.

It's not common for me to get sold on anything just from online reviews, but that was exactly the case for Rock Domain Climbing Gym. I don't rmb ever being so keen on visiting any climbing gym. The best part is that the real thing exceeded expectations! 2 levels of boulder walls with varying profiles, even including a sloped/inclined area and top out zone for us to practice mantling for the next few days lolol. Routes had a slightly foreign style, but there were sooo many to satisfy all kinds of itchy fingers! Unfortunately, some restraint was necessary so as not to prematurely destroy any body part. At that point, I'd thought it'd be possible for us to come back on our final day to go all out and actually try hard on some of the fun stuff. Wellz let's see what happens...

Team Quechua, a subsidiary of Team Cockfosters.

Oh yes, we also made good use of the top-notch facilities (shower and café). Climb + chill + shower made for a very good (holi)day indeed. Thinking about it now, that was also my final hot shower of the trip... That night, we finally boarded our misbooked train and exhausted the night's supply of water over dinner, no thanks to some tongue-numbingly spicy minced chicken. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the small, cozy bunk space and actually managed to fall asleep.

What We Came For (3-5 Dec)

Fast forward to the next three consecutive climbing days in the Zoolander boulder fields! First things first, Zoolander is a new area which the friendly people of Khon Kaen Climbing Club are working hard to develop. Develop (roughly) meaning mapping out boulders in the place and finding lines (the outdoor equivalent of routes) to climb on them. There is an established bouldering area in KK with thousands of routes from years of development, but that was unfortunately made off limits to climbers just shortly before our trip (damn). It's a shame, but it made room for some new experiences. Coz in Zoolander, we got to help develop climbs on some never-before-climbed stuff which in its own right is pretty cool. One just has to take a walk through the forest to know the area's potential--something climbable every few steps.

Now on to the actual bouldering! It was more than 2 years since the last time and I'd really missed it. Interestingly, my favourite climb of the trip took the form of a V2 slab. Why is very simple... coz use less fingers xD I really enjoy climbing outdoors but my fingers could've done with a little more toughness this round (in terms of both strength and skin). As compared to all my previous outdoor experiences, the footholds here were pretty generous (with decent shoes and footwork of course). There's this common perception that natural boulders have really shitty footholds so you can't always trust your feet, and this makes things scary. I've found that to be true elsewhere but here's the opposite. [At least for me, if you ask my trip mates they might tell you different haha] What's really scary is having good feet, but being unable to trust the hands.

KK's got an elephant too! No #Deniseforscale this time but it had pretty interesting lines. Ascend the "elephant head" up the trunk for a scarily slopey top out and iffy landing or the "elephant ear", crimpy-shouldery up the right side. Squished photo coz the elephant's face is practically touching another rock.

Because these were all newly developed boulders, some even never-before-climbed, they possessed two slightly less than desirable traits. They bite, and they break. Firstly about the biting. While I do remember meeting some rough rock (e.g. grit stone in the Peak District), there hasn't been anything nearly as Sharp, with a capital S. [To my friend J though, the holds are merely "textured" so I really have to take my hat off to her and beseech my fingers to toughen up before the next trip.] Thankfully, sharp holds aren't necessarily life-threatening. What's really heart-stopping is when a handhold breaks in the middle of a climb... which did happen to me near the top of one boulder. I am generally confident in my footwork, and on this trip, much more so than my hands. As such, I also ended up not topping out on a few boulders :x If I were a purist I'd prob be really upset with myself but I can live with it hahaha, prob better not to risk a slip and breaking something on the upper half of my body.

I guess the sharp holds made a huge impression. Won't lie, the pain really got to me. When I pulled onto that first warmup V1, my mind just went, "Ouch??" But then if you ignore the sharpness and look purely at the climbs (some V1-4s attempted), they were actually pretty sleek and technical. There was this one V2 which I attempted prob too many times just to try and not chicken out at the top out. While eventually unsuccessful, the specificity of the moves was really what I enjoyed (see below). Same thing with another overhanging V3 with crimpy holds and perfectly located footholds almost like in a gym setting. Would've very much liked to try that one again without burning fingertips and breaking off a foothold at my best attempt.

Coz blogger's video function sucks, here's the starting sequence of a V2 in screenshots. Took us an exceedingly long time to even start at first, after that it was all a matter of sticking the crimpy holds and finding the holds at the slopey top out, which I failed to do.

On that note, gotta talk about that slab. We were introduced to the "Blade Rock" on the morning of the final day, where my fingers were pretty much already screaming. The boulder was so named because that's really what it looks like--a bad guy weapon. The interesting thing about this one was that it's flat, so there's no climbing over or on top of it (downclimb to get off). Not sure how it got there, but it could be that it broke from the main rock on the opposite side of the path and came to lean against the tree at the perfect slab angle.

Side + front view of the Blade Rock, about 4m tall. Squashed photo again coz I practically had to lie on the opposite rock to get most of it in frame.

There were a couple of easy lines on the extreme left of the blade and also the option of traversing the entire length from the right and up the leftmost edge for a V2. After scouting (and looking pretty much exclusively at the footholds), I knew I could flash the whole thing. No video/photo unfortunately, coz despite being fairly close to the ground, there was some areas where you couldn't really put a crashpad. So kiasu and have 2 spotters better than falling backwards. All those no-hands rests along the way were also greatly appreciated haha. Going up the left edge was pretty cool too, utilising some OK footholds and some less-OK ones, and trying not to barndoor out into oblivion. Of course, falling on this rock would've meant a cheese grating no amount of spotting could've helped, so I'm glad nothing like that happened haha.

The last experience in the boulder field involved cleaning boulders which is pretty much what it sounds like, short of scrubbing with soap. Basically, boulders in their natural state can be found sleeping under mounds of dead leaves, guarded fiercely by thorny undergrowth and the occasional spawn of Aragog. To lower the chance of nasty incidents (climbing shoes are useless against the slippery dead leaves for one) and actually climb, some of these things have to be removed. So on this trip, I added shears to my bank of experiences with farm tools. After some sweeping and snipping, there was also the matter of removing actual bits of rock. Remember how new rock breaks? It takes some climbing for the rock to stabilise, i.e. people to break more things off, leaving only the strong, truly climbable parts. Thin flakes are particularly breakable, but they're mostly harmless except for a mini heart attack. What's not harmless is a face-sized block of rock coming off and hitting one's face. As we saw then, these things do pull off, especially if one is heavy and happened to cut loose while holding onto them. So it's best to remove these things before even getting on.

Some pruning going overhead and J's not using the wrong end of the broom there, she's testing some chossy bits.

The rock we cleaned really looked soooooo good, with a nice rail going all round it like a ring around a planet. But at that point, I couldn't even bear to load on anything anymore. Think my fingers would've instigated a bloodbath, so I did not try :( Next time! But I can't be sure... now KK's returned to the end of the extremely long queue list for climbing trips, hopefully I'll be climbing long enough to come back someday.

France? UK? Malaysia?

The other mentionables include our journey up to Nam Phong National Park. It was 4 Dec where the climbing day started at 8.30am (meant leaving at 7.30am (meant getting up at 6.30am)) and by 3pm we were already faffing just a tad too much. So on a recommendation, we took a trip up to the place which housed the original bouldering areas of KK (not exactly to the boulder field though). The drive took us down winding roads that called up memories of the European countryside, and also a good way along this hugeass reservoir. The best part was that we somehow ended up at a perfect viewing point--a real viewing point--just as the sun was setting. Was a real nice touch there.

I prob used up my next 5 years worth of sunset luck on this one. Yes, that's the reservoir not the sea.

Also we did visit the zoo [after paying zoo entry fees every day coz the boulder fields were within the same huge plot of land], specially to see the "lemurs". It turned out to be one lonely lemur lounging at the bottom of its cage and my heart sank a little at the sight.

Last but definitely not the least from the KK leg: the other best dinner of the trip. Would it be strange to say that I had the best sashimi ever in KK? Yep, our hunt for dinner one night led us to one fairly up-class Japanese place which by sheer chance was offering 30% off everything on the menu. So we strolled right in in our climbing things. Three great surprises in this dinner. The first was that the wasabi served was without doubt the REAL thing I'd never before tasted. There's this viral video of a sushi chef teaching an angmoh guy to eat sushi, and he describes the wasabi as sweet. It's true. Real wasabi, unlike the powdered fair we usually get, tastes sweet and has enough kick in a droplet-sized smear to evoke the same sinus-clearing effect. Second was that sashimi. I've never had to take more than a single bite to finish a slice of raw salmon before. In this case, each thick slab took three whole bites to finish and they were the freshest, fattiest sashimi I've ever eaten. I now realise I have no picture of this, but this just goes to show how amazing it was. Last: this dinner cost S$12 per person ;)

No picture of the sashimi, but the main dinner is just as photogenic. It's called the HYPER ROLL.

Epilogue (6 Dec)

Yea, we thought we'd be going back to Rock Domain to try hard on this final day but well sometimes we think too highly of our physical capabilities. So it was shaping up to be a longgg day ahead when the train deposited us back in BKK at 6am when practically nowhere was open AND our flight was at 9pm. So what happened was that (after a futile attempt to find some hostel to crash for the morning) 3 zombies ended up hobo-ing at a Starbucks, huddled around a tablet playing Sporcle xD At 1pm, this games cafe (Throne of Games Cafe) we'd been eyeing opened for business. And then we managed to spend the following 5 hours in there before having to rush to get to the airport. All thanks to Voldemort and his cronies haha. The game was Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, a co-op deck building game which was in no way easy towards the end. Highly recommended, what with all the breath-holding and "I can heal you just whack, KILL HIM" moments. In the end, we didn't even get to defeat Voldemort properly before hightailing it out of the place. But based on our projections, he'd be dead within two rounds and that's an indication of how late we were already hahaha.

In this game, Ron (whom I played throughout) is powerful, Hermione is a money-mine, Neville is a healer and Harry is nothing special.

So that was it, the last afternoon spent in the most unexpectedly worthwhile manner. Anddd just like that, holiday was overrr. Wasn't the most restful trip ever, but we had our fun and I can't wait for the next one already :D

While we're still young :)