I've not long returned from a two and a half month stay on Tao.
I found it, by turns, one of the most amazing and revolting places I've ever climbed.
Amazing, as there is rock absolutely fucking everywhere: on the beach, on funky peninsula's, on the hillsides, deep in the jungle, on the many coconut farms, and plenty of things just off the road, too... Or hidden in a myriad spooky spots. Take a walk in any direction on this 21 km sq. blip in the ocean and you cannot fail to find rock to climb on.
Revolting, as the conditions can be just that. Utterly fucking minging. To get the best out of the place you need to get into the early morning session: 7am starts. After 11am (unless it's unusually mild and overcast) the sun will roast your ass and the humidity will floor you. That's if the early morning breakfasting of the innumerable mosquito bitches hasn't already driven you insane. And there's the rub: how does one climb when there are too many things out there that want to suck your blood? I found 95% DEET and as many mosquito coils as you can light/tolerate pretty much the only way forward (if they're biting) and around dusk, well, use what you can get your hands on; you'll be bitten regardless. I went through 2 large pots of tigerbalm during my trip with the bites n'all (and more than once felt like Withnail, in the Deep-Heat scene). And it's true: wearing white does confuse some of the bugs. Climbing in the afternoon is do-able, but generally only if the boulder has been in the shade for some time.
Granite it is, and certainly the poorest I've seen. Alpine quality it isn't. It's fairly large crystal and can be very snappy. But it ain't all bad and there's plenty of problems on almost-awesome rock. Generally, it's indecently sharp to climb on and more often than not, very gravely to the touch. You're buggered without a stout wirebrush here. But the best bit is that occassionally you find boulders with prominent bands of sandstone-esque microgranite which is superb and solid to the touch. Often, I found the better problems to be those that featured this intrusion.
The boulders range from too small to vast with plenty inbetween and can be anything from a coppery grey-white to ochre to the blackest black in colour. The rock quality is better inland. I started on the coast which has it's charms, but there's nothing charming about filling your pant's as your world slowly but surely crumbles around you in places you can't fall. There's plenty of that on the coastline. Most of the top spots are on the coconut farms where the farmer's have cut back the jungle leaving just the boulders and the coconut trees, or in the more residential areas. The jungle is always there too, on the periphery of all the areas, beckoning strangely...
... for strange it is! There's masses of unclimbed rock in the jungle; it's just a question of whether you really want to climb under these ah... conditions. The bugs are nuts in the jungle (take that as read) and the ground is littered with hidden nastiness just waiting to go through your whole foot/mat. It's oppressively wild. You'll get totally lost and succumb to the Fear, gibbering as you stumble with mats through the mid-growth, cursing all swine who guff on of Adventure Bouldering and the like, only to be gobsmacked by the sight of a huge bloc and a tree with a good two hundred years of viney rooty growth, growing on top. Or tree snakes climbing overhanging rock. Falling coconuts and friutbat shit.
An axe became part of my essential kit: there are many stumps near the boulders from, I guess, the first round of deforestation the farmers undertook. Mostly one could manhandle these away but others you'd need to hack-out. Yeah, it can get a bit Grizzly Adams in the jungle, but I'd recommend any visitor climber or no spend some time here alone. It genuinely blew my mind and I had to stop smoking pot when here; it was strange enough without confusing the issue further.
The zengecko link. That be James March, 44, lanky American and Tao guidebook writer with Thai girlfriend and daughter. He lives in Gong Valley, not far from the island's 'capital', Mae Haad. The website is gash as it's centred around attracting punters to Zengecko (top roping/guiding, all very cas') and the sale of the bouldering guidebook to Tao via PAYPAL (which does not currently work). There's little information to be found on the website. However, I may have bitched enough to James about this that changes will be made at some time in the future. One hopes, James. You would certainly be better off getting a guide (300 baht/6 euro) direct from James at his home. If he's there. He's not always on Tao and is not a citizen of Thailand. A visa runner. The guide is in it's second edition. It's a slim, plastic-spined A4 thing in B & W with the odd dire grainy photo. It's very basic, but it is only four quid. But alas, even in the latest edition it is out of date, whole areas go unreported. Only the more established zones are offered, but in it's favour the topo's are excellent. Mats of varying provenence and quality can be hired from James. But do take your own, at least two, each. More the merrier (there is no hospital on Tao). And don't expect to find climbing partners either, you'll need to bring them too (they're all in Krabi, Tao is almost deserted climbing-wise). Don't be fooled by the existence of The Zen Gecko School of Rockclimbing, Koh Tao. It really is just James. And despite his eccentricities and and rampant hippiness, he deserves a modicum of respect as it's pretty much been just him the past 6 years, slowly plugging away, filling those gaps.
It's all there for the taking really, there's more than enough rock to keep even the most ardent new router happy. I can't remember all the new things we did, there were so many. It's not a place to look for fillers or sit-starts: there are killer lines everywhere; whole areas still to be discovered.
Koh Tao survival tips:
"Learn to love them." (Richie Pullen) Or, use mosquito nets and bug spray/coils. Both Malaria and Dengue Fever occasionally visit Tao.
Forget about the awfulness of the conditions at hand, they will not improve, ever.
Learn to 'scum' like you mean it: you may not have realised it, but Koh Tao is the Scumming capital of Asia. You'll get cut to ribbons here, revel in it.
Use loose chalk with as many biologically hideous 'drying agents' as the product can legally contain. You won't believe how gross this rock is when your hands are sopping with sweat. Liquid chalk is a waste of money here, pointless.
Clothes are dirt cheap here, save the weight and take extra mats, you'll need them, many many highballs.
You'll need a bike, but under no cirmunstances hire a skyblue GayMoped covered in smart unscratched plastic fairings with only 300km on the clock. The roads are fucking abysmal, genuinely terrifying, and you'll require a Honda 'step through' or something with gears so that you can actually decend some of the very steep roads with some semblence of control, without locking up and eating dirt. The bike shops cream you on the damages. Rapaciously so, I speak from experience. Hire a heap. There are no helmets.
Beware of the Lady Boys, they're an odd bunch.
And the gear isn't worth buying, get drunk instead. Avoid 'Yaba' like the plague.
Sharma, Nate Gold and crew came here couple of years back and left some fine problems in their wake. And I wondered why they didn't leave more, but then after two months on an ex-prison island I found out why, it'll get to you, Tao. In some way it'll totally get inside your head, you really feel the weight of the place, it's mad wildness. The ludicrousness of fighting through jungles etc.. the snakes, lizards, flying foxes, the fucking bugs/scuba divers. In the end I felt lucky to leave alive.
I've plenty of photos. I'm in the process of setting up a site to display them on. As and when...
And don't be put off by the above. It's a magical, dangerous place, but a phenomenal experience. Just don't go alone.
I'll try and post some pix here when I've learnt how.
Oh, a DVD called "The Magic Potion" has been made of the climbing on Tao. By an Englishman. Couple of years old. Fish fish, erm... who made that damn film?
Pearson? Maybe. I forget, but I'll remember before too long.
