I headed up to the rocklands for a couple days to check out some world-class bouldering, and possibly get eaten by a leopard. The place is pretty cool, loads of rock for miles in any direction, with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom living in between. I got on some fun problems, but I kept getting more and more tentative to slap blindly for holds after seeing all the spiders, snakes, and assorded angry critters living in them.

Next stop was Montagu, the western cape's premier sport climbing destination area, and home to absolutely no climbers at the moment. Nobody to climb with, hence no real reason for me to be at the western cape's premier sport climbing destination area. In fact, in the short time I've been down here, I have become convinced that I am the only travelling rock climber in all of South Africa. Looks like I'll stick to bouldering.

Anyway, I'll probably tourist up the joint in Cape Town for a couple days more before heading east. If I'm feeling lucky, next stop will be Outdoorshoorn and the awesome limestone with likely zero partners to be had. Otherwise, it's off to J-Bay to find some waves.

It remains All Good.

written by  Jason Kester on March 11, 2003 from Cape Town, South Africa
from the travel blog: Africa, 2003
tagged Climbing and Bouldering
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

But none of that will matter soon, as I am about to become a huge movie star in Thailand! I was sitting in a cafe on the beach, reading a book and toying with the remains of my pad thai this afternoon, when a couple thai girls came up and asked if I'd like to be in a ice cream commercial. But of course. Why else would I be waiting here?

They took a bunch of photos and videotaped me walking up to the camera and smiling and talking about how much I enjoyed partying on the beach and eating ice cream. It was hilarious. Anyway, if I make the cut, they'll ship me and fifteen other superficial looking farang off to some beach in Trang provence for a week. There's even some baht in the deal.

So yeah, that's my story for the day. I'll keep you posted on my soon to be illustrious career as an actor!

written by  Jason Kester on January 16, 2004 from Ban Ao Nang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, the Trans Siberian and Scandenavia
tagged Climbing
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Ok, I guess I did make it down to Malaysia for a week, but really only to take care of the visa situation and eat a whole bunch of noodles in Chinatown.

Stopped in Trang for a couple nights on the way back, and set off into the countryside on a rented motorbike. There are miles of beautiful white sand beach with basically no development at all, and no tourists except a few Thais. There's even nice rocks to be climbed, just like Railay but without the tourists. I may have to buy some land down there...

One of the beaches that I checked out is only accessable by walking through a cave. And not just one of those duck-under-these-few-rocks caves, but a full on better-have-a-second-light-source cave. With bats.

On the way back, I got rained off the road and into a random little restaurant/shack, where I got to practice my Thai for a few hours with the locals. I still have a long way to go before I can master this language.

Climbing goes well. Flashed a .12a yesterday, just missed flashing another one today, then spent the morning falling off a .13a just for fun.

written by  Jason Kester on February 7, 2004 from Ban Ao Nang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, the Trans Siberian and Scandenavia
tagged MotorBike and Climbing
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Me and Jay rented motorbikes the other day and went tearing around the county. It was awesome, and hardly disastrous at all. Jay only made it over the handlebars once, and not even into traffic. I'll certainly be back for more.

written by  Jason Kester on February 24, 2004 from Ban Ao Nang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, the Trans Siberian and Scandenavia
tagged Climbing
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

So check out the first photo on this page:

http://www.megagrip.co.uk/Thailand/Thai7.htm

That is the route that I'm working on at the moment. The photo doesn't do justice to how ridiculously steep this piece of rock is. There is a 20
foot section where you gain 3 feet of elevation! Completely unlike anything I've been on. It's all sorts of fun, and plenty hard as well. I've put three days into it so far, and only just this morning finally got to see the top. That doesn't mean I'm done by any means. Now I get to spend the next few days linking together moves and trying to get the whole thing in one go.

Anyway, things go well. Plenty to climb, plenty of time relaxing on the beach, even some diving in the cards. See ya!

written by  Jason Kester on December 9, 2000 from Ban Ao Nang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, 2000-2001
tagged Climbing and Railay
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Our first dive of the day was on this passenger ferry that sank a few years back. The main deck is like 24m down and it's upright and in good condition. It's fun and a bit spooky cruising around inside the thing, as all the divers stir up the water & visibility is reduced to just a few meters. Being a boat, it has plenty of narrow doors and confined spaces to swim through. Definitely a cool experience!

And for those of you keeping score, I've put in a total of six days on the route now. Only a couple burns a day recently, since I have all the moves wired now, and I'm just trying to put together a clean ascent. I can get it with one rest along the way now. Now I'm just moving that rest spot gradually downward until I can cast off straight from the sand.

The route will have to wait a bit though, as I'm off to the islands tomorrow, followed by a dash for the malaysian border so that I can get a fresh
30 day visa.

written by  Jason Kester on December 14, 2000 from Ban Ao Nang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, 2000-2001
tagged Climbing, Diving and Railay
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

I generally try not to actually engage them in conversation. You can usually tell from a distance, though some do a really good job of looking the part!

Bali has some truly amazing waves that I have no intention of paddling out to anytime in the near future. I spent part of today day at Ulu Watu when it wasn't even on, and it looked plenty mean. There's rock here, by the way. I'm going to do some scoping over the next week to see if we should be planning a future expedition w/ Hilti in tow. There's definately enough bouldering on the beach to keep a fella occupied for a while.

written by  Jason Kester on December 25, 2000 from Kuta, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, 2000-2001
tagged Climbing and Surfing
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

So, with the promise of another couple weeks client work (for real money), I booked a crazy plush holiday flat in Noosa Heads for myself and the lovely miss Helen. Bought some surfboards, wrote some code, surfed a bunch, lived large. Bought a cheap van off an English chick, threw a bit more money at it so that it might actually run, and headed South in search of right point breaks and wireless hotspots named Linksys and Default.

The Oz Hooptie

Once we made it to Sydney, the surfboards got stashed in the back and the climbing gear came back out. Spent a week in the Blue Mountains and another at Nowra, clipping bolts with friends met in Thailand. Finally, we limped the van down to Melbourne and passed it off to a friend, who managed to get it halfway back across town before it died a painful death in the middle of rush hour traffic.

written by  Jason Kester on March 1, 2006 from Noosa Heads, Australia
from the travel blog: Building Blogabond
tagged Climbing, Surfing, Blogabond and Hooptie
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Found it, and now I'm off to ceuse to Hook up with a guy with a car and climb those 900 foot walls at verdon. So far, Kester's trip is going just fine...

written by  Jason Kester on June 19, 1998 from Marseille, France
from the travel blog: Europe, North Africa 1998
tagged Climbing and Buoux
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...