Category: climbing

Rock sport climbing at the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur and living in an aquarium (December 2025)

Back in Kazakhstan, we decided to go to Malaysia because there were a lot of climbing routes. More than in Vietnam for example. After we arrived, we found out that one of the biggest climbing areas close to Kuala Lumpur called Bukit Takun (open on thecrag.com) recently became unaccessible.
So we started trying out the other climbing sectors of the Batu Caves area in the north of Kuala Lumpur.
The wall of the Nyamuk (open on thecrag.com) was very beautiful and pretty high 🚀
There were a lot of interesting routes and we met some local climbers who helped us reading the topo and gave us some recommendations. Some routes were to wet from the last heavy rains but we did very good climbing and got used more and more to the tropical rocks and tufa.
Because most of the routes were pretty high, and we could only bring our 50m rope, we had to repell ourselves from bolts so we’d recommend to bring a 70m rope, if possible.
The bolts etc. we’re in very good condition.
Nyamuk translates to mosquito but it was not too bad. Of course we had mosquito repellent with us 🦟
The access to the Volleyball Site crag (open on thecrag.com) was very special. On the photo you see a restaurant and event place and behind that is the climbing crag. The access seems to be possible mostly on weekends and there were contact numbers to book sessions during the week (details on thecrag.com) 🎉
To access it, you have to go through the restaurant and on the roof of one of their buildings everything starts. When we arrived there, it was a nice atmosphere and a lot of climbers were there. After talking to some, we found out that they were from Singapore and enjoyed the cheaper Kuala Lumpur and climbing.
There were easy and hard routes and all in good condition 😁
The cheapest place to stay we found, was the ARK BATU CAVES HOTEL (see it on Google Maps) which was not too far from the climbing crags. It was 70RM on weekdays and 80RM on weekends. We called our room the aquarium because it had no windows at all. It could rain, storm or the world could burn, you wouldn’t notice in the aquarium 🤣
But the walk to the crags was easy and not too long and that was the most important to us. Actually the walk got quite longer because we had to take  detour for one of the very few pedestrian bridges 🙂

Rock climbing with friends and puppies and Io in Tamgaly Tas (September, October 2025)

After a couple of days in Almaty, we went to Tamgaly Tas, our favorite rock climbing area in Central Asia.
In the end, we stayed there about two months.
Our friends Merely and Leon joined us for a week and we did a lot of climbing together  🚀
Leon was not able to find climbing shoes in his size. Size 46 is not so Common in Central Asia.
After some routes in his hiking boots, we thought that maybe climbing barefoot is an option and so we tried it.
And I have to say, it works a lot better than I would have thought.
Leon did really well and climbed a 6c in top rope barefoot ✨
And Merel continued her climbing journey and developed natural movements and a mostly calm mind while climbing.
Just minor panic attacks from time to time. The salt in the soup 😁
Before Leon and Merely continued their journey, we gifted them a sticker and we are looking forward to see them again 🤗
The weather was mostly very good. Only some days the wind got pretty nasty and a few times we had small sand storms 🌬️
We moved into our camp spot that we used the year before for so long. Home sweet home 🏡
And then we met again with Sarah, Maria, Luci, Wouter and Vedinger 🥳
We had a proper camp and such a nice climbing life. Everyday something was going on ⛺
And every evening, we had dinner together, hang around or played some cards and had a good time 🎉
One day, we helped locals to change their flat tyre. They only had that tiny car jack which was not capable of lifting their off road car. They wanted to gift us this tiny jack as reward for helping them 😄
We had a great time together and sometimes even did small operations 🙃
And of course we did a lot of climbing. Sarah and Wouter bought themselves their own shoes, harnesses and helmets and got all into climbing. They learned a whole lot. Sarah did her first leading routes and on one of the last climbing days, Racki and I did another 7a route. Wouter gifted me his almost new climbing shoes because they were too tight for him and we gifted them Rackis old rope 🎊
And Sarah took some nice photos of Racki playing with the puppy stray dogs 🐕
They were absolutely cute 🥰
And me learning to play my guitar called Io 🎸
It was a crazy difficult process but I managed more and to let it sound like a guitar 😁
I was very happy with this move. The beginning looks not that hard on the video, but for me it was the first time to build up the tension like that 🎉

Hikes and special rock climbing with friends in Kyrgyzstan and Io (August, September 2025)

From the Issyk Kul, we went into the mountains and found the next nice camp spot.
One day, a local came by with his horse and I tried it 🤠
The next local came with his motorbike, and I tried that as well 😁
The ordinary way to treat the trash: smaller or bigger holes that get filled up and closed when full. Sometimes extending the capacity by burning the trash 🔥
We met again with Merel and Leon and had a great time at a very small lake in the mountains ⛺
The view on a hike, we did together, was wonderful. Here is our tour on Komoot ⛰️
After a couple of days at the small lake, we split up and Racki and I went for a two day hike to another lake higher in the mountains 🚀
The hike was pretty exhausting for me and I felt kind of tensed but in the end our destination was very beautiful ❤️
We slept one night in our tiny one person tent. All alone at that beautiful spot 🥳
The next day, in the sun, the lake was even more beautiful ☀️
And we went back to Rosinante. Here are our tours on Komoot: to the lake, back to Rosinante 🚀
And in the next few days we made it to the climbing area south of Bishkek, where we have been some months ago 🎊
We met again with Merel and Leon and climbing together was awesome! And this time very special: Merel and Leon had both no experience with rock climbing. For Leon, who did a lot of free climbing while mountaineering, the rock climbing (even in his hiking boots) felt natural from the get go. No fear and very intuitive and free body movements.
Merel got frightened a lot in the beginning but she lived through all the moments of fear, pressure, stress, and panic attacks. It was awesome to see someone experiencing all this and being happy to do so. We helped here by joining her on the wall etc. but she did the crazy emotional work.
It was so impressive to see her process and experience that Racki and I often thought back to when climbing. This experience gave me a lot.
From then on, I’m often thinking back to these days when facing a route or move that seems impossible to me. Refreshing these memories often helps me to geniue believe that everything might be possible, that I can just try regardless of doubts and fears! Thanks Merel 🤗
That was us on a nice and very funny movie night in the camper of our friends. And on another day, we did a 7a 📽️
After days of climbing, we went to Almaty (Kazakhstan).
Our first mission was to extend the customs document for Rosinante because when we entered the customs union of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, the customs officer gave us just about two months. I thought that it would be easy to extend it at the border crossing between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, but it was not possible. The only option the border officers knew about was a border run to Uzbekistan which would have been a detour of about 1200km and two border crossings that potentially would have taken about twelve hours!
We researched but didn’t find any info about extending the document in Almaty. We asked friends in Almaty and one said that there might be a possibility. So we went to Almaty and the next day we happily managed to start the extension process in a Kazakh customs department. It took us only a couple of hours and a lot of  conversations via Google Translate, but we did it!
Rosinante was finally allowed to stay again for one year in the customs union 🥳
In Almaty we stayed mostly at the Atakent Mall. It’s a well known parking lot next to a small park 🅿️
We met old and new friends and had a look at their homes on wheels 😁
Some of them had lovely and sometimes pretty weird decorations.
And finally I bought a guitar. She was a portable headless guitar and because of her modern look, I named her Io. From there on I started practicing mostly every day. It was a rough start.
The finger positioning, the strumming, … It was so hard. But I’m still playing and I love it.