Harau Valley of West Sumatra, Indonesia

If you’ve been following this blog, you might expect this next entry to arrive from somewhere in mainland Asia — perhaps China or Tibet. We even considered heading straight to Mongolia to avoid the monsoon season in southern Asia. But one click of the Google search button changed our minds completely.

Our initial plan to avoid air travel has officially been scrapped. An ever-changing border situation between Nepal / Tibet / China, along with an expensive and high-maintenance Chinese visa process and potentially soaking wet rock, deterred us from making the overland journey northeast from Kathmandu. We heard of the perfect place to decompress from the rigors of south Asian travel from a friend — and it didn’t take long to find a wealth of information regarding the granite and limestone beauties that rise from the rich volcanic landmass that is Indonesia.

Several days – three airplanes, half a dozen buses, ghetto-fabulous microbuses, a few taxis, and a bechak (motorcycle with sidecar) later – we arrived in the Harau Valley of West Sumatra, Indonesia. Goodbye smog-stained city streets and blaring horns — hello lush, unspoiled jungle and howling gibbons. As we rambled through the last few kilometers of paddy-lined road, we were greeted by colossal 300 meter walls — a site that nearly brought us to our knees. We promptly checked into the Echo Lodge, the only official “guesthouse” in the valley, grabbed our gear and raced the 100 meters to the crag.

As we stood on the side of the road, jaws agape at the impossibly vertical and pleasantly chalked cliff, we were greeted by the local climbing scene. The moment we explained our undertaking to climb throughout Asia, the welcoming smiles turned eager to get us on their rock. Every ounce of apprehension and thought of our possible intrusion dissolved into the smiling crowd of seven. A tattooed man in a Petzl harness introduced himself as Alphin and pointed to a super steep twenty-five meter route just to the left of a dihedral. “It’s good man, easy, no worries,“ he beamed.