During the last weekend I had the honor to join a fantastic event
taking place in the north-east of Thailand, The Sikhiu Bouldering Festival.
The event was entirely organized by Camille Guignard,
it has already reached the 3rd edition and it saw the participation of
hundreds of climbers coming from all over South-Est Asia.
Many of them were expat from France, US, UK, Australia,
Switzerland, Ukraine, Italy (only myself actually), while the rest were
Vietnamese, Japanese, Singaporean, Cambodian, Malay and of course Thai.
Considering I was the only one representing the Phuket scene, I had no option but to join my good friend Jean Verly and his VietClimb
Team.
We met on Friday night in BKK and Dominique
led us up to Sikhiu
to overnight in a local hotel. From that moment on ward I have no memories of a
moment spent without laughing, making jokes, cheering each other and having an
absolute great time.
On Saturday morning we all reached the meeting point and we
walked up to the boulders’ area were Camille distributed the topos and gave us
some basic rules.
The boulders in this area were amazing, probably a little
too hard for the average climbing standards but absolutely intriguing and
challenging.
In the evening we all drove to a campsite where we had a
community dinner, we had the chance to make new friends, discuss about the
boulder problems, and we ended up the night watching a great movie Valley Uprising that I
am sure gave an extra dose of motivation and climbing obsession to all of us.
On Sunday morning, as soon as we woke up we all discovered
to have similar problems such as painful finger, muscular tension, running
noses but after a solid breakfast everybody was ready again to move to a new
bouldering area.
Considering I had to leave earlier to catch my flight, I tried to make the most of the day only climbing boulders that I could actually do without spending too much time and efforts on hard stuff instead.
I really liked this area, less muscular and more technical,
little crimps, slabs, small feet…it was just perfect, I will definitely try to
come back again as soonest.
As a whole I think the event was really well organized and a
part from the boulders or the singular performances, I believe the most
interesting result was actually the international participation and the team
spirit.
A big congratulation goes indeed to Camille to all his efforts
to organize the event, and to his vision and his indefatigable exploration of
the area to find new boulders! Thanks!
Can’t wait for the 4th edition, see you in 2016.
For more information about Bouldering in Thailand visit the page www.boulderingthailand.com
More pictures can be found at this link: VietClimb - Pics
For more information about Bouldering in Thailand visit the page www.boulderingthailand.com
More pictures can be found at this link: VietClimb - Pics
