Climbing at Tebong Palm Oil
In January 2004, Simian Boy, Fearless Leader and the Thin Man took a trip to check out the boulders at Tebong Palm Oil. It's located near the town Tampin in Negri Sembilan. I didn't go along because I wasn't into bouldering at that stage.
Check out Simian Boy's TR on Tebong followed by some photos courtesy of the Thin Man.
Tebong was not what we'd expected. It wasn't that much fun for us. Lots of walking, not much climbing because everything was so difficult and they killed our shoes and we fell onto tall spikey weeds and slopes.
Because of the test-pattern colours of the rock and almost-invisible size of the tiny holds, planning moves was almost pointless. If you were a large insect, you probably could have used the same handholds we tried to use. And, since we were among the first climbers there, many of these 'holds' (I'm really talking about those generously large pinky crimps here) snapped right off, and then it was time for another 10-minute hike to find a new potentially climbable problem.
If what we experienced was representative of natural bouldering, then I have got to say that I hate (hate hate) bouldering. I guess maybe I'm just spoilt. It was really nothing like what we do in the gym – not unless you removed all the holds, stuck a few bread-crumbs back on using Elmer's paper glue, and used sharp rocks in place of crashpads.
When we got back to Nyamuk that day, everywhere I looked was of a friendly brown colour, full of deep pockets and shadowy holes, and I thought, "Shit! We shoulda been bouldering here instead!"
God, I love limestone :)
I'm not sure about the current status of climbing at this place. Here are the photos from Thin Man:
Posted at 08:31 by
Figur8
"To climb is to control fear.
