Rock sport climbing with alien friends and huge trees in Merapoh in Malaysia (December 2025)

From Gua Musang we went to Merapoh which was close by and a village known for being close to the biggest Taman Negara (national park) in Malaysia and the caving possibilities.
The first climbing sector we visited was called Gua Lima (“cave five”).
In the beginning of our time in Merapoh, the rain created some ponds we had to cross to reach the climbing routes.
Especially Racki attracted a lot of these leaches in different sizes. I only got a few.
At the end of our stay, or was all dry again.
In the beginning the crag was partly wet but dried up more over the days.
Climbing was awesome 🥳
The highest routes went up to the top of the wall 🧱
From up there, the view was amazing 🤩
As a belayer, we were always accompanied by different insects. Of course, there were mosquitos everywhere but we liked these jungle nymphs the most.
This impressive little one is a jungle nymph in its last stage. It looked super alien 👽
Gua Bekong was the next climbing sector we visited.
It was very nice but most of the routes were out of our difficulty range. We built up our climbing capabilities and felt really good and fit 🥳
But we did the easier ones and learned a lot.
Some days we met up with Alex who bolted all the routes in Merapoh. It was an interesting guy with a lot to do and a lot of motivation for bolting and sharing a lot about the process of bolting.
One day he took one of his friends and us to the newest climbing sector Gua Layang.
It was a nice big wall looking like a big wave. The approach was already easy climbing 🥳
The weather was nice all the time which was super good after the days of concessive days of rain 🌞
On our walks to the different climbing sectors we saw a lot of beautiful Malay homes with beautiful gardens 🌺
Impressions.
And big, big cows with a whole lot of skin 😀
Our first apartment after the camping in Gua Musang had an ac which we used to dry all our stuff.
This was our tower for the water kettle because its cable was too short 😁
The sink had an interesting outflow which led straight on the ground 🙃
Our second accommodation was the cheapest we could find: five Euro per person and night. It was just on the main road. The toilets and showers were public and in the next building. We were the only guests and had the public space of this little Hostel all for us. Even though they had not officially opened their hostel, they let us stay for a discounted price and we were the first western tourists they ever hosted.
The nights were strange. Most of the evenings a karaoke show was going on at one of the little restaurants next to our hostel. But there were barely any guests and we could really not join the singer because the songs sounded so weird to us. Sorry brave singer friend 🤗
In our room, we had this mosquito net. We called it the Käseglocke 🤣
Breakfast we always made ourselves and dinner we mostly had at one of the many small restaurants.
After some days we found our favorite ones. And the locals were always very curious about us because they did not have so many international tourists there 🎉
One day we went into the famous Taman Negara which is the biggest national park in Malaysia. On the way there, we passed a lot of Plantages …
… what made the beautiful rain forest even more beautiful. Because of the rainy season, only the tree top walk was open but it was absolutely worth it. The walk was massive.
And the highest platform was 32 meters high 🤩
This was one of the biggest trees seen from the top. It was massive and very impressive. The photos can’t transport how big it was. One of the branches at its top was the size of an ordinary tree in Germany 😳
These trees grew up to 80 meters 🚀

Rock sport climbing in Gua Musang in Malaysia, living in the lost place camp site, and Racki’s birthday (December 2025)

From Kuala Lumpur we took a bus to Gua Musang. On the booking website, it said the bus would take five hours. A taxi driver told us that it would take seven or more hours. So we were prepared and surprised when we reached our destination in under five hours.
The climbing crag was at the entrance of a recreational area, was not that high, but looked nice. See it on thecrag.com 🥳
There were basically routes around the whole crag and right through the crag went a tunnel which was the main attraction for none climbing visitors 🙂
During our six day stay, it rained a lot. It was still rainy season so it was not a big surprise. But we climbed the front of the crag on a dry day and inside of the crag were two to three routes that were almost completely protected from the rain by the huge overhangings at the top of the crag.
We met a Malay climber couple and had good fun climbing 🧗‍♂️
This was the map of the area where the climbing crag was located 🗺️
At first we pitched up our tent on an ordinary tent pitch …
… and used the nearby pavilion to hang out and…
… cook 🏡
We had some long…
… and stinky friends 🦨
And when the rain came…
… we moved our tent in one of the huge pavilions 🎊
It was rather spacious 😅
We had a monkey family living with us in the camping area and sometimes they were running and jumping from our roof in the trees and back again 🦘
And once they stole our food 🤣
On Racki’s birthday we wanted to get some drinks and walked to the only market that sold alcohol. That one had a small Chinese temple as well and we bought some small cans of beer for 2,5 Euro each🎐
The shop owner and a customer were very nice and we had some interesting topics to talk about 😀
The guest insisted to give us a ride back to a restaurant close to our camp spot and gifted Racki a birthday cake and a rose on the way there 🍰
Racki’s birthday dinner…
… and birthday cake and beer 🎂

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 🙂