For most climbers, the town of Ao Nang is simply a launchpad to the famous Tonsai and Railay bays. However, Ao Nang has its own burgeoning climbing community bursting with life, some already classic sport climbs, and new routes going up regularly.

In March 2024, Kiwi expat and local developer Dave Hood and I set our eyes on the biggest wall in town: the Dream Wall. (When I say “in town,” I mean that you can walk there from any hostel on the main strip.) After a few weeks of legwork, I was able to establish a relationship with the families who own the nearby resorts, and they gave us their blessing to access the wall. Now we just had to climb the 150m wall of steep, “melting” limestone from the ground. Trad climbing isn’t common in Southeast Asia, so our rack was limited. It consisted of seven hand-me-down double-length runners and an old funkness wire for slinging tufas, a half rack of nuts, a couple of hooks, and three removable bolts.

Dave insisted on taking the first pitch, which featured a thick 30m vine that hung a body length from the wall—he was certain it would hold body weight and act as an easy shortcut. Dave frogged his way to the top of the vine before the late-season heat could even give me the belay sweats. We continued climbing free on high-quality rock, with a few major runouts. Around 140m up, we reached a massive tufa-blob ledge. I aided the overhang above by drilling removable bolts, slinging a tufa, and hooking pockets for about 15m until the quality of the rock dramatically worsened just below the jungle summit, a standard occurrence on these karst formations. We fixed ropes down the wall, and later I returned to bolt the entire route with titanium glue-ins, with occasional help from Kiwi expat Dennie Vester and American Christian Womack.

The finished route has five pitches in the 5.10 range on very solid and enjoyable limestone, with a wildly exposed last pitch at 5.12a. (Climbing the Tarzan vine on the first pitch is no longer required.) We called the route Fun Dee (150m, 5.12a), or ฝันดี, which translates to “Sweet Dreams.” This is the first significant multipitch route on mainland Krabi. In Thailand there is always a chance that access to a crag could be revoked. Thankfully, the local climbing organization, Krabi Bolting Fund, is maintaining good relations with the neighboring locals. 

                  —Dakota Walz, USA