Thailand and Vietnam Climbing

I’ll be climbing in Thailand and Vietnam mid to late January 2026. For sure Tonsai / Railay for Thailand, and then maybe Halong bay or Huu Lung for Vietnam. Does anyone have recommendations between the two Vietnam locations? And any crag, food, or lodging recs for Thailand or Vietnam? This’ll be a honeymoon climbing trip so could be a little more on the bougie side

Picking between the Vietnam locations will probably depend on what you want for other aspects of your trip. Saying Halong Bay is generally a fairly wide area, so I'll try to narrow that down. Some of the stuff around the bay in general is old, potentially bad bolts - so not all of the crags you see online will be safe to climb. In that area, I've spent time on Cat Ba, which is maybe the area you're referring to. 

Cat Ba is easy to access from Hanoi - there's nearly endless bus + boat combos to get there (~1 hour 45 min bus + brief boat ride) then another ~ 20 minutes to Cat Ba town proper. There's no shortage of accommodation at various price points and plenty of restaurants and other things to do. Taking a boat tour through the bay is absolutely worth a day trip for a non-climbing activity. Cat Ba is a bit touristy (not in an unpleasant way) , and depending on the season will be a lot of Vietnamese tourists, not foreigners. 

Butterfly Valley is definitely the star crag of Cat Ba, with a decent assortment of routes between 5.10- and 5.12+, give or take. Enough to occupy you for a week trip while doing other activities in the area. FYI you will need to rent a scooter to get around. Crags are not walkable from the town. 

Huu Lung is totally different. It's a tiny town situated in seemingly endless limestone karsts in between rice paddies. Expect about a 2 hour taxi ride from Hanoi. It's a small region so there's no busses that go all of the way there. 

 You'll need to book a homestay that includes meals - there's really limited restaurants and other options in the area. The easiest way is you can book everything through VietClimb (the main climbing gym in Hanoi). It's been a couple of years since I've been, and a lot more homestays have popped up, which may be more affordable / or have slightly nicer accommodations. 

I absolutely loved the area and had a blast with the climbing there - just don't expect anything else to do on your rest days. You'll also need a scooter here to access almost all of the crags. IIRC, the only easily walkable crag is Woofstuck, if you're staying at the Woofstuck Homestay. 

This area is still being actively developed - they just opened two new crags within the last week. 

I could go on forever about the areas, feel free to message me. 

In Thailand most of the sport climbing is concentrated in Krabi:

https://www.thecrag.com/en/climbing/thailand/krabi

That's if you like limestone and plenty of tufas.

I thought that the most interesting climbing in Ha Long Bay was mostly or partially trad.  Belaying from a boat and then climbing a multi-pitch route to the summit of a tall karst formation is pretty unique (and the views are awesome).  The floating villages, the beautiful karst formations.  Really liked it despite the tourists.

Huu Lung was cool too.  Very much off the beaten path at least in 2018 and rural.