The Hand of Bhudda
5.10c,
Sport, 300 ft (91 m), 4 pitches,
Avg: 3.1 from 7
votes
FA: Dutch, '88
International
> Asia
> Thailand
> S - Islands & B…
> Koh Phi-Phi
> Oyster Blade
Access Issue: Warning! Stainless steel bolts are suspect near the coast!
Details
You can read about the warning
here. There is extensive rebolting being done by the
Thaitanium Project, which has already rebolted the vast majority of popular routes in the main areas. Be informed!
Description
The Hand of Bhudda is an outstanding moderate multipitch that summits the Oyster Blade. You get to tag the summit and get an outstanding view of Phi Phi. (there is a photo of this in the Lightner guide.) The pitches are on the short side, about 80' or so each, but this takes advantage of great belay stances. The route, or the Oyster Blade in general, doesn't see much traffic You'll probably have it to yourselves.
P1: 5.10c - 130 ft. Come out of the jungle and locate the route by looking at the left side of the formation, and starting up a face to a corner formed by a giant hanging stalagtite coming off the wall. Climb up past a few threads and pass left of the stalactite. Continue up and left, passing a thin crux near the end of the pitch. There is an anchor on top of the large stalactite for another route. A few guide books suggest belaying here. The FA was not done in this manner, and it makes no sense to stop here as it is only 50 ft off the deck. Continue to the next anchor.
P2: 5.10a - 60ft. Head up and trend just right to a hand crack before moving back left into that graphite grey, super sharp, dagger rock. Easy climbing, but exposed.
P3: 5.9 - 60ft. Head straight up! The features on this pitch are crazy, there is dead coral sticking straight out of the limestone! This is the easiest pitch, but also the neatest for the features. Take care though, if you tap on the coral it sounds like you are tapping on glass. Easy climbing, but if you fall you will be julienned, and I dont' even want to think about what your rope would look like.
You can continue past the belay for P3, about 15 feet up to the summit. Straddle it and belay off the ring. Back up the old rope/webbing. You can scramble between the two summits for pictures and such.
Descent: From the 3rd (or 4th) belay, you traverse on a fixed line left to a rap anchor. Do one 25m rappel and then scramble down the jungle to the base of the wall.
There is a rap anchor in the notch between the two summits, but it takes you to a hanging belay anchor from 1987. IT'S BAD! GO DOWN FROM THE LEFT SIDE OF THE TOWER! Stay tuned for rebolting info!
Location
Just left of center on the Oyster Blade. See P1 description.
Protection
Bolts. As of 2/07, every lead bolt was a Petzl stainless glue in. Every belay had one Ti bolt, and one SS glue in, with the typical Thai setup of a piece of tied rope and big steel ring. Take some slings with you to back up the rope. You may want to leave some behind, so tied slings are recommended.
You need a second rope to do the standard descent. You might be able to rap the route with a single 60m, but you might get the rope hung up.
![Anja on the summit. By Ram Sripracha]()
[Hide Photo] Anja on the summit. By Ram Sripracha
![the Payoff! The view from the top, right before the scary rap.]()
[Hide Photo] the Payoff! The view from the top, right before the scary rap.
![Pitch 1 coming up to the top of the stalactite. By Ram Sripracha]()
[Hide Photo] Pitch 1 coming up to the top of the stalactite. By Ram Sripracha
![The Oyster Blade and topo of The Hand of Bhudda as seen from the approach on the boat]()
[Hide Photo] The Oyster Blade and topo of The Hand of Bhudda as seen from the approach on the boat
![Camille at the first belay on the Hand of Bhudda.]()
[Hide Photo] Camille at the first belay on the Hand of Bhudda.
![I think this was the first anchor on the Hand of Bhudda. Typical.]()
[Hide Photo] I think this was the first anchor on the Hand of Bhudda. Typical.
![Me following the fourth and final pitch of the Hand of Bhudda. The crazy rock is coral protruding from the limestone!]()
[Hide Photo] Me following the fourth and final pitch of the Hand of Bhudda. The crazy rock is coral protruding from the limestone!
![Brian following pitch 3. Note the sharp looking rock...]()
[Hide Photo] Brian following pitch 3. Note the sharp looking rock...
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Flagstaff, AZ
London (sort of)
The anchor in the notch is Ti, and we hope to add two Ti bolts to the "horrible" hanging belay next month. Because of the sharp rock though, the rap and scramble off the back of the tower might still be a better option.
BTW, when you were hanging on the "horrible anchor" you were only about 15 feet to the right of the second belay of the route, which has two glue ins, one Ti. The anchor you rapped off of has been on the wall since 1987! I can't believe you didn't die!
Also... link the first two pitches. The anchor on top of the stalactite is for another route, and it makes no sense to belay from here . May 2, 2010
London (sort of)
London (sort of)
I put a fixed line up in Feb of 2008... more as a guide then for safety since its about 15 feet of class 4. I've replaced it a few times and as of now it leads you to the safest descent.
It's a shame I didn't get the drill on that tower before I left. There were a few harder routes over there that I wanted to bolt and I wanted to fix the rap station as well. I just spent a lot of time on Tonsai Tower, which gets climbed a lot more. Dec 9, 2010
Ireland
For the approach we asked one of the boatmen at the main dock/bay area (by Burger King) if he could take us out to the tower. I can't remember specifically the name we used for the tower (We were following the 2019 Laos & Thailand climbing guidebook instructions) but he seemed to know as he had seen headlights on the tower before. He took us out and agreed to collect us after sunset for 700/800 bhat and was super nice. You can always point out the tower to a boatman (check the photo I uploaded and show them that)
We linked the 1st 2 pitches, anchors seemed fine. Pitch 3 a bit sketchy just take your time on it. Last pitch is awesome!
We descended via the rap station into the gully. Theres an obvious fixed line that traverses left from the final anchor a few metres to the rap station, thanks Ryan from the comments. From here you can climb to the top of the tower on easy ground, no bolts here. There's some sort of sling on top of the blade which we didn't use, but maybe the leader could solo up and belay the second from here. I would bring some extra slings to back this one up on top of the blade and also to back the rap station up. I doubt the route sees much traffic as there's not much climbing on Ko Phi Phi anymore and the anchors and rap stations would see a lot of weather throughout the year. We rapped on a 68m rope into the gully in the dark, my partner got down below tree line fine. I rapped second but went off rappel at the bottom of the wall, maybe 10m higher than her so I could free the rope if it got stuck when pulling (it did). I had to put my climbing shoes back on as there was some sketchy scrambling to get back down to my partner, be careful here especially in the dark, this is where shit could go really wrong. We then slid down the rest of the gully on our bums using the trees to control ourselves. Maybe a better idea would've been to sling a tree and put ourselves on rappel to descend the rest of the gully. We got back to the base of the route and our boatman arrived right on time Jul 25, 2023