Advertisement
Published: February 27th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Ahh...the Karst Cafe
Our home from home for 10 days in Yangshuo - the Karst is run by Echo. It's been a while... I haven't updated my blog for over two weeks now, mostly because I've been climbing in China, and never really seemed to have time (or the inclination) to sit in the internet cafe for an extended period of time. I'm in Kathmandu now, and will be in Nepal for 2 months so should have a bit more time to update this site (apart from when I'm trekking...).
Anyway, the last time I updated the blog I was in Cambodia in Siem Reap: since then, I've been in Bangkok for two days, Hong Kong for 2, Yang Shuo for 9, Hong Kong for another 2 and now I'm in Kathamndu.
Siem Reap-Bangkok We took a bus trip from Siem Reap to Bangkok, and despite everything we'd heard about this journey being horrendous, it wasn't actually all that bad at all - it was pretty bumpy for a couple of hours on the Cambodian side, but apart from that it was fine. We spent that night and the next day (Friday 9th Feb) walking about Bangkok having a few beers, watching a Thai film in the cinema (English subtitles - suprisingly good film - bizarre
moment when everyone stood up before the film started for the national anthem) and eating some crickets/grasshoppers (bit of a debate on what they were - tasty though - a bit like chips) in the night market on the Khao San road.
Hong Kong Reunion Anyway, next day we took seperate flights to Hong Kong where we met up with Ryan and Paul (aka Smiffers and Stumpy) and had a couple of beers in the nearest Irish bar - it was also the closest bar to where we were staying.
The next day we were up earlyish and went climbing on one of the small islands which was cool but was very different climbing from Thailand - not only was the weather cold, but the sea was crashing around us and making the rock a bit slippery - a bit more like Dunsevrick than Majorca... It wasn't the most inspiring place I'd been to, but the guys got some good routes in and we headed back for a well deserved pint.
The long march... Next day we made the long trip to Yang Shuo which is in 'mainland' China. Since we were travelling at Chinese
New Year (apparently the world's biggest migration of people) things were pretty busy(!) on public transport, so we couldn't get the train we wanted when we arrived in Guangzhuo with the thousands of other Chinese travellers. Instead, we ended up on an overnight bus (not a sleeper, just seats) which took about 14 hours to get us from Guangzhuo to Guilin before getting another 1 hour bus to Yang Shuo. So, we arrived feeling pretty broken and not up for much climbing that day, and instead started to get to know the staff of the Karst cafe, where we would end up eating most of our meals and drinking most of our beers.
A Karst Breakfast, some M&M's and a delicious Karst Dinner - better than the slimfast plan After that we climbed every day except one (when it rained - table tennis day instead) - the routes were well graded for us, so we had loads of climbs to have a go at (loads in 5.9-5.11 range) and my fingers were feeling pretty broken most days. In the mornings we had our Karst special breakfasts, and the evenings generally ended up in the Karst for dinner and
a couple of local beers. Echo (the boss), Momo and Lisa kept us well fed, watered and entertained.
The Karst also doubles as the place to go to for new route information and general info on climbs in the area (Echo also runs climbing courses) so we were able to suss out what to do for the next day. We might end up seeing her in the peak district this autumn, although given that she will be out with Seb Grieve and co. we might just look on from the sidelines...
Table Tennis Championship We celebrated Chinese New Year here - which seemed to involve an immense number of fireworks over a week long period - following drunken bravado that night we ended up playing international 'Davis cup rules' against an Austrian guy called Wolfgang (and his wife and son) and Echo - needless to say we lost.
Anyway, I had a great time here - my climbing didn't improve as much as I expected - my ability seems to be inversely proportional to the spaces between the bolts... but, I still managed some quality routes and the 'apres-climb' was always fun.
Leaving the climbing Beautiful Karst Scenary
There are 70000 limestone Karsts (those hills) here poking out of the flat ground - hence the awesome climbing potential. behind
After that we headed back to Hong Kong on the overnight train (pre-booked this time) and spent the Friday afternoon sight-seeing in the Central part of Hong Kong - its a crazily compact city and pretyy interesting to stroll around.
The next day we all got out seperate flights back home. I flew to Delhi, where I stayed in the transit lounge for 12 hours before getting my onward flight to Kathmandu where I'm sitting now. We'll be in Nepal for the next two months and we are just starting to plan what we'll do with our remaining time...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0582s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb