August 8-9: Yangshuo

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August 8th -Yangshuo1- Dia 48
Jumping out of bed nice and early to explore the town and try to find the local climbers. No idea what to expect?.
Walking out of the Hostel I was welcomed to some stemmed soy milk. Never gets old. I walked around a lot and started to notice how big the town was, if I really wanted to enjoy my stay here I would need to rent a bike. The walk was gorgeous, I had really missed the Chinese towns. Life was much slower and relaxing and you could see a gorgeous landscape all around. Something that you tend to miss in the cities, they seem to engulf the nature.
Getting close to the famous West Street I started to see the town wake up ane start setting up their small merchandise stores out in the street. West Street is famous for its market and night life...which I was still about to see. Around here there where supposed to be some climbing stores. My hope was to find one and talk to them about climbing around Yangshuo. Not finding any I decided to talk to a taxi diver in Chinese. I have become fluent in Chinese now that I am alone, with my phone at least jejeje. He directed me a few more streets father. And Tony surprise I finally found a hotel selling climbing equipment. The only good thing I managed to get here was a look at the Yangshuo Climbing Book. Flipping through the pages my excitement kept on rising. So much to climb!!! I wished I had a climbing partner with me though. I did not buy the book since it was to expensive, I just took a couple of pictures of it without being seen ? One of the main things I took from the book was a list of climbers hostels. Choosing one of the five I changed my plans and walked towards the Hostel. They were also offering extremely cheap individual rooms which was of my convenience. I ran into luck when I arrived there ?
Situated right next to the Hostel was a huge inclined climbing wall. Hoping for the best I walked into the building and met myself with a Chinese couple. With even more luck there was a Chinese man who knew English and served as my translater. As I talked with the owner of the building I realized I had indeed arrived at the right place. After specifying multiple times I wanted a friend to climb with, not a guide..he agreed to call his climbing friend. Soon after a guy in a motorcycle showed up and to my surprise spoke perfect english and told me they where heading out climbing today in about an hour. ? Quickly and too happy to contain it, I agreed to come with them.
Happy with my luck I thanked the owner of the building for hooking me up and moved next door to the original climbers inn I had intended on going...I saw the individual room they were offering and decided to take it, it would be nice to sleep alone and not with another 7 people. Also taking the opportunity and asking them if they rented mountain bikes I was lucky to be offered a great one for only 120yuan for the full 10 days of my stay ? Everything had seemed to have lined up perfectly the past hour and a half.
With maybe 30 minutes to spare before heading out to climb I quickly !!!biked!!! to a nearby restaurant to eat some noodles.
Punctual the local climber picked me up in his motorcycle and jumping in the back we zoomed in for one of the many climbing walls. What an amazing ride through the
paradise of Yanshuo, I even managed to get a glimpse of the all mighty Moon Hill which I am definitely visiting in the next few days. ( it's this huge natural rock arch which is about 100 meters tall and like 150m wide). Unfortunately you can't climb there anymore as the government banned it.
He took me so their usual summer climbing spot. It's protected from the rain and sun so it's a bit cooler. Regardless you still sweat like if they threw a bucket of water at you after every single climb. I was a bit disappointed with me performance since my fingers had a couple of opened injuries. By trying to take some of my hand warts off I was stupid enough to burn my skin with acid and expose the flesh. Such a bad decision since I had to tape up all my fingers before climbing...which did not prevent the injury from being ripped open even more and hurting like a *&$¥& ?
But I had to be stubborn and keep on climbing regardless... I am only here for a while and who knows when I will be back. Hopefully soon jejeje ?
While climbing I made a couple of more friends and started getting immersed in the climbing community. They are really strong climbers, the easiest route in the sector was an 11c which they used as a warm up ?
With night coming in and my fingers preventing me from climbing any more we packed up and motorcycled back home. The view back was even more gorgeous as the sun was setting behind the horizon.
Quite the experience to motorcycle back into the town! It was infested by so many people, motorcycles and cars. Left, right, accelerate, complete stop... I was surprised by the maneuvering skills of the motorbikers. Sometimes you saw a whole family of 4 squished in a bike, and dangerously a baby standing in the front. Too much hahaha. You literally can't get your phone out in this type of traffic, everything is happening too fast. But at least I have to say that they are good drivers with fast reflexes... I saw no accidents.
Being dropped off next to the climbers inn, I was going to stay the following day, I met a cllmbing Chinese girl which was going to stay around Yanshuo for the next three days. Luckily for me she was also looking for a climbing partner so we shared our contact information to later meet up.
After a quick bike ride back to my Hostel I ended another amazing day in China.

August 9th - Yangshuo2 - Dia 49
Waking up more sore then I would have imagined I called the day off for climbing. I could barely rinse my clothes and body last night due to the intense sharp pain in my open hand wounds. Hurt and took a lot to not go climbing, especially since I had the opportunity. I decided instead to go explore Yangshuo and it's surrounding paradise with my bike. Hopefully visit a couple of climbing walls and get inspired for future days ?
Before heading out though, I quickly transfered my bag to my new individual room, farther away from the town. Happy to leave the Hostel behind, I couldn't sleep in as much as I wanted to due to constantly being woken up by my roomates. Now in my own individual room I threw everything on the ground and enjoyed all the space for myself. What a nice feeling ?
Grabbing the bike I head out to explore a climbing crag near the Li River. What a beautiful bike ride through small farming villages, huge green lush towers, some of the biggest bamboo trees I had ever seen while enjoying the view of the greenish river wining through the landscape. Finally made it to the climbing crag, admired the huge walls and desapointedly couldn't climb them. I decided to park my bike and head down the riverside slope toward the bank. I wanted to take a refreshing bath and rest my sore butt from so much bike riding. I rested near the bank watching the many bamboo boats zoom by while taking tourists up and down the river. All of this while enjoying some grapes and another weird but amazingly good fruit.
Ready for a new experience, I saw farther downstream some possible rock next to the river which could be watersoloed. I headed back up to the road to bike the short stretch towards it. Being in a more public space I hid my bike and headed toward the bank to examine the rock. The rock looked amazing but the river didnt, this small bank was filled with trash and my concern was that the sanitary ducts exited around this point. A doubt that was confirmed while in the water and actually seeing the sanitary ducts going deep into the river. ?? Oh well..to late
I swam toward the rock and saw the many possibilities. Not being able to stop myself I tried a small climb, making sure that the water was deep enough. Trying not to touch the rock with my opened wounds I managed to get up around 3 meters, sitting down on a good rock ledge and enjoyed the views. I managed to capture the attention of a couple of boats, waving back at them excitedly. Going to come here later, when my hands heal properly.
Getting back to the shore I stated to feel a bit lonely, I am still not used to experiencing all of these alone. I usually like to have another person beside me. Something I am discovering about myself while traveling, I guess I just have to get used to it. I quickly got over it when I got my sore butt back on the bike and headed to explore a new area.
Biking toward a new climbing wall I started realizing that if I wanted to enjoy the next 9 days in Yangshuo I better should get a motorcycle. Everything is so far away and I am just destroying my butt and knees by biking so much. I quickly texted the person who lend me the bike and settled an amazing price of paying only an extra 130 yuan to change my bike to a motorbike ? done deal!
On the next climbing wall I just goofed around on the base of the rock, wishing I had a partner and a complete hand to climb with. Getting bored and extremely tired I decided to call it a day and head back to Yangshuo. I was getting hungry and remembered of the promise I had made to the local I had dinner when I first arrived to Yangshuo. ? I quickly texted him and arranged to meet up for dinner in the same old place.
This time we did manage to have an actual conversation using Google translate jeje. He ordered some delicious snails stuffed with pork meat, saying it was the speciality around the region. I understand why. ? Finishing the dinner he wanted to take me to a bar, I resisted the temptation and repeatedly told him another night. I am getting a bit better at rejecting the stubborn Chinese people, still took me around 30 minutes to do so jajaja
Back in my building I changed my bike and tried out the motorcycle! Had never ridden one before! It was not hard at all, once you have speed the motorbike is easy to control. Really fun and refreshing ?
Finishing my day by going to the building next door and enjoying a beer with my local climbing friends. One provided a deliciously fresh cold watermelon. It's interesting to hangout with them since their mostly talking Chinese. But I like it regardless, I get to see a new culture and be with people living in their own land. Agreeing with the young female climber, Claire, to head out and try an easy multipitch up a tower tomorrow; I head back to my own little private room to enjoy some precious sleep. I was tired from so much biking!

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