China Red

Just over a week now into my trip to Southern China and I've finally got some time to spare since most of my newly found Australian climbing partners have departed for home today.  I arrived in communist china after my 15 and a half hour flight from LAX took me over the pacific and  landed in Guanxio.  From there I had another one hour flight into Guilin before I set foot on actual asian soil.  I caught a shuttle from guilin to the town of yangshuo which I enjoyed the hour and a half ride passing by giant limestone carsts, muddy rivers, water buffalo, and chinamen and women tending to rice paddies that occupy nearly every stretch of usable land.  Driving in china is no different than what I remember from most other asian countries I've visited, chaotic, but it seems to work.  How there are not bodies strewn all over the streets from the collage of busses motorcycles, tractors, semi trucks, taxis, bicycles, and pedestrians that all share a two lane road with a seamingly orderless means of sharing it is beyond me?  I arrived in Yangshuo to find it bigger and busier than the quant little town I imagined it and as it's commonly described.  In fact appart from being able to be in the relatively rural countryside within 10 minutes from here there's parts of yangshuo where you wouldn't know the difference between being here or being lost in the middle of bangkok somewhere.  I'm staying at a place that ironically enough is called the climbers inn and is located in central yangshuo in the main tourist district.  Lilly runs the place and is a chinese woman who has picked up most of her climbing skills and interest from the traveling climbers that stay here.  She helped me get sorted right away and is incredibly helpful with just about anything you need.  For 10 dollars a night with mostly warm showers and usually working internet, the place is clean so it's hard to complain, and it's somewhat of a hub for climbers which is helpful when you are traveling solo and looking for climbing partners.  I had made arrangements prior to coming to asia to meet up with a climber from Tasmania who was planning on being here with a group of his friends during the same period of time so I didn't have to search for partners right away.  I met Owen and his gang my first night in town for dinner and some drinks at one of the best chinese food joints in town called cloud 9 for a traditianal chinese dinner in which everybody orders what they want and then puts it on a lazy susan in the middle of the table so you can sample what everybody orders.  Makes for some interesting meals when you're with adventurous eaters in china and the menu conatains items from hamburgers to traditional chinese to dog meat, frog, and snails, and yes I'm actually serious.  Anyway, my newly found crew consisted of a just over 50 year old retired skydiver woman named Susie from australia who was climbing as hard as any one of us here, an 18 year old australian kid named Matt who still lives at home and works at a grocery store and climbs upper 5.12 grades maybe even 5.13 (for the non climber that this number means nothing it means its a very difficult route), another Tasmanian local named Ben, a younger australian couple Paul and Beckie, an inspiring 63 year old originally canadian turned australian by the name of Terry who isn't letting a triple bipass slow him down,  Owen the Tasmanian guy that basically set it all up, and myself the lone American.  Quite the dynamic crew!  I could tell we were going to get along just fine afer the first night of dinner and drinks from a rooftop bar looking down on the chaos of yanshuo nightlife that carries on until 2-3 am every night.  The crew was taking a rest day the day following so I went out climbing with Lilly the owner of hotel who gave me a nice introduction to yangshuo climbing and finding my way around and finding the right bus etc which can be a little tricky without speaking or reading chinese...  There is certainly less English spoken here than other parts of Asia I've visited which makes for some interesting communication results sometimes and definitely adds to the fun and challenge of being here.  You are never "really" certain what your getting when you are ordering meals, arranging transportation, etc...  The rest of the time with the crew we stuck to a pretty routine schedule of meeting for breakfast, choosing a crag to climb at primarily based on weather, meet at their hotel for arranging transportation to the crag, climb most of the day, meet up for dinner and repeat daily.  Climbing has been excellent on incredibly varied limestone with lots of tufa climbing.  I'd say it rains 5/7 days here but many of the crags are several hundred feet tall and overhanging which keeps the whole area dry even in the near monsoon rains we've gotten sicne I've been here.  The rain is almost a bit depressing at times but being able to climb in it has kept me sain othewise I certainly would be traveling onward. 
Rest days are spent doing odds and ends around town, soaking up the asian culture, and getting cheap massages.  Susie and I took  cooking class which may be one of the highlights of my trip.  We first went to the market to learn how to select our ingredients, which was an experience in itself.  Those sensitive viewers, animal rights activists, or weak stomached folks reading the blog may want to skip a line or two, but it's reality in asia so I'm going to write about it.  The wet market included masses of fresh vegies of all sorts grown from local farms.  The animal section was something else!  Hundreds of tubs of fresh seafood / snakes / snails / eels / frogs and many other misc. small creatures awaited their destiny in somebodys meal.  There were trays that resembled going to the deli at the supermarket full of pickled chickens feet, eyeballs, and just about any other animal part that you could think of.  The back corner of the market contains the real touchy area for some people, where they have both live dogs and cats in crates with a few of them already skinned and hanging up from the booth.  I witnessed one lady grab a cat with a metal claw around it's neck and take it out from a crate of about 8 other cats and then proceed to jam a metal fire stoker looking thing into the back of its head prior to preparing it for sale.  Kind of hard to separate yourself from this kind of thing when as a culture we don't see these animals as food but rather as friends, but I just imagine that some people may think the food we eat is sacred or wrong as well (such as the cow in India).  Anyway, after we got our ingredients (no dog or cat) Chef Panda taught us how to cook sweet and sour pork, a beef chili mint dish, and dumplings, which all turned out great and we got to devour them when we were done.  My dumplings could use a little help in the aesthetic department but they tasted delicious.  Ironically enough our cooking class was right next to the only McDonalds in town.  I also found a place in town that not only has great pizzas, but features many imported beers, two of which are Rogue, which makes me very happy to have the option to mix it up from not so incredible local Chinese beer every now and then.  Well worth the 6 dollars a bottle for a small taste of home! 
I've exceptionally enjoyed the company of all the Aussies I've been climbing with, but Terry in particular I probably get the biggest kick out of.  Originally from Alberta, I think he found some common roots in me being that I'm from an area so close to where he grew up even though it is in a different country, he loved talking my ear off about how "we" do things that's different from how the Aussies do.  He was as crusty, grumpy, and hilarious as you'd ever expect from a 63 year old guy that's still rock climbing.  I give him every bit of respect for staying active and even though he acted like we were just dragging him along whether we were climbing or out having a few drinks, deep down he was loving every minute of it.  He somewhere found a 6 pack of PBR's of all things in town which he packed up to the top of this cliff we were climbing at one day to surprise me with at the top so we could share a true American beer haha, it was hilarious!  He was always cracking jokes about being the old guy. 
I've been unable to get on Facebook or my blog since I've been here due to the restrictions that the Chinese government puts on the internet but I've cracked the Commie code, for now anyway.