In our three plus years living in Myanmar we’ve had opportunities to travel to most of the climbing bubbles in the South/East Asia region. We’ve ticked Green Climber’s Home in Laos, Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island in Vietnam, Tung Lung in Hong Kong, a crag or two in South Korea, a few zones in Myanmar, and I’ve been to Chiang Mai twice and Tonsai in Thailand 6 times. The only major climbing hub remaining in this corner of the world was the karst jungle of Yangshuo, China. The ominous sounding visa process was the main culprit of our China procrastination, and it turned out to be much worse than we had anticipated, requiring three multi-hour trips to the Chinese embassy in Yangon, plus two trips to the US embassy in Yangon. Finally we prevailed, and China allowed us to come to their country and filter tourist dollars into their economy, thanks China.
David came out and climbed with us (per usual of late) and, when talking with him after the fact, we both agreed that the trip had kind of a strange vibe to it that we couldn’t quite articulate. Overall, though, the climbing was remarkable, experiencing Chinese culture and people was phenomenal, and overall it was a good time rounding out my Asian climbing experience.
Entrance to Yangshuo Karst Amusement Park
KT basking in Karst
Crew on Yangshuo walking street, David came to join us, because of course.
Heading up ‘Fashion Dragon’ (5.10b) at Dragon City
Chilling at the top of ‘Fashion Dragon’
Walking street in Yangshuo
Yangshuo Town
Bearly a resemblance
White Mountain: The photo doesn’t do it justice
David climbing ‘All the King’s Horses’ (5.9) at The Egg
David climbing ‘Hanging in the Balance’ (5.11a) at The Egg
KT at the lookout
Yangshuo eccentricities
Yangshuo Town
Moist days at the end of the trip
It took David several days to buy a pen, but when he did it was a carved wooden Spiderman pen.
The reward for active rest days: at the top of a fairly obscure karst mountain
Iconic ‘Moon Hill’ Unfortunately plagued with access issues, so we didn’t climb there.
Grandma buffalo taking a stroll near White Mountain
David cruising ‘Jugtastic’ (5.10b) at the Chicken Cave
Projected this route ‘One Love’ (5.13a) at Lei Pi Shan for a good portion of the trip. 5 bolts of 5.11+ lead to a hard boulder problem and a couple of balancy moves to the anchor. I fell after the crux on the last day 💔
Yulong River
Yangshuo Town
Goodnight Yangshuo
Other than the climbing, the two enduring memories of the trip will be David being swarmed by Chinese girls after I outed him as single at a large dinner gathering, and a twenty-something Chinese woman at our hostel telling me that Chinese people think all white people look the same.