What we've been up to the last week...

Sorry for the comm-silence, but its better not to post our travel plans beforehand...that being said, Cliff and I just spent the last ten days in Guilin. As some of you might know, we were originally planning on going to Thailand for the month of July to go kiteboarding and scuba diving, but due to some visa issues, we decided that an in-country trip was our only option. In retrospect, I don't regret our "plan B" at all. We were alittle anxious booking our trip, as we checked the weather report after we booked our plane tickets. The forecast for the following two weeks read humid, or very humid, thunderstorms and 30-33 degrees (which is hot, according to Joe Celsius). We were a little depressed at that point, but we also only booked one way tickets to Guilin, so we had a "plan c" in the works that included hopping a train to Shanghai or Nanjing or somewhere not so crappy. Thankfully we didn't go that route, as a typhoon hit the east coast of China in the middle of our vacation.


Guilin is in the southern part of China, on the Li River and is famous for the beautiful Karst mountain range that abuts on the river bank. A small town outside of Guilin, Yangshuo, is reknowned for its rock climbing, so Cliff and I decided to make that the centerpiece of our trip. What we didn't realize is that the rock climbing is only a very small part of the areas attractions, so we changed our original plans and added a side trip to Longi rice terraces and a couple days in Guilin city at the end (which we wouldn't do again, since it paled in comparison to the other cities we visited). As I mentioned earlier, getting in some good climbing time was our goal, but unfortunately, the Friday before we left, I injured my shoulder at a Beijing rock climbing wall, so we decided to do some sightseeing in Yangshuo first.


We were given two options to get to Yangshuo from Guilin airport...first, we could take the esay route and rent a car to take us to Yangshuo, which would cost about 250-300 RMB, or we could take "the peoples" route and take a bus to the Guilin train station, walk to the bus station and find the bus to Yangshuo. We took the path less (and by less, I mean more) traveled and navigated the bus option. In China, "safety" and "bus" are not words often used in the same sentence. As you can see below, the bus departs when it is at 110% capacity.



The purpose of this photo is not to show you Cliffs strangely feminine legs, but to give you a glimpse of the upside-down trash can that functions as an adhoc seat. This isn't so bad, except that Cliff was seated in the aisle right beside the driver and had a front row view of Chinese driving techniques. Given the fact that our bus to Beidaihe almost fell on its side on the highway, during a rainstorm, Cliff white-knuckled the railing next to him the entire trip.


We finally made it (alive) to Yangshuo and after finding a hotel, we strolled down the main street, called West Street. I thought the dichotomy between the beautiful mountains and the neon garishness of the tourist area was fascinating. Its like having Wisconsin Dells in the middle of the Grand Canyon.


Later that night, we discovered a night market that bled off of West street. I caught a picture of this couple who ran a food cart. If you look closely, you can see their grill and food table is mounted on a bicycle.


Late that night we decided to book a hot air balloon ride for the next day--we'd never done it before and it was relatively cheap (650 RMB per person...roughly 95$). The aforementioned sentence is logical if you don't take into consideration the moving safety hazard we rode to Yangshuo. Also the fact that it was cheap, did not inspire supreme confidence but hey, we're young and can certainly withstand falls from high heights. No problem...


Cliff took this great picture...there is something about riding in vehicle that belches flames that makes me smile.


Needless to say, the view was beautiful. It was pretty cloudy that morning, so there were several layers of fog and clouds that added depth to the pics...


Below is a pic that includes another one of the balloons that took off that morning. In fact, it was one of the few that stayed up for the entire tour, as it poured rain for about 20 minutes during our flight. The moisture in and of itself was not a show-stopper. However, the fact that the rain ran down the side of the balloon, flowed through the burner, then dripped down on us lava-like, steaming water, made us slightly uncomfortable. But, we are sturdy of body and weak of mind so we flew on.

The Li River valley was dotted with small villages, which really made the view quite stunning. For the residents here, I suppose it's much like growing up in La Crosse, WI.... Living in the shadow of the worlds largest six pack (Old Style) can really numb someone to the surreality of living with an icon in their own backyard. Likewise, I'm sure the villagers here get used to the uniqueness of their home, but really, this scenery was some of the most beautiful I've ever seen.


This is called Moon Hill...as one would imagine, its quite popular with the tourist set. Its not a very clear picture, and I apologize for that, but for rock climbers (which I don't claim to be), this is China mecca. Apparently there are a bunch of graded 5.13+ routes that traverse the arch...and these routes have been featured in a couple of magazines not only for their technical difficulty, but also because of the beautiful backdrop.
After a little over an hour in the air, our carpet ride was over. Interestingly enough, we had some problems landing and at first were going to land on the side of a highway, then we were going to drop into a field, both of which had copious amounts of power lines (which were the ultimate determiner in our search for a landing zone). Finally we landed in a village parking lot.
Since we had all that fun before 8am, we decided to go to the Silver Caves in afternoon. The caves are made of limestone and run through 12 different mountains and the stalactites and stalagmites have a slight crystal quality in them which gives the cave its name. In true Chinese fashion, no natural object is beautiful enough on its own, so the folks here have added a bevy of colored lights which make it more like a movie set than anything else. The cave was unlike anything I've ever seen and was a welcome respite to the oppressive afternoon heat.


The next day, Cliff and I decided to split up...I wanted to take a cooking class and Cliff didn't (God forbid he learn, and then be responsible for cooking thereafter), so he went on a hike instead. My cooking class was quite good, and started out with a trip to the local market. I've been to plenty of Chinese and Korean markets in the US, which is a good primer for the real thing. In the US, you have the live tanks of fish, animal parts and chickens sometimes still have their legs and/or heads attached. However, nothing can compare to the glory of a true Chinese market. They pride themselves on the freshness and variety of ingredients, hence the head being included in many native dishes...it was definitely fresh.


I couldn't get a good angle of the lady who was plucking a chicken in the back of the stall and didn't want to get a good close up of the innards that were also being sold on the side, but you get the picture...


These are fresh ducks!!!

There was also a great wet market off to the side and included all sorts of snails, fish, eels, snakes and froggies!!!

For those who are squeamish, you can pass by this picture, but if you are interested, you can look at the center and see the real subject of this shot. Yangshuo gets enough gawking tourists, so the locals are sensitive about their consumption of dog meat and don't want it to be photographed (of course, I did whatever I pleased and shot it anyways). However, don't confuse this sensitivity with shame or remorsefulness on the Chinese part...I think they just don't want a bunch of foreigners coming in and being visibly horrified about a local custom that has been in practice for much longer than America has been a country. Regardless, I won't be eating any dog here, and for those of you who plan on visiting, you most likely won't be either, as it is relatively expensive compared to other meats, so it won't be "slipped" in a dish on purpose.



Here is the unrefrigerated meat market in all its glory!


The produce here was beautiful...they had all sorts of fresh veggies, pickles, and an exceptional variety of Chilis.


Pickles daikon radish and several kinds of chilis


And, the biggest cucumber in the world....


mmmmm.....


Our cooking class was on the roof of a local restaurant and I had four other classmates, all from Norway. We were each given a station with sesame oil, sunflower oil, soy and oyster sauce, sugar, salt, chicken boullion, and corn starch. We each had our own wok and would each prepare our own dishes. We had picked three dishes before hand, and as one of the other ladies was a vegetarian, and got to pick her own separate dishes, we had alot of different dishes to taste. The main ones that I prepared were beer fish, stuffed eggplant and fried green beans.


The view from the rooftop was quite nice too!


Here is our first dish--beer fish. It consisted of fish, fried with the skin side down first, then we added green and red peppers, some spicy dried pepper, garlic and tomatoes...add beer, green onion and corn starch/soy/oyster sauce, sugar and wallla!!! a masterpiece.


The next dish was fried beans, which was green beans, chili paste, red pickled chilis, dried chilis and some chicken boullion.


Lastly, we made stuffed eggplant, which was alittle different than I had anticipated. We first removed the skin, sliced the eggplant into thick discs and then made a smaller incision in the middle of each disc to make a pocket for the stuffing. For the filling, we combined ground pork, carrots and garlic chives, along with soy, sugar, salt and sesame oil. After stuffing the eggplant slices, they were dropped into a beer batter and deep fried. They were good, but not good for you.

Erstwhile, Cliff decided to hike to the top of Green Lotus Peak to take pictures. As he related to me later, after about an hour of scrambling up wet, slippery, muddy rocks, battling the local undergrowth (of which his lady-legs still bear the scars) and being nearly eaten alive by the local fauna, he made it to the top. Thankfully, he was able to take some great shots.

Another hill top picture...looks just like the ones from the balloon, eh?

That night, we fulfilled one of Cliff's latest obsessions and went to go see night time cormorant fishing. We were not into paying the 90 RMB/pp that the local tour office wanted, so instead we went down to the dock and negotiated 50 RMB (about 8USD) for the both of us to join the hour long tour. In retrospect, the latter was worth the price.


As I mentioned before, Cliff has been unnaturally obsessed with cormorant fishing lately (for those in the know, it ranks below his manatee obsession and above his affinity for 1980's-era Nintendo Tecmo Super Bowl). Since we had been watching alot of the Discovery Channel lately, we've caught a couple programs on China, and often times this unique way of fishing is profiled. Basically, a snare is tied near the base of the bird's throat, which allows the bird only to swallow small fish. When the bird captures and tries to swallow a large fish, the fish is caught in the bird's throat. When the bird returns to the fisherman's raft, the fisherman 'encourages' the bird to regurgitate the fish into a basket. Below is one of these beauties up close.



And of course we had to include the obligatory tourist pictures....

The next day we began our long awaited rock climbing course. We signed up for a three-day course to learn how to lead climb, belay with our grigri and climb multi-pitch routes. Because the climber community is a close knit one, typically new climbers learn from buddies, who learned from a older brothers friend and so on, so in a lot of instances, critical techniques (like how to correctly belay or anchor off of natural object so that you don't die) are not first hand knowledge. Since Cliff and I are getting up there in age, we don't have time to learn thru trial and error, so we've gone the classroom route to get some of the finer techniques down. The first day we climbed a local rock called Wine Bottle, so named for the unusual shaped rock near the climbing area (on the left).


Up close, the wall looks a little more intimidating, but in truth, we climbed a 5.7, two 5.8s and two 5.9s the first day. Given the fact that I had injured my shoulder 4 days earlier, I chose to take it easy and only climb for a half day.


Here is Winebottle looking the other direction. The fact that Cliff is in the picture "communing" with nature is included free of charge.


Here is Cliff on the beginning of his warm up 5.8.


Here I am almost to the top of the same line....

This is the view looking up at the 5.9, which Cliff rocked and I chickened out on...


On the second day we went to a different spot called Baby Frog Hill. After a morning of climbing (in almost unbearable heat) we decided to take swim in the river before lunch. This is probably one of the best moments of our trip, as we got a glimpse into Chinese culture. There was a group of 5-6 Chinese guys climbing with us, and as we got to the Li River swim, they all proceeded to strip down to their underwear and jump in the water -- it was pretty funny. Needless to say, Cliff and I stuck to our American heritage and went with traditional bathing clothes.

This is a group of the guys jumping off the bridge into the river. Cliff is the one in mid-air and is a half a second from learning a very painful lesson about physics and the required rotation required to successfully complete a forward flip. He said his back stung for the next hour.

After we went swimming, we walked over to a local place to grab lunch. Our Chinese hosts could not be bothered with changing (at least in the short term), and thusly ate lunch in just their underwear. I couldn't get over the spectacle of it all, and so had spent my entire lunch on the verge of laughter. If you can imagine, it was Cliff, myself, one of the girlfriends of the climbers and five guys in BVDs at an outdoor village restaurant eating lunch... ahh, good times.

On our third and final day of climbing, we were determined to test the limits our of climbing abilities. My goal was to top a 5.9 while and Cliff wanted to conquer a 5.10. We felt that these goals were relatively high for novice climbers like us, but achievable. Below is a picture of me making a long reach just below the crux of my route...


As for Cliff, the guides suggested a 5.10b route. He was pretty nervous (not of falling but of failing) about taking this one on but after a good warmup on a 5.8, he went for it. Below is a picture of him above the crux of his route.

To our delight, we both completed our respective routes!

The rest of the morning, Cliff practiced lead climbing on the 5.9's. In the afternoon, he went with one of the guides and did a 5.9+ multi-pitch route. I spent the rest of my time nursing my shoulder, which I injured again on what was going to be my final climb on another 5.9. :(

Cliff climbed like crazy, and as a result, really tore up his hands. Lets just say Cliff would never survive a career of manual labor.


The following morning we headed out to Longsheng & Ping'an, which is the home to China's terraced rice paddies, known as the Dragons backbone to most Chinese. For one of the first times in this trip, my Chinese failed us and we ended getting ripped off (paying 30RMB instead of 17 RMB per person) to catch the bus from Guilin to LongSheng. Also, the bus was the peoples bus (no air con, stinky seats and questionable driver), which was a pretty crappy 2 hour ride to our destination. Cliff was a real trooper and I'm thankful for such a patient husband. Once in Longsheng, we caught a shuttle van (which was probably loaded with about twice the manufacturers intended max capacity) to Ping'an Village. At Ping'an, we were dropped at a communal bus stop and swarmed by old ladies with bamboo baskets on their back, asking to take our backpacks to our hotel for 20 RMB (3 USD) each. I thought it was a waste of money and so we opted to carry our backpacks ourselves. This was, by far, the worst mistake I made the entire trip. 30 min, 700 some steps, and 1 liter of sweat later, we made it to the PingAn hotel, which fortunately had air con and a shower. Often times in PingAn, we'd ask ourselves how my parents or Cliff's would fair in the town... there are long, narrow, rock-lined steps that lead everywhere and the hike to Lookout points one and two were a long and somewhat arduous hike. Cliff caught a picture of what our ultimate solution might be....


I know by this point, you are probably tired of hearing this, but the scenery was extremely beautiful here as well. The hills are lined with stepped terraces growing mostly rice, but also corn, chilis and other veggies too. The terraces were built in the Ming Dynasty about 500 years ago and remain an integral part of the villagers survival today, mostly due to the tourist attraction rather than the agrarian base of yesteryear.

The view behind us is called Seven Stars and the Moon, or some kind of corny name...its been romanticized for the tourist crowd, when in truth, it doesn't need anything to appear more beautiful.


Greetings from Ping'an!!!!


Due to Ping'an and Longsheng's rural location, it was a real glimpse into Chinese village life...there were roosters and chicken all over the village. On a side note, the steps in the picture are indicative of the walkways throughout the village and a hard to traverse in the daytime and are impossibly dangerous in the evening hours.



We were also witness to several true national geographic moments. Below is the largest spider I've seen in a long time wrapping up a huge dragon fly. We watched this dragon fly get caught, paralyzed, spun up and then dragged to the rafters of this outdoor hut towards its doom.

On the way back to the hotel we wanted to pick up some apples, so the owners of this shop weighed out a jin (0.5 kg) of apples for us on this ancient scale. Cliff was so interested in it that they let us take a picture.



Cliff caught a couple of other life-pictures in the village. I don't know what is stronger, the split bamboo rod carrying 2 huge sacks of potatoes, or the very tiny, very old lady wielding the bamboo rod.


Here is one of the locals working the land.

Cliff and I bidding a Chinese-style farewell to Longsheng. (why do they always flash this stupid peace sign????)

We spent our last two days of vacation in Guilin, which in retrospect, was not a good choice. The city was dirty, we were always getting offered tours, and the sights weren't all that great. Probably the only highlight was the Elephant Hill Park, whose namesake is pictured below.


To compliment elephant rock, there are several concrete elephants on tourist side of the river.


Which, of course, Cliff had to ride.
There was also a myriad of rock sculptures, this one aptly called lovers rock.


Another reminder of the many dichotomies in Chinese society...in the midst of all the tourists, cheesy bamboos tour boats and gaudy umbrellas, a lone fisherman throws his net, in the same way that fisherman have harvested these shallows for hundreds of years.


Lastly, we went to take a couple of photos of the twin pagodas. I hear that they are lit up with a crazy light show at night...and although we didn't get a chance to check it out, I'm sure its lovely.


All in all, our first vacation in China was everything we had hoped it would be. We felt like we went beyond sightseeing and were able to spent time doing some activities we love in a unique locale. We were able to lazily plan our days and change them at the last minute if we wanted to. Cliff got to flex his new camera and we lived to tell about it. I can't wait for the next vacation!