Yangshou, Guiyang, China










Yangshou is really in a beautiful area even if the town is quite touristy. We booked a day of rock climbing of the Karsts that surround the town. The rocks had nice handholds but that also meant some razor-sharp edges in places. Klotz ended up slashing his finger open and had to sit out the rest of the day. It didn't stop him from climbing just a few more runs before throwing in the towel. Sophie and I climbed until we could climb no more, but still couldn't make it the whole time. Rock climbing is really hard work when you aren't in shape for it, and believe me, we aren't. The next day we rented some bikes and rode up to a water cave. It was certainly an odd tour. The caves had handrails the entire way as we stomped across formations that were thousands of years old. To be fair, they didn't appear to be damaged by it. They geared us up for a really wet experience, forcing us to surrender our backpacks and shoes in favor of flip-flops that were, in my case, about 4 sizes too small. We also bought a few dirt-cheap swimsuits. We found out that these swimsuits were intended for a mud pit with a slide. There weren't any other tours nearby so it was just us and our guide arriving to this pit. The pit had a staff of 4 guys with a little computer and camera set up ready to yell poses at us, take the photos, and sell them to us. They even had a printer and laminator down in this cave too. It was entertaining albeit a bit creepy. After the cave tour, we just tooled around the country side on our bike before heading back in to town. We took off the next day, heading west to Kunming in the Yunnan province.