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My Quarter Life Crisis

October 2014 - March 2015
A 168-day adventure by Rishi Read more
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  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 5

    Zhengbeilou Tower

    October 5, 2014 in China ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    So it's the morning of the hike and I made the decision to miss the sunrise at Zhengbeilou tower. From what I read on the net I was already worried about doing this hike by myself (it's unrestored, slippery, steep, falling apart, doesn't have many visitors so should the worse happen it could take forever for someone to help and then it's difficult to say where you are if you do find help). Then there was the 2 days of rain so I didn't want to make things worse by not having breakfast and not having the energy to hike to the other end or go without snacks to keep me going. So I had breakfast and the lovely lady at the hostel made me some savoury pancakes for the road. I left for the wall at 7:30 and without me asking one of the guys at the guesthouse was happy to take me as far as he could in his van to the beginning of the path. For once I did some research and it paid off as I chose the right path everytime to the tower. If I went the wrong way I would have ended up at Jiankou which is much harder to climb and hike. On the way up I passed loads of people coming down from the tower. These were tours that only went to the tower to see the sunrise. I was a bit gutted as the skies were clear and it would have been amazing to see the sunrise come from behind the mountains. One guy I met was Thomas who was a Spanish guy running down the path chasing after his dog. Like many foreigners I've stopped to talk to he was a student taking a year out to learn Chinese. Should we be doing the same? I also passed the lady that spoke little English at the guesthouse and her group. It didn't click until I passed her otherwise I would have stopped to chat, probably to reel off some more landmarks.

    Anyway the hike was tiring and it was a hot day. I was knackered and hadn't even reached the hardest bit yet. I took a few stops to catch my breath and eat the delicious pancakes the lady at the guesthouse rustled up for me. There was no point charging to the tower then not having the energy to hike the wall.

    I was doing well and within 40mins like the forum I read said made it to Zhengbeilou tower. This is supposed to be the best place to take pictures anywhere on the wall and it was pretty spectacular. I really did strike it lucky with the weather. There were clear blue skies illuminating the green peaks with the odd cloud that casted a shadow below that reminded me of the black smoke in Lost (I'll post a short video later).

    The only other people at the tower were a group of Chinese that had camped in the tower. It was so quite and peaceful up there and I took a while just to relax and take it all in. I'm not the best photographer so my pictures probably don't reflect how amazing it was up there.

    Anyway I decided to make a move and begin my hike on the actual wild wall to the restored section of Mutianyu.

    The wall is heavily overgrown with bushes and trees but there was a clear path to follow most of the way. Now considering this section is unrestored since it was built it was in much better condition than I imagined. I made good progress but could see the famous Ox Horn section ahead of me which would be the hardest part of my trek. As I reached this section I took a breather and looked back to see the group that camped at the tower were now on top of the tower. Now I didn't see any ladder to climb on top which I can only think they concealed it from me so they had the place to themselves. Cheeky bastards. The view from there would have been even better!

    Oh well it was time to tackle the Ox Horn. I found it quite easy to climb up and my new hiking boots were working a treat. There were enough footholds and branches to cling to to hurl myself up.

    I did however have one moment where I was crawling on the very edge of the wall and my heavy bag slid off to the left and the weight nearly took me over the edge. This was a bit of a wake up call about how dangerous this hike was and I was a lot more cautious the rest of the way.

    I made it to the top of the Ox Horn and thought it was fairly easy so far and I had assumed I'd tackled all the hard bits as it was all downhill from here. Oh how wrong was I.

    Going downhill was so much harder. My boots had served me well up until now but they had no grip for the slippery stone below me and I had to cling on to the side of the wall as I scaled downhill. My feet kept coming away from under me and I nearly fell backwards a few times and I don't think the stone would have been to forgiving on my head.

    I sat still for a second and the sheer drop was disorientating. The problem with holding onto the wall was there were many loose bricks so every now and again you would just pull one out and not be holding onto anything. So I decided to come off the path and walk through the shrubs as there was more rubble and things to grip and hold on to.

    I took my time but I made it down alive though I could hear voices near by. It was the group at the tower. But how did they catch up so quickly? They were in their late 40's and didn't look like athletes and I was miles ahead of them when I started the Ox Horn. I only found out when I got back that there was a shortcut to cut out the steep section. Where is the fun in that?

    The rest of the way was easy from here and then I encountered and souvenir shop. Hmmm I take it this is where the restored section starts. It was over far too quickly.

    Again I thought the hardest part was done but the Mutianyu section was much steeper than I thought and although I was going downhill my feet were far too big for the steps so I nearly fell to my death a few times on the way down.

    This section of the wall was swarming with Chinese tourists and not enjoyable in the slightest. I was so glad I did the wild section where it was peaceful and the views were so much better.

    There were two options to get off the wall, cable car and toboggan. Well it had to be the toboggan. This was so painful. It's obviously been made for smaller people so I was cramped up on this tiny tray and I was agony the whole way down. But it beat walking trying to get past the thousands of tourists that walked around like lemmings.

    In summary the Wild Wall was amazing and easier than I thought after reading some stories on the Internet. I'd definitely recommend staying away from the restored sections.

    So I survived the wall so unfortunately there will be more blogs from moi. I'll try to keep them shorter ?    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    2
    Day 5

    Beijing

    October 5, 2014 in China ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    So I finished the Great Wall a lot quicker than I thought and had the whole afternoon to walk around Beijing so I visited the Lama temple which was OK. I'm still templed out from my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia last Christmas. I was more surprised the amount of people praying as I didn't think religion was big in China.

    I then went to a craft beer brewery/bar in the main hutong which was recommended by TripAdvisor. They did all kinds of beers and ales and the Chinese people working here spoke English and wanted some banter which I had not experienced in Beijing before. The beer was good especially after a morning of hiking. There was a guy sitting on his own on the table next to me. We ended up chatting random shit and sinking a few more beers. The whole time we didn't ask each others name until we left so I now know he's called Patrick from Australia.

    This bar was a bit quirky, it had comic posters on the wall of some really crewed stories. But the weirdest thing was the "motherfucking lama".

    So I went back to the hostel later and more drunk than I had originally planned and met my new dorm mates, Laura and Laura from England and Monika from Mexico. We chatted for a while, usual hostel introductions, hi what's your name, where do you come from, what are you doing here?

    Now the plan for the day was to pack as I had to leave the hostel at 5 to catch my flight but because of the drinks and talking to my room mates it was quite late now but I eventually finished packing but I still had to work out how I got from the next airport to the Tiger Leaping Gorge I was going to hike. So I went to the bar to get on the WiFi and do some research and basically found out I had left it a bit late and getting the trains I needed wasn't going to happen especially during the national week holiday. So I decided to sack it off even though I had already bought my plane ticket. Such a waste but a life lesson that I should be more organised than I had been so far.

    So I slept in and made an executive decision in the morning to book a flight to Guilin and found one due to depart in the afternoon so I bought it and without the confirmation travelled to the airport which in that time thankfully I had my booking confirmed.

    My flight was delayed by 3 hours so I got to Guilin much later than planned but I was glad to be out of Beijing.    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 6

    Guilin

    October 6, 2014 in China ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    Finally got out of Beijing and into Guilin. Took a lot longer than I planned but not bad for booking a plane ticket at 10am this morning. Pictures are from the next morning as I got to my hostel at midnight.

    Time to chill in south of China.    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 7

    Guilin

    October 7, 2014 in China ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    So here's my first attempt to write shorter blogs. I realise I can go off on one sometimes.

    Guilin, my escape from the chaotic mess that was Beijing. As my flight was delayed I didn't get to the hostel until midnight. I was exhausted and I just wanted to shower, go to bed and have a good night's sleep (it had only been a few days into my 6 month trip and I was already broken). There was no way I could have done this in a dorm without waking everyone up. So I asked the girl for a private room. She said it was more expensive as it was the last night of the national week but I talked her into a reduced rate, I was getting better at this haggling malarkey. The girl was called Etka and she was very chatty which was a complete change to any locals I met in Beijing. Like most Chinese people she can't say her r's so I let her call me "English" during my time at the hostel.

    Anyway the next day I moved into the dorm and then headed out into town. I knew there wasn't a lot to see and do in Guilin, it's just a stop off to get to the famous Longsheng rice terraces and Yangshuo (more on this later). So I was armed with a map and started walking to the park. On my way I was stopped by a guy on a moped wondering what I was up to. He claimed he just wanted to practice his English as he was going to London soon but he kept trying to flog me tickets to the theatre and said he'd give me a ride on his bike to the ticket office. I politely turned him down but I was just happy that I was chatting to a local. This never happened in Beijing. So I eventually made it to the park, saw some monkeys that were so accustomed to people feeding them they became quite intimidating surrounding anyone that was walking up the stairs expecting to be fed. This put my hike up to the top of karst hill on hold.

    On my way back from the park and looking for a place to eat I was approached by another local, Li. He said he was an English teacher so wanted to practice his English (hmmm sounds familiar). The conversation soon turned to the theatre again. But this time I thought fuck it. Let's just go to the bloody theatre. I didn't know what else there was to do in Guilin. So I walked with the guy and I learnt a little bit more about him and he tried to teach me some Chinese all of which I've forgotten. He got me a discounted ticket then took me somewhere to get some fried noodles and said after the show to swing by his sisters tea house.

    Anyway I headed back to the hostel to freshen up and I met an Israeli guy called Guy in my dorm. I had to dash pretty quickly but agreed to meet up with him for some food when the show was over. Before I left I bumped into another girl working at the hostel called Tina. Like Etka she was really chatty and wanted to know what I had been up to. I'd highly recommend the the Ming Palace hostel just for the people that work there.

    So on my way to the theatre I was approached by another guy wanting to practice his English. I knew where this was going but I thought I'd play along. When he eventually asked me about the theatre tickets I broke his heart and told him I already had some. Ha I just wasted your time.

    As for the show I did not know what to expect. The seats were better than I thought, I was only 4 rows from the front. First up was an old guy surrounded by some hot assistants while he did some calligraphy. I've been shafted! Fortunately this was a pre show thing and the actual show was quite good although a bit odd. There was singing, dancing, acrobatics, motorbikes and pole dancing!?!

    Once the show ended I headed back to the hostel to meet Guy. He had just finished a few years national service in the Israeli army. It was interesting to here about his time in the army and his trip so far. We had a couple beers then went to get some food. It was quite nice to eat with someone as Chinese food is all about sharing a few dishes which I'd struggle to eat on my own. We ordered the local dish, beer duck. Now when you ask for meat in this country they will cook the whole thing. No part of the duck was wasted. Feet, head you name it.

    After eating, Guy said he met a local art dealer and wanted to meet up with him. So we went to his gallery and looked around. We had a bit of a chat. Again it was nice to talk to a local but every now and again he would ask if I wanted a painting. I said I definitely didn't want one so Guy mentioned about going for some tea. So this art dealer took us to his sisters tea house which happened to be the same tea house Li pointed out earlier in the day. It's only logical that I ask this man if he knows Li as they both claim it's their sisters tea house. He didn't have a scooby. Hmmm something smells fishy, actually this place smelt like green tea. He made us some tea, said it was from his home village where they individually roll the tea leaves into balls for better flavour. And you know what this was the best green tea I had ever tasted though I've not had that much green tea before. This tea left a slight tang/numbness in your mouth, I was a little worried I was being drugged. I would have bought some but I knew this was all a sales ploy and I didn't want to give this guy the satisfaction. We eventually left after sampling some more free tea for a couple beers back at the hostel.

    The next day I planned to go to the Longsheng Rice Terraces which has it's own blog.

    So that was Guilin. Not a lot to do but full of friendly people. Definitely an improvement on the Beijing locals.    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 8

    Longsheng Rice Terraces

    October 8, 2014 in China ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    I had heard about this place from the little research I did before leaving the UK. The pictures I had seen were amazing and I knew I had to visit this place. What's amazing about this place is that the view will change depending on the seasons.

    When I had arrived I found out that the harvest starts in October and this place does not look at it's prettiest once all the rice has been chopped out. The girl at reception was adamant that the harvest had literally just started so I needed to go now because within a few days it'd all be gone.

    I decided to join a tour instead of making my own way in the interest of time and convenience. Also I wanted to meet some new people. So I was told to wait at the end of the busy crossroads for the bus where I met a couple from Bradford who were also waiting for the bus to the terraces. The bus was late, we didn't know what we were looking for or where exactly the bus would be stopping. This is where it's nice to travel in a group, when shit goes wrong, safety in numbers. Eventually this huge bus turns up and we hop on board. We realise we're on a Chinese tour of the terraces. Great.

    So the Chinese your leader gave us foreigners a brief summary of the tour. From this talk we found out we were going to a different part of the terraces than we all initially thought. I already had a plan to hike from the bottom and do my own thing but now that plan was over. He said we'd have to get a cable car to the top which I was not in favour of but he said there wasn't enough time to get to the top. This is why I don't do tours, I like doing things the way I want, in my own time and for less money. So I coughed up the cash for the cable car, not a happy bunny.

    The ride up to the terraces was terrifying. We had seen a few overturned trucks on the side of the road and our bus driver was zooming around the corners.

    We made it in one piece and headed straight to the restaurant for food. Being the only foreigners we had no idea what was happening but again I was with the other English couple so we helped each other out.

    After being fed we got the cable car up to the top. The views here were amazing! Harvesting had literally just started so the terraces were still a field of gold. They reminded me of giant beehives sprouting out of the ground. The story behind this were some minority Chinese people were kicked out back in the day and they setup their new lives in the hills. They had an ingenious way to grow rice in the sides of the hills but creating this terraced structure to capture water and grow rice crops. It was huge!

    At the top it was full of tourists, mainly Chinese, so getting good pictures was difficult. I found some steps leading down the terrace so I went off piste and started climbing down the terrace away from the crowd and noise. The pictures were so much better from here and without the noise I could appreciate and enjoy the enormity and beauty of this place.

    It was roasting outside and I can't believe within a week this would have all been harvested. Talk about hard labour.

    The next part of the trip was to walk down to the bottom. In fairness to the guy on the bus, he was right, this part of the terrace was much steeper and higher and would have taken a whole day to climb up and down. This guys English was very limited so it was quite funny when he tried getting us to do things as it came across very direct, as in, "you get in cable car now!". We knew he wasn't being rude and understood it's because he knew little English so wasn't told how to say things politely. It just came across funny being ordered about.

    The walk down was OK but my pictures and experience of going off piste was so much better.

    I was pretty beat after walking around all day in the intense heat. I just wanted to chill on the ride home but the tour leader decided to chat on the microphone the whole way back. It was all in Chinese so I had no idea what he was saying but he later walked up and down the bus spraying perfume and trying to flog the thing. I recorded a minute of this guy talking which I'll upload later. Now imagine that for a whole hour!    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 9

    Yangshou

    October 9, 2014 in China ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Let me start off by saying sorry for falling behind on my blog. I'm very much still alive (cue a few groans).
    I'm now in Japan so as I write this I might refer to some things that happened in Shanghai, Korea (no need to specify as I technically visited North & South Korea) and Tokyo.

    I'm also going to try a different style and write this blog as a diary. Let me know if it works.

    Day 1:
    To get to Yangshou I had to catch the bus from Guilin. From my experience so far on this trip, due to the language barrier you never really know where you're going to eventually end up. As soon as I arrived at the bus station a women screamed at me "YANGSHOU!". I think my massive rucksack (which seems to be getting heavier even though I've not bought anything) gave me away. She charged what I was expecting so I jumped on board and hoped for the best. They had a Jackie Chan film on which was in English so I was kept amused for the next hour, checking my GPS every so often to make sure I was on the right bus. Can you imagine travelling 20-30 years ago? It must have been so much more difficult to get by. I would have no app to translate conversations with locals, no app to track where I was going incase I was unknowingly being kidnapped. Big respect to the early travellers.

    So I arrived in Yangshou and thought I could walk from the bus station to the hostel. How wrong was I? I only made it 5 mins until I approached a huge round about and didn't know which exit to take. So I rang the hostel for help and she said to just jump into a moto taxi as it was late. Where can I find a moto taxi? There were loads at the bus station shouting for my attention but now I can't see any. I was too proud / embarrassed to walk back to the bus station so I continued forward hoping one would drive by and by luck found a rickshaw at the petrol station. Cue a classic "you've been framed" moment, I go to sit in the back and didn't realise there wasn't enough clearance for me and my huge backpack. So I stepped up into the rickshaw and bounced right back out, for a moment I did my best impression of a turtle on its back. I eventually made it in and the driver to knew a shortcut to the hostel. It was through a back breaking cobbled road and this rickshaw had no suspension. But I made it and went straight to bed.

    Day 2:
    As I travelled during the night I never got to see the scenery so when I eventually got out of bed I was pleasantly surprised. This is exactly what I needed after a hectic time in Beijing.

    I spent the morning planning my time in Yangshou and I could hear a thick brummie accent behind me. I turned round to ask how long they had been in Yangshou and what I should do whilst I was hear. The brummie guy was called Sam and he was with his Geordie mate Cam and they were chatting to these 2 Swedish girls. They had come to Yangshou to rock climb. Apparently this is THE place to be for rock climbing. I had never done it before but I added it to my list of things to do. The other thing they said was grab a bike and wonder in and around town, I knew already I was going to love this place if I could get my hands on 2 wheels.

    The 2 lads from England were with another 2 mates, Scouser Will and Brummie Rich. Their trip was really interesting. They were cycling from Europe to Asia via counties like Tajikistan. Awesome trip right? They never planned to come to Yangshou but their bikes had been confiscated when they got to China as they had a camping stove and didn't know where or when they would be getting them back. But as they all loved rock climbing they decided to come here.

    So my first full day I just planned to walk around town. I normally do this when I arrive in each new place, get familiar with my surroundings, memorise the route in case I get very drunk. This place was small. I managed to do about 5 circuits of this place. This was nice as Beijing was huge! This place was a bit touristy but after not seeing many backpackers in Beijing it was kind of nice to see some white faces. I sat down in a cafe and got chatting to a German girl (amazingly hot!) and a Nordic girl to get some ideas about what to do. The German girl told me to check out a club where she drank 10 different shots in 5 mins. And we're talking about proper shots, no schnapps in site. The German stereotype reigns true.
    I kept wondering around and worked up another appetite. In this cafe was an Indian couple I thought were in they're late 40's. It turned out they were in their 60's! The cafe owner didn't believe them so they whipped out their passport which was covered with stamps. These guys were well travelled. I asked them about their trips and they have done some incredible trails, like Machu Picu and the Annapurnna circuit. I had never heard of it before but then a few days later there was that awful story about the snow storm. They claim it's better than Machu Picu so I'll have to check it out but maybe in the summer when there's less chance of a snow storm. They were a sweet couple, cultured, well educated and well travelled. I had a lot of admiration for these two. Especially as the women thought I was still at university and that I didn't look anywhere near my age. Before they left they wrote on the wall (it's common for guests to write on hostel/cafe walls). He wrote in Latin and she wrote in Sanscript. Incredible!

    I headed back to the hostel and the British guys invited me to go out with them for dinner. Before we left Sam was chatting to a girl who was sitting on her own and invited her out too. So Rich took us to the "claypot". He had been eating here for the last few nights and I think he qualified as a regular. He explained that you pick 2 meats and 2 veg from the list which they put on top of some rice in a claypot. I can't remember exactly the cost of the meal but it was dirt cheap and the 660ml of local beer was only 60p. I can see why Rich came here most nights. The little kid that came round to take our order didn't seem to speak English so we used a chopstick as a pointer. I later found out it's rude to point with your chopstick. Typical foreigners.

    Over dinner I got to know Jana, a girl from Utah (born in the Czech Republic). She had been travelling for a year and was coming towards the end of her trip. I only knew Utah for Mormons but the state sounds beautiful and a great place to hike and cycle.

    I told the guys that I was going to book a half day climbing in a couple days time as it was cheap but Sam and Rich offered to take me for free as Cam and Will were planning to take a day off climbing so they had some spare gear. Such a generous offer. Jana was interested too as she was quite outdoorsy.

    We then went for a quick drink to meet up with someone Will knew. As Rich had some clothes in the same crates that were confiscated he went to a bar to get a free t-shirt for writing a review on TripAdvisor. So I joined Rich and Sam for another beer at this place. Unfortunately for Rich his review hadn't gone up yet so no t-shirt. But I got to know a bit more about the two of them. They were genuinely two well natured lads and cool to chill out with.

    Ah crap this blog has a word limit. I'll have to finish this off in a separate blog. I love to waffle.    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 10

    Yangshou

    October 10, 2014 in China ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Day 3:
    Over breakfast I chatted with Jana who suggested having the omelette with ham, mushrooms and tomatoes in the middle. It was amazing! I'll definitely be making that when I get back to England though I might throw in some chorizo (Bollam and Penelope know how much I love chorizo). I was deciding what route to cycle. Most people cycle up the Li river and take a bamboo raft back into Yangshou. Jana said she looked into it but it was quite expensive to take a raft for one person and the Youlong was cheaper. Jana was planning to cycle to the tea plantation which was near the same route as the cycle route to the River Youlong. And after a lot of faffing around on my part I decided to do the Youlong route and asked Jana if she wanted to join me and that we could take a detour and go via the tea plantation and take a trip on a bamboo raft which was cheaper with the 2 of us. I asked the girl at reception about how we would take a detour and I was met with a direct "no!" The Chinese are funny like this. Do anything outside the normal process and you're met with a very direct "no". It was like the dude at the rice terraces when we asked about skipping the cable cars. He ended up being right. I don't think they mean to come across so direct, I think it's mainly down to the language barrier. She said it was too steep, but surely that's subjective. But then she said she did it once by moped and wanted to die. Extreme but OK I'll trust her this time. She gave us a bunch of photos with directions to get us there and off we went.

    Getting out amongst the karst mountains was amazing. It was so beautiful and tranquil. It was nice to be away from all the touristy stuff and cycle through all the little villages. I also got a chance to get to know Jana better. I can't remember exactly what we talked about but we were just chatting about our travels and life back home. She was really easy to get on with. Definitely a good travel buddy and made cycling this route far more enjoyable than if I did it on my own. Minus a couple wrong turns we made it to the raft. At first we weren't entirely sure if we were in the right place or if someone was going to steel our bikes (they load it onto a truck and drive it down to your end destination). Sod it we'd just go with it and see what happens. We bought 2 random things from the vendor, it's all they had left and jumped onto the raft. We tucked into this giant dumpling which turned out to be like a Chinese doughnut with really sweet sugar in the middle. And we had this green jelly stuff which for the life of me would not come off my finger. It didn't taste of much. It was relaxing to take in the surroundings at super slow speed, there must be hundreds of these karst mountains. But as we got further down the river there was a drop in front of us. How is our raft going to avoid that? Oh wait it doesn't. It goes straight over it going front first and drenching my feet. This was the first of many steps in the river on the way down. I'll post a video of this later so you know what I mean. Totally unexpected but was fun. As we got closer to the end our steerer/punter/captain? asked if we wanted some fish from this women on the raft. Why not?

    Reached another word limit...    Read more

  • Rishi DuggalMy Quarter Life Crisis
    Day 11

    Yangshou

    October 11, 2014 in China ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Blog continued (we're on Day 3 in case you forgot or fell asleep out of sheer boredom)...

    We ended up getting shafted on the price. Her maths didn't make sense but with the language barrier we ended up paying her what she wanted. We made it to the end to be reunited with our bikes. We didn't want to go straight back to the hostel so we decided to bike to Moon Hill. Again it was so nice to cycle through the gorgeous countryside with the sunsetting behind the green peeks.

    We made it to Moon Hill with an hour to go before the park closed and the light was fading quickly. We had to race up the many stairs to the viewing platform. The view was really underwhelming but Rich mentioned that there's a path you can take to get right to the top of the hill so being the gent that I am I let Jana lead the way. It wasn't a tough hike and the view was so much better than the official viewing platform. As we climbed down, the light had completely faded and it was getting really tough to see the stairs ahead of us. Luckily I had 2 torches on me. Jana decided to talk about horror movies whilst pitch black outside until we heard a rustle in the trees which freaked us out and quickly ended that topic.

    We had a 30 minute nerve racking journey home cycling on the side of the major road with hardly any light. But we got back and rewarded ourselves with a Snickers bar then another claypot for dinner with the other lads. Jana decided against the claypot and chose the spicy beef which in this place means slices of cooked beef with a million whole peppers thrown on the plate. Whilst eating there was a guy dressed as MJ walking around town with a giant speaker on wheels. I was curious to see his act and I got my chance on the way home where MJ was sitting down on his arse looking very bored with MJ songs blaring out of the speakers. Not even a hint of a moonwalk or a squeezed crotch.

    Day 4:
    So today was rock climbing day. I gave Sam and Rich enough opportunities to back out but they were quite looking forward to it. They took us to the Swiss Cheese wall as it was good for beginners. I had never climbed before and the lads advice was just to relax and climb. I was hoping for some technical help but they were right. You just climb and you naturally find somewhere to put your hands and feet. During the first climb whilst I was midway up they decided to tell me they learnt how to climb from a guy called Captain Catastrophe who got his name for always being accident prone. Not what I needed to hear halfway up the wall. I made it to the top and made it to the top of the 2nd climb. It was going quite well. So the lads decided to step it up and took us to a much higher, polished (new term I learnt, means smoothed wall from erosion, basically a bitch to hold onto). I gave myself the minimum target of getting at least halfway on each climb which I successfully did. But Jana beat me each time. She was a much better climber than me and could see more places to hold than I could. It was such a fun morning. I'd much rather do something active like climbing and cycling than going to see temples.

    My travel buddy Jana left that evening for Japan which was a shame. Travelling is so much better when you're with someone.

    So that evening I went out with the lads as they were allowing themselves for a big night. They normally don't drink too much so they can climb the next day. First we went to the claypot, standard, then to McDonald's for a coffee. I grabbed a patty from the vendor next door that has a sign saying they won't serve Japanese people. Racism is not subtle at this joint. We then headed to Monkey Jane's bar as they had a beer pong tournament and a chance to beat Monkey Jane and win t-shirt.

    First up was Sam. We were told by Aussie barman that it's best to go first as Monkey Jane takes a while to warm up. And you know what it's true. Although it was a close game, Sam came out victorious and got the t-shirt he really wanted. What made me laugh was Monkey Jane said she the doctor told her not to drink. That lasted all of 3 rounds!

    So it turns out Monkey Jane quite fancied Cam and wasn't shy about it. The whole night poor Cam was being hugged and groped by this large Chinese lady. She might of fancied him but she didn't let him win at beer pong. Rich lost too. Ah nuts, I'm up last and Monkey Jane is in full flow.

    I can't go into massive detail about my game because I can't remember a lot of it. But we had a close game. I used Cam as a distraction when Monkey Jane was up to put her off. And it worked. I won! I've got the t-shirt to prove it.

    We then played a few more rounds of doubles. Rich and a Chinese girl, Melinda, formed a formidable partnership. I think they won something like 5/6 rounds in a row. A lot of beer was consumed. Rich fell asleep on the sofa whilst the rest of us played poker with Monkey Jane, her Tibeten friend Tuko, and this odd English Guy that turned up really late. My luck ran out at the beer pong table and I was out pretty early.

    Melinda took a bit of a liking to her beer pong partner but he was sound asleep. She sat next to him for most of the night but she eventually got fed up of waiting. We all ended up joining Rich and fell asleep on the sofa. During this time Monkey Jane was trying her best to get Cam to go to bed with her. He literally did a runner when he got to the door. The rest of us decided to kip on the sofa for the night.

    As you can tell from my long post, I loved Yangshou. I met some great people, did some fun activities, partied and all of this was in a beautiful setting. This is why I decided to travel. For moments like these.

    Me and Sam agreed that China can be described as very weird but fun.    Read more

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