1 April 2007
The students were too tired to remember that it was
April Fool¡¯s Day. They set about breaking camp at
6.30. After a breakfast of porridge and tea we
shouldered our heavy packs once more and set of for a
full day¡¯s hike ¨C 8 hours or so we thought. It was
hot and humid, the kids were tired from the day before
and the walk wasn¡¯t easy. After about an hour¡¯s
trekking we decided that three of the students should
take an alternative route as they didn¡¯t appear to be
up to the full trek. Beverly and Xiao Sai walked off
with them to return early to Yangshuo. The rest of us
enjoyed a spectacularly beautiful trek through the
rice fields and karst scenery ¨C truly a landscape
from the wildest of dreams.
We stopped twice on route to help local farmers with
their work. Oranges and pomello are the main cash
crops grown here. They have to be carefully pruned
and pollinated. Near Yangti Meadow we helped pollinate
pomello by taking flowers from a bucket, nipping off
the petals and stigma and then carefully rubbing the
stamens onto flowers on other trees. Later we helped
another farmer prune his orange trees by nipping out
the new growth without flowers. The orange groves
smelt divine.
We had lunch on a huge boulder in the middle of a
meadow beneath towering limestone cliffs. As the
sandwiches were prepared, some of the students
searched for frogs and land crabs.
By the time we finished the trek at Xingping we were
all very hot, dirty and soaked with sweat. Some of us
had been in the same clothes for 5 days. Others had
changed at least 4 times a day ¡ no wonder their
packs were heavy. Some girls had even managed to carry
eye liner on the whole trek.
We had planned on having dinner at Xingping, but as we
were a couple of hours early we changed our plans.
Yangshuo was but a short drive away and the call of a
hot shower was just too much to resist.
All the rooms in the Venice Hotel were ready, apart
from mine. As the students rushed off to shower and
change, I stood in the hotel lobby and tried to
pretend that the bad smell wasn¡¯t me. Eventually, I
persuaded the manager to find me an empty room to
shower in whilst my room was prepared.¡¡No sooner had
I undressed but the lights went out and I was plunged
into darkness. I played with the switch and the
lights came on again. I got into the shower. The
lights went off. I gave up, found my headtorch and
showered by the light of that.
After a briefing at the Lizard Lounge, China Climb¡¯s
headquarters, we sent the kids off on a mission to buy
food for a pot luck dinner. Three groups each had an
envelope with a list of items that they had to buy and
an amount of money. An hour later and a feast was
being spread out at Lizard Lounge.
Although the kids were very tired from the trek, they
were too excited to go to bed and so we sent them
shopping. Yangshuo is very popular with Western
tourists and there is a lot of shopping here. Over
the years, I have found that our students are avid
shopper. They had a great deal of fun.
Tomorrow, climbing and caving ¡ more of which in my
next post.
Oh ¡ before I forget. I was telling the kids how
criminals are executed here in China ¨C in a public
execution with a bullet to the back of the head,
following which the family of the condemned man is
billed for the cost of the bullet. Inzie¡¯s immediate
question ¡°How much do they charge for the bullet?¡±
