6 April 2007
The last day!
It rained again in the night. The weather is unseasonably cold – to the extent that I was sleeping in my thermal long-johns and a fleece. Most attractive. Unlike the kids, I hadn’t been able to figure our which combination of buttons on the remote control would turn the air-conditioning unit into a heater. Is it a sign of middle age when you can’t work that sort of stuff out? I read somewhere that Chinese characters were based, originally at least, on pictograms. If that is true, then there were some very strange thought processes going on when the characters for heat, cool, dehumidify and fan were invented. The remote just left me confused and irritated. And cold. I consoled myself with the thought that the kids either got lucky or had persuaded one of the Chinese guys to help them.
Our final breakfast was in the Lizard Lounge. The China Climb staff are fantastic – they are always looking for ways to improve things. For the last three days we had taken breakfast at a restaurant nearby. The food there hadn’t been particularly appetizing and it was cold by the time it got to the table. On the first day this wasn’t a problem – students deprived of Western food for a week don’t complain when things like toast, fried eggs, bacon and hash browns are congealing on the plate – they just wolf them down. Such enthusiasm doesn’t last though and yesterday there had been a lack of enthusiasm for breakfast. Scott (the manager of China Climb) had picked up this and decided to fix it. So today China Cliimb’s own cook, whose only word of English is “Dinner”, had made a huge spread of all the things the students liked best. The result was a feeding frenzy.
We split into two groups again today. Our group went caving and to the mud pool, the other group wenn to Wine Bottle for their last day of climbing.
I hadn’t been looking forward to the caving. It isn’t a sport that I have ever found particularly attractive, probably because I don’t like confined spaces. The thought of being trapped in pitch black darkness, lost in a myriad of cramped, serpentine tunnels makes my stomach go tight. And its freezing cold today, I thought miserably as we walked to the cave entrance. We were all cold. We had been warned that the cave system was very dirty and that the mud would ruin our clothes, so rather than dressing warmly, we had all turned out in shorts and T-shirts. Our guide, Tyson, grinned broadly and said that the cave was warm in side. I had a suspicion that he might by lying, but it did stop our complaining.
We put on caving helmets, collected huge torches and swopped our shoes for “caving slippers”. These were “one size fits all”, which might be fine if you are Chinese, but worked less well for us. It did provide some amusement however. Our group’s foot size varied from a UK 3.5 to a size fifteen and a half.. The shoes were a size 8.
The cave entrance was flooded, so we entered the system on a narrow, flat bottomed punt. It felt like we were on a fairground ride and the boys hooted and wailed to scare the girls. As the passage narrowed and started to climb, we were able to clamber out of the boat and walk into the cave. Within minutes we were crouching low, squeezing through a long narrow passage, stumbling on the uneven floor and banging our heads on the roof pressing down on our shoulders. I was thankful for the helmet, for each time I concentrated on my feet, I smacked my head on something. I move elegantly over rock when I am climbing, but in a cave I stumble around like a drunk with concussion.
Deep inside the system, Tyson asked us to stand perfectly still and turn off our lights. In the darkness he then explained how the caves were formed and pointed out some of the features. Pleased that the students could identify stalactites, stalagmites and columns he went on to show us drapery, cave bacon and popcorn.
Draperies are curtains of rock that hang in long pleats from the cave roof. Cave bacon is a thin translucent sheet of mineral deposits. It looks like giant rashers of bacon have been glued to the ceiling and walls. Popcorn is also a mineral deposit – this time formed at the edge of still when the water level is constant.
We followed the cave system through many passages and towering chambers, climbing up and down for perhaps an hour and a half. It was a strangely disorienting experience, leaving me without any sense of direction or time. In a chamber the size of large villa, Tyson explained that one of the main dangers in caving is power failure. We all turned off our lights and he dimmed his. Even so, the light from just one small headlight was enough for us to make out the shape of the passage and find our way around. Then Tyson turned off his light. We stood stock still, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. We waited. Nothing changed. There was no light for our eyes to get used to; the darkness was total. Suddenly, the seriousness of power failure became real. How would you find your way out of a cave without light when you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your eyes. Never had I experienced such a sense of blindness. I quickly developed a new fondness for my Duracell batteries.
Towards the end of the cave passage there was a large pool of brown water. Apprehensively, and shrieking from the cold, the students started to lower themselves into the pool. Fifteen inches of icy water and then the same of silky smooth mud that squelched between your toes, enveloped your legs and held you in a strangely comforting embrace. The more adventurous gathered huge, dripping handfuls of mud and smeared it over their bodies and faces, and then, inevitably, over those of their friends, producing a scene that should only exist in nightmares or cheaply made B-movies from the 1950s.
Whilst still inside the cave we stood under a gushing hose of icy water and scrubbed away at mud so fine that it would never completely go. Our skin, like our clothes, appeared to have taken on a permanent orange hue. Rather less muddy, we continued through the cave through passages that became increasingly narrow, convoluted and wet until, twenty minutes later, we found an exit at the far side of the mountain. “So this is the secret the other group wouldn’t tell us.” I thought. Soaked, muddy and now very cold, we had to walk back around the mountain to the cave entrance and the comfort of our warm clothing. I had the misfortune to be at the back of the line and behind a number of slow walkers who found it necessary to stop and turn towards each other each time they wanted to say anything. I resolved to bring along a cattle prod for such occasions in future.
In the distance we heard a loud scream, closely followed by several more. The first students had got back to the cave entrance and jumped into the large pool there to clean off. By their shrieks we could tell that the water was going to be cold. It may well have been, but as I got there I slipped on some algae, went for a brief but dramatic flight and crash landing. Time stopped. My forearm struck the concrete. “That wasn’t so bad, bit embarrassing though”, I thought. Then, in what felt like an age later, my head made contact with the step behind, producing a hollow thud that echoed from the cliff walls. In the daze and sympathy that followed, the chill of the pool was lost to me. As I swam, a large bump grew from my scalp, increasing my hat size by two full sizes.
It was several hours later before I got warm again, although the swelling on my head did subside.
At lunch we met up with the other students who had enjoyed their climbing at Wine Bottle – everybody had managed to make at least one good climb. We had originally scheduled some free time for the last afternoon, but the students had done so much shopping and still had so much energy, that Scott and I decided that it would be better for them to climb one of the karst peaks near town. This wasn’t a popular decision, but everybody cooperated!
To get to the peaks we had to walk through the back streets of Yangshuo. Some of the students were surprised at the quality of the houses there – whole families living in single room houses with no running water or bathrooms. The views from the peaks were spectacular.
We got back to the Lizard Lounge at 3.45, leaving about an hour to collect all the gear together and get ready for departure. As a fantastic trip drew towards its conclusion we exchanged goodbyes and hugs, T-shirts and hats were given out and the last photographs were taken.
The journey home went smoothly, although our first plane was so delayed we almost missed the connection in Hong Kong.
