There he is. Up on the wall!
“To your right… to your right… just a bit higher, yes there…. Very good. Keep going. Move your left feet a bit up… That’s it. Now – get up… Very good- and now reach up. Yes. There. Keep going. You can do it….. Up up up, there, yes…” That’s Lilly, Mike and me, calling out to Niklas who is just accomplishing his first ever outdoor climb at the butterfly spring. And he made it. All the way to the top and was glowing with adrenalin-fueled happiness when we greated him back on the ground.
Just around lunch-time the day before I called Lilly – “Hey Lilly, we just arrived at your hostel!” – We found it without any hassle thanks to a lucky guess to turn right when we didn’t know which way to turn on West Street and then discovering the small sign which lead us down the alley right in front of her hostel. We checked in and once we were showered Lilly welcomed us downstairs.
It almost felt a bit like coming home and being in a bustling tourist hub like Yangshuo we were really glad to have Lilly to go to. She and here place were recommended to us by Hywel – a couchsurfer from Australia who I recently hosted and climbed with – who was just a few months before in Yangshuo for climbing. Even though he really had to struggle with the fact that our trip wasn’t based around climbing but cycling and that we would be happy with a day or two at the wall.
Lilly is awesome and a real power woman running her hostel, climbing and looking after her guests just the right way – she walked us to nice places for lunch and dinner, she also organized climbing gear for us and came with us as our guide. Oh and she recommended us nice places for our daytrip.
For climbing, she showed us a place and cracks where even people with our low climbing skills had a good time and success. So if you go to Yangshuo for climbing that’s a very good place to go and maybe even get in touch with other climbers (we were not sooo lucky, as we just missed a group and August is too hot to be main season for climbing in Yangshuo).
For the bicycle related stuff – the road from Gongcheng to Yangshuo is pretty good and we don’t remember any major climbs or downhills. The pavement was okay – not smooth, but no major potholes and not covered in split.
Fisher at work in front of the picturesque hills of Yangshuo
