ducks and broken waterpipes

After 2 drive days we arrived in the centre of Kunming having got lost for 2 hours until almost 3am in the morning. We checked into a hostel and enjoyed a comfy nights sleep before driving about 2 hours out of the city to a village and all the climbing. we found a beach area near the river and road and set up tents here, racing to get the flat spots! It had the usual Chinese litter, but after I had pitched my tent I lent into the porch of it and suddenly saw a needle and syringe sticking out of the sand a few inches from my knee. It was a little scary.
The first day climbing we walked up a track to the right of our campsite, (you could see the crag above the campground), and searched for a dirt track to walk left to reach the climbing. 3 hours later and we guessed we may be on top of the crag because we couldn’t see it anywhere! Deciding to give up after eating lunch at a really nice spot with awesome views, we finally found an obvious path further down that led to the crag. I actually enjoyed the unexpected hike. The scenery is lush green hills, with some farmed land cut into the sides of the hills, and the river running through the valley. It reminds me of Italy if there were olive trees! I managed 2 climbs that day, one a good 6a lead.
The climbing is more underdeveloped here, although there is a guide book. We found some routes were loose with flakes falling off, and when trying a pumpy 5 for ages and eventually giving up as it seemed ridiculously hard, we stepped back and looked at the rock and saw the remains of where a massive tufa must have been once. We weren’t as bad as we thought we were! I also did a really nice 5 pitch multipitch route with Betina. The first 2 pitches were each 40 metres so feltvery long, and also fairly hard, followed by shorter easier pitches. At one point I pulled off a big hold and fell off- luckily on second! I started tapping the holds after that to check they weren’t hollow!the way down was a walk off and covered with spiders webs the whole way down. There are some big spiders and colourful ones too. The walk to camp we passed a spider that was almost 2 inches big and its body was green and yellow zig zags with red and black. It was actually quite pretty from a distance!
I got cook duty on 2 days of climbing- which was a big pain. But our second dinner was a big success. Spencer (whos actually from Maidenhead!) and I went to the market searching for chicken. When after doing embarrassing impersonassions of chickens, we were shown the live chickens, I then tried to demonstrate a dead chicken and even drew a bad picture! Instead the helpful Chinese lady showed us to some cooked ducks. Why not, we thought! So after buying 5 ducks for equivalent to 10 pounds, the butcher then got his butchers knife and cut all down the neck, body and legs. He then got the head and was going to slice down the centre of the head and beak before we stopped him and signaled that we didn’t need the head! It was a very successful meal with hoisin sauce and fresh noodles.
on the way to the hostel, we drove up a side road to park and got to a metal pipe that crossed the road that was a bit low, so danny lifted it up over the roof of BiRT and we drove as it clunked along the roof. as it came off the end of the roof it collapsed in the middle and started a flood all over the road! we had broken the mains water! some o fthe locals got a bit upset and the police were called. everyone walked to the hostel as it was just around the corner while pete, danny and jimmy delt with the police! im not sure what the outcome is yet! hotrock cant help but get into trouble!!
We are now on the truck to Kunming for the night before an early start towards the Laos border tomorrow. We have said goodbye to more people, a lot who were only briefly HotRockers and have 3 more people join yesterday. Im excited to leave China as im ready to leave and Laos sounds like a great place with great people. Im also looking forward to a week off climbing as I feel tired from the non-stop climbing of the last 5 or 6 weeks. Then I will be refreshed and ready to tackle Laos limestone and its soft grading- yes!

ducks and broken waterpipes

Kunming, China