My next day in Yangshou began with meeting up with a local early in the morning and riding on his motorcycle out into the mountains for some rock climbing. Rock climbing isn't one of the normal activities with the tour, but it's something I've been wanting to try and the landscape is perfect for it, so I looked into making it happen. We spent 4 or 5 hours climbing, which included an opening short lesson on the equipment. There were some others climbing in the same area, but on our ropes it was just me and the instructor, so I had plenty of time to try things out. I started off pretty well, using my extra reach to make up for my less-than-ideal flexibility, but after a few hours of overusing my arms I was pretty drained of strength and had an increasingly difficult time. Overall a great morning, and very educational both on the specifics of climbing as well as what physical things I should work on for future efforts. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of myself climbing. The instructor had a friend with us who took pictures, and told me he'd email them to me afterwards, but I haven't got any replies from my inquiring email.
For the afternoon we drove out to the river and did a boat ride for a couple hours up and down the river. We were split up over 3 boats, and my boat had the youngest and clearly least experienced driver, but his regular mistakes became somewhat endearing by the end of the ride.
On the next, and final, day in Yangshou I went for a walk with another in the group up one of the rock formations in the center of the city to a small shrine at the top. The shrine wasn't very noteworthy, but it didn't give a nice view down at the surrounding city.
Afterwards I looked around shops some, then went for a fairly long walk along the river, out of town and through the countryside. The ferries from Guilin to Yangshou pass by almost constantly, but the path I was on diverted from the river before too long and wound its way through woods and fields.
A final group dinner before bed marked our last day of a very fun time in Yangshou, and our last day on mainland China.
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