As you look at tiny figures clinging to a rock face as if holding on for dear life, rock climbing can seem like an arduous undertaking. But it's not half as hard as it looks, and the mental fear dissipates as soon as you start crawling up the cliff. That's the lesson I first learned when I went rock climbing in Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

At first I froze; then I relaxed and surprised myself at my ability to climb. Each climb seemed like a triumph, and this sense of achievement, coupled with the adrenalin, gave me quite a high.

And I was not even that good or that fit. According to Simon Dilks, manager of China Climb, "Some people are very fit and run up climbs despite no previous experience - we have people who can do six climbs on their first morning out, and even the less than fit can manage two climbs."

I fell in the latter category, which is still something for someone who spends 90 percent of the time sitting in front of a computer. The first morning out climbing is an appetizer, and the addiction kicks in rather quickly.

It doesn't take much to learn: Two or three days are sufficient to pick up the techniques, including safety and belaying, and following a route from a guidebook. The rest is then a labor of obsessive love.

As Scott Browning, an Australian climber who moved to Yangshuo in 2006 put it: "climbers live to climb, and working becomes an inconvenience, necessary to buy food, climbing equipment and to finance the next climbing adventure."

Yangshuo has fast emerged as the top climbing playground in Asia. "Only in 2004 did the area begin to become known," Dilks explains. "That's when more experienced climbers started coming and publishing their experiences in magazines and guidebooks; this generated a lot of interest."

Paul Collis, a resident of Hong Kong, is a veteran Yangshuo climber. He had been going to Yangshuo to climb for some time, and then in 2003 he made some sketches of the climbing routes for a friend who was visiting. And that gave him the idea to publish a guidebook called Rock Climbing Yangshuo in 2003. The first edition featured some 50 climbs and the book is now in its eighth edition, with 400 climbing routes. Every year, it sells 300-400 copies.