Tiger Leaping Gorge

Today started at 7:30 with breakfast. Diana was right there at 8:00 to take me to Tiger Leaping Gorge. The driver was late, but it was sort if confusing for him where we were supposed to meet. There are only certain areas you can drive in old town and they are right on the edges. He was waiting in a different spot than we were.

It was a two hour drive. At the beginning of the drive, Diana told me that my guide for the trek would be Tibetan. Then she told me a little bit more about the Chinese culture. In her opinion the basis of Chinese culture for the majority of people is Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Simply the three give balance between morals, ying and yang, and religion.

Her thoughts on the Tibetan people were that their society is ruled by religion alone. In that way, she thought they were spending too much time praying and they end up having a terrible economy where everyone is poor. With China getting more involved in Tibetan society, it allows them to grow and prosper.

It was interesting that she told me all of this. Maybe she wanted to pass on her views before I would be influenced by the views of my Tibetan guide. She actually talked for about 1/2 hour on this subject. It was physically draining. I slept on and off for the next hour. Then we arrived at the meeting point. She was going to take a shuttle bus back to Lijiang. Young Ten would take me trekking. Before I got the details from Ivy, I really thought I was on my own for the trek. But in China, you can't do anything on your own. You might get lost or hurt. I think they just don't want to be responsible for you. If you go on your own, you may veer off the path. And they only want foreigners to go to certain places.

So it was nice to have the guide. Although I felt like he was trying to shorten the hike. I had to convince him I wanted to do what was in my itinerary and didn't want just a 2 hour hike. We were supposed to get dropped off at the 14km point after visiting the Tiger Leaping Gorge statue. So we followed the road and at a certain point we did get dropped off. I have no clue if it was the 14 km point or not. We walked on the road mostly to Tina's Guesthouse where we would have lunch.

So it's hard to describe the Tiger Leaping Gorge and this part of the Yangtze River. There is a fairly narrow section of the river running really fast that looks brown and muddy. On both sides of the river the peaks rise up to above 4000 meters. The road is at about 2400 meters. The mountains are so steep and rise so high that it's impossible to capture those images. At the section where the Tiger Leaping Gorge and statue is, the river is wider. Then it becomes narrower as you get to Tina's and continues to narrow. From Tina's, the hiking path goes down to the river almost immediately. A lot of small tour groups go down to the river and back for the day, so it was fairly crowded around this point. After that, we had the whole place to ourselves.

So you have to pay 10 yuan to go down to the gorge. Then there are several viewpoints where you also must pay. There is one spot where a family repaired a ladder. You have to pay them if you want to continue. Then, another family repaired the trail, so you have to pay them. This sort of stuff bugs me. Just hit me with the entire fee at the beginning!

It was fabulous hiking through here, I must admit. We were lucky that it was partly cloudy so not too hot today. Plus if it was raining, it would have been so treacherous. The rocks were slippery as it was. With rain I may have fallen. There were some big waterfalls. But also many dry falls. If it started to rain, the water would be rushing down the dry falls because it's so steep.

Many parts on the trail have chain links as ropes to hold on to when climbing the rocks, especially on the very narrow and steep sections. The so called "ladder" was going over water that was running pretty fast, but didn't look the least bit sturdy. There were uneven pieces of different size wood on the ladder with many gaps. I can't believe I crossed that. Had I thought about it for even a second, I wouldn't have crossed.

We started seeing a town of about 600 way up ahead in the distance. This was where Sean's Guesthouse is located. We crossed through terraced farmland and had to climb up to get there. The last 15-20 minutes were tough because you could tell where you were going but it was so slow since it was all uphill. The whole hike took just under 5 hours so it was great to be able to arrive in the late afternoon to still enjoy the views.

Sean's was a nice place. The rooms were great and the setting amazing. You were staring at these huge steep peaks. There was a nice outdoor terrace and big eating area indoors too. I went for a shower first and then headed outside to try to get some hot water for my tea.

I hung out with some other new arrivals. Karen and Maurice were from a tiny town near Antwerp, near the Belgium/Netherlands border. They were spending three weeks in southeast Asia. They had been to Borneo, Malaysia, and several spots in China already. They took a car to Sean's but would be hiking to a waterfall with Sean tomorrow. They were really nice. They loved traveling. They go on a big trip every year. Last year they spent a few weeks in New England in the fall. Maurice was a
CPA and worked for the consulting arm of Ernest & Young. Karen did sales support for a small local company.

The highlight of their trip so far was their visit to see the pandas. But they were going to many of the towns I went to in Yunnan for typically a day or two. We mocked the Chinese tourists a little. They only seem to want to go see a tourist spot for the picture. Once they get their shot they move on to the next tourist spot. We couldn't figure out why they would want to take a picture of the sculpture of the tiger that supposedly leaped over the gorge in Chinese legend, but none of them were out here hiking in the gorge with the amazing scenery.

I ordered eggplant and corn with steamed rice. I had been seeing roasted and grilled corn on the streets since Darjeeling and was craving it. I'm glad I finally saw it on a menu. The food was great and the portions were huge here.

Sean is an interesting character to say the least. He has this infectious laugh. And he is always joking with everyone. Apparently Karen and Maurice told me he became Mayor of this town 6 months ago. It seems like because it is such a small place that all the local people would help each other out and it would be a close knit community. That is not the case at all. He wants to encourage more of a community atmosphere. Life is hard enough as it is. There's no reason to make people re-create the wheel here.

There was a small Japanese tour group also staying at Sean's as well. They had taken a bus in. Sean's comment to us was that you could tell who the foreigners were as they are all drinking. It was true. Karen was drinking Makaibari tea I gave her, but everyone else had switched to beer after dinner. The local guides and drivers were not drinking.

I went to bed around 10:30. It was a beautiful night, but I started getting a little chill outside. All the stars were out and it was an incredibly clear night with a light breeze.