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Published: August 6th 2007
Easy Tiger
On top of my “must see before I'm blind” list sits Tiger Leaping Gorge, a somewhat unassuming rock formation just north of LiJiang which has been described and photographed by just about every travel writer worth their salt, so of course I had to go see it myself. As tough as it was to drag my lethargic body out of the Sexy Tractor bar, it had to be done and it had to be done properly.
As the bus turned a bend in the hills I got to see the Yangzi River, at this point known as the Jinsha Jiang, for the first time in my life. As far as being the life-blood of China was concerned it didn't look like much, it is a relatively thin river and when seen from the top of the range it even seems peaceful. However, as we descended down the valley (a mightily impressive valley mind you) the view focused until it was obvious to me how powerful that river really is. Charging between the two sides of the valley it charged directly towards the highest mountains of them all: Yu Long Xue Shan. Now, in my opinion it would
Ganden Sumtseling Gompa
My first Tibetan Gompa.be wise for a river to run around the tall mountains, not straight through them, but I guess I don't know squat about rivers.
Local folklore talks about two gods, Haba and Yulong, who joined forces to imprison a fair maiden, the Yangzi herself. Haba and Yulong presided over Yangzi, one either side of her such that she couldn't escape . . . until one day when Yulong was away and Haba fell asleep. Thus the maiden made her escape from their clutches leaving the gorge that we can see today, Haba mountain rising on one side in a slow (relatively) gradient and Yulong on the other rising in omnipotent straightness to a dizzying height of 5500m. Another tale talks of a Tiger which leaped across the Yangzi to escape capture, thus giving the gorge it's name.
That's all nice and prosaic now isn't it; here's my perspective on the gorge. At the high-water end the Yangzi is joined by another small river in one of the greatest examples of fluid mixing I have ever seen (the two rivers are distinctly different colours so when they join the vortices are quite intriguing) before plunging directly between the two
mountains. The river constricts so suddenly that it becomes a raging torrent, churning and boiling between the rocks, slowly eating deeper into the ground. Gradually the gorge thins to the point where you feel as though you are standing on the very edge of a sheer cliff. The walking trail leads along the shallower side of the gorge as the far side becomes almost perfectly sheer, a face of rock some three kilometers high rising directly in front of you. It truly looks as though it is a painted backdrop as all sense of depth is lost in it's vastness. The walking trail leads along the gorge, high up the side, giving obscenely beautiful views both up and down the gorge, making the strenuous walk more than worthwhile. Above me the mountains soared to almost unclimable locations and the entire scene became reminiscent of alien landscapes from B-grade horror movies (I.e. Clearly filmed in someone's backyard on Earth while being made to look totally unlivable and hostile). Despite this, there are villages scattered throughout the gorge, thus solidifying my belief that crazy people will live anywhere.
I was fortunate to meet a young American guy, Kelly, on the bus
Mixing Rivers
The two rivers at the start of the gorge. trip up to the gorge who is teaching English in ZhengZhou and we agreed to hike together. Also on the bus with us was a family from Holland, the husband and wife plus their two year old son. Remarkably, the two year old hiked most of the gorge by himself, what an amazing kid! The start of the walk was nothing more than a formality, it was late afternoon so we only spent two hours on the road before stopping at a guesthouse run by a local Naxi family. The house was set in a small valley just inside the mouth of the gorge and the views from our room were like no other (see the photos if you don't believe me). Never before have I managed to see the setting of the sun, the rising of the moon and the rising of the sun all at the same location and all beautiful. While at the guesthouse we met a friendly Chinese man, Mao Lan, who works in Beijing. Like pretty well all Chinese people he was travelling during Golden Week, a one week long national holiday where all tourist sites become zoos (hence my travelling to the gorge at
First Look
Looking into the gorge. that time to get away from it all). Unlike most of the Chinese tourists Mao Lan was actually hiking the gorge, as opposed to taking a tour bus to the viewing platform near the bottom. Kelly and I thought this was great, a Chinese guy who actually wants to get out and be adventurous, so when he asked to join us for our second days hike we happily said “yes”.
The second day was when things started to get funky. Yes, the walk was hard as we climbed 500m up the side of the gorge through a section known as 24 bends (Emil, a young Swedish boy, counted and informed us that there were actually 29 bends), but the view. . . well, I've never seen its parallel. For lunch we stopped at another guesthouse/restaurant where something remarkable happened: we had five different continents represented. Australia, North America, Asia, Europe and Africa. But, of all the Africans we could have met, the two we had were from Mauritius. That has to be about the rarest occurrence other than say meeting someone from the Vatican City (Ok, probably not that severe but highly improbable all the same). For Africans they
looked awfully Asian and talked a whole lot like Frenchies, but they swore they were telling the truth. Perhaps we only believed them because they were good-looking.
As the afternoon progressed the gorge changed, it became thinner and taller, more appealing and stupefying at every turn in the path. As we walked we were in total disbelief, it really was the most bemusing thing to see. Just imagine looking out and not seeing anything other than rock. Your entire view occupied by one rock face. This isn't hard to do, we've all stood close to rocks before, but this one was something like a kilometer away from us! Eventually we stopped for the night towards the end of the gorge in a nice-ish guesthouse which made the most delectable yak burger I have ever tasted (guess how much competition it had). Once again I got to see the sunrise, something that I have hardly ever done, but something which is decidedly easier to do when it happens at 9:30am.
Our third day in the gorge was set down for exploration, the day when we would go and see the hard to get to parts of the gorge. We
decided to head up the mountain from our hotel towards a place labelled as “the big waterfall”, something that sounded good considering how we had passed what I would call a “damn huge waterfall” the day before which hadn't even warranted a mention on the map. Before we left, one of the girls at the guesthouse warned us not to try and cross the river because the bridge was out; apparently they would get in trouble if we hurt ourselves, particularly because I hadn't been able to give them a valid visa number (my passport was stored at the far end of the gorge). Kelly and I looked at each other and winked (I tried to), that was basically a challenge to us. The path led almost directly up the hill via some hundred bends (Emil wasn't there to count them, sorry) and we were soon well above the village and totally out of breath. Mao Lan was in awe of Kelly and I, it seems that Chinese people in general are not big on hiking and thus are not in good shape for it, so we decided to make a stop near a good looking boulder. While Mao Lan
Which Way?
Signposting in the gorge. caught his breath Kelly scampered up the rock and decided that Mao Lan needed to try climbing it. In some sort of western-education we took it upon ourselves to show him what hiking was about: doing random stupid things just to get a good photo.
With very little effort Mao Lan actually climbed the rock. He needed instructions on how to do it, but he was perfectly suited to the task; he could stretch himself much better than I. So eventually we were all to be found on top of the rock, looking out across the gorge in the midday sun; a perfect hiking moment. Continuing onwards we headed even further up the hill to a man-made watercourse which was hewn into the hillside. It was tapped from the big river and went straight across the mountain towards the villages for irrigation purposes. It coursed through caves where necessary and must have taken years to construct. Besides being an Engineering marvel, the watercourse also functioned as a perfect path to the waterfall (I walked on the rim while Kelly tried walking through the freezing water, what a fool).
At around one we stopped for an English picknick beside
Kelly
In the first village. a stream in a small, shady glade. We drank tea, ate chocolates and yak jerky, actions which seemed oddly alien and yet totally necessary at the time. Perhaps we were put out at finding the stream (it was very small and did not have any large waterfalls on it), or perhaps the sun was getting to us, but there we were drinking tea and talking about the weather.
Finally we reached the waterfall, what actually turned out to be hundreds of waterfalls. The river courses down the mountain in a series of cascades at least one kilometer long, all the time falling downhill at a shocking rate. Each fall was beautiful and unique: freezing cold blue/white water falling over shiny clean rocks into calm pools at their feet (sometimes the pools were chaotic but the one we went to wasn't, ok). Again Mao Lan managed to surprise us with his daring as he sat on a slippery rock some ten meters above some seriously solid rocks just so we could take his photo (Kelly and I opted for a rock slightly further back), but then the two of us westerners managed to totally rock his world. Something that he
View From My Bed
Imagine waking up to this! had never considered, possibly with good reason, seemed perfectly logical to us. We just had to go swimming. Yes, the water was only marginally above zero degrees having come directly from the snows above us, and yes it was a long way to carry us to the hospital when we got hypothermia, but that was our plan. Kelly and I jumped in quickly, then jumped around as if we were on fire (it burned!), quickly ducking under the waterfall to complete the job. All the while Mao Lan sat on the side staring at us as if we were mad. But then. . . for one reason or another (perhaps the effects of the cold water on certain parts of our anatomy, despite being covered with clothes, gave him the confidence to jump in without being embarrassed) he un-kitted and ran in after us. Screaming and shouting obscenities we stood there, or more accurately we ran around there trying to keep the blood flowing, together enjoying the success of having found such a beautiful spot.
Enough was enough, we aren't Swedish after all, so we got out and got warm again before attempting to descend. Going back the way
we had come would have been easy, but would also have been the most boring thing to do. Better was to head straight down, following the river, until it came out at the road near the bottom of the gorge. What we didn't count on was the massive ravine which the river formed and eventually we had to leave its shore. This was after a whole lot of rock climbing and scrambling through mud; we were quite a sight after all of that. Some hours later after scampering as straight downhill as possible we came out at the road feeling a great surge of success flowing through us.
Three days in the gorge was not nearly enough, I could have spent another week there without any worries. It is simply the most amazing place and the view never becomes boring. I left with a sad heart as the views slowly degraded and the Chinese tour buses appeared, would I ever see anything as beautiful again?
Shangri-La Di Da
North of LiJiang there is the town formerly known as Zhong Dian. China saw fit to change its name to Shangri-La in an effort to bring in more
The Hiking Team
Kelly, me and Mao Lan. tourists, and sure as hell it's working. The only problem is that ZhongDian is about as far from Shangri-La as you could get, the Chinese marketing department really don't know what's going on. As a bit of quick background for those who aren't aware, the concept of Shangri-La originates from a book called “Lost Horizons” by James Hilton. The book described a mythical valley somewhere in the Himalaya that was some kind of idyllic utopia. Not only was the book fictitious, but it also gave a fairly detailed description of what the valley looked like, therefore, ZhongDian is definitely not Shangri-La. Of course, the official line is that ZhongDian was only the inspiration for the story, but ZhongDian isn't even in a valley, it isn't idyllic and it isn't separated from the rest of the world by near-impassable mountains. An elderly English friend and I decided that whoever is responsible for making ZhongDian into Shangri-La for Chinese tourism purposes has both not read the book and fell on his head when he stepped out of the plane.
To make things even worse the Chinese have labeled another place, an entire prefecture not more that 100km from ZhongDian, Shangri-La. So,
not only don't they know what Shangri-La is, they can't decide where the hell they want to put it!
So, if it isn't Shangri-La, what is ZhongDian? Essentially it's the first real Tibetan town that you can get to. It is a small slice of Tibet in the Chinese heartland, thereby being a very easily accessible place for Chinese tourists to come and see what is left of the Tibetan culture. Outside town lies a beautiful Tibetan temple, or Gompa, which I happily spent a morning exploring, but in the town itself? Well, that is about as Tibetan as a postcard made in ShangHai. Everywhere is filled with plain old concrete buildings and Han Chinese except for the old town which is just a large tourist trap. Sure there are some Tibetan people around, a lot of them, but the town is very obviously a Han Chinese town nowadays. It just has a veneer of tourist touts dressed up to make it look like Tibet.
If you can't make it to Tibet, this is a poor second, but it's better than nothing. For me it was a place to escape as quickly as possible, two days and it
was already unbearable. There is a place which makes good pizzas though, I might have one of them tonight. . .
Kawa Karpo is Kalling
Escaping ZhongDiang I headed further north, up into the far reaches of Yunnan to the very border with Tibet. In this part of the world everything is compressed together by the unimaginable forces responsible for the Himalayas. Within a thin stretch of land maybe 100km across three of the world's great rivers run parallel as the Earth is crushed together making concertina ripples of towering mountain ranges. The Mekong, the Yangzi and the Thanlwin rivers run as straight as they can, escaping from the Tibetan plateau to provide the essence of life to Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and China. So much of Asia is dependent on these rivers, rivers which are normally thought of as completely separate, but here in Yunnan they are all equals. In addition to the rivers, the forces of the world over thousands of years have created scenery utterly breathtaking in its magnitude. Mountains three times higher than anything in Australia surge up almost straight from the valley floors to mingle with clouds, valleys that twist and turn
below try and make their way from one end to the other, usually in vain. For once on this trip I was unable to fall asleep in the bus, I couldn't pull myself from the window (due to both the scenery and the chain smoking passengers near me) for a single minute, I was finally really in the mountains.
In some sort of mix between my ideas of Tibet and European forests, the mountain slopes were covered sporadically by pine trees, otherwise being covered in nothing more than low lying bushes and rocks. Every valley was different, more rugged and deep than the last and slowly the snow line came closer and closer. The bus climbed over three successive passes, each higher than the last until finally we peaked at 4292m, the highest point of my life, but then, in front of us lay the mountain range known as Mei Li Xue Shan - one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in all China, and with good reason. Rising behind the Mekong thirteen peaks tower towards the sky, the highest - Kawa Karpo - reaching a dizzying 6740m with the river running below 2000m. The sight of an almost
five kilometer mountain just sitting there, impudently asserting itself against the elements was simply stunning.
Luckily for me the weather was perfect, just like it had been while I was in Tiger Leaping Gorge and totally unlike my time in LiJiang. I was told by some Dutch friends that it was a rare sight to see such mountains so clearly, without a cloud around them, and that I was truly blessed to be there then. The three of us spent the night near a Tibetan temple overlooking the range and we were treated to a stunning sunset. Again I managed to surprise myself by waking in time for Sunrise. I previously hadn't been aware of it's existence, but it seems that the Chinese have managed to invent a new time - 6 o'clock in the morning! What will they think of next?
The sunrise was just that, the sun rose as usual only this time it fell on to the mountains directly across from my vantage point. As if it were a spotlight the sun highlighted the peaks, contrasting them against the surrounding darkness. For minutes the collected crowd of photographers was silent apart from the incessant clicking
of shutters. As the sun slowly peaked out the mountains grew even more brilliant white, the moon still standing above them. Was it worth waking up at 6:10? Yes, just barely.
To complete my pilgrimage to Kawa Karpo I traveled down to the village of MingYong at the mountain's foot. From there it is possible to climb a trail (totally covered in horse dung, Chinese tourists refuse to climb mountains by their own power, as did two young Europeans I met) to the MingYong glacier. The glacier is some 12km long and cascades directly down the side of Kawa Karpo. By trekking further up the hill (a grand total of 1500m vertically from the bus drop-off point) I came to another temple, the Lotus Temple to be precise, where I found a view of the glacier and mountain that I actually couldn't bear to leave behind. I circumambulated the temple three times, as per Buddhist tradition, mainly so that I could keep coming back to the view. I hope my photos are good enough for me to remember that sight.
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Bill
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pics
Beautiful pics matty - glad its going so well for you!