Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2012
The Yunnan province was to be the last province in China we would visit but for the longest amount of time and the one which we had heard so many great things about, so our expectations for the area were high. Our first stop was the old Naxi town of Lijiang, where we arrived after a quick flight from Chengdu. LiJiang had been home to the 300,000 odd Naxi minority for the last 1,400yrs and they originally decended from the Tibetian Qiang tribes. What we found so strange and endearing about this minority (especially Vic’s) is that the women rule the roost in every way, I mean they become the sole owner of any child they produce and if the decide to kick the man out they retain all property and rights. We had wanted to travel all of China overland but the distances are just huge and as this particular leg was tricky we decided to take a short hour and a half flight instead of a train and bus combo taking over 32 hours!
As soon as we arrived in the dusty old town and found Mama Naxi's Guesthouse we knew that Lijiang was going to be a
place that we would find hard to leave. The guesthouse was simple but had the most homely atmosphere of anywhere we had stayed so far on this trip and probably all others, along with some dogs and cats roaming around, good wi-fi, cheap rooms and a cute courtyard - we loved it. The highlight here though was 'Mama' herself - she was an amazingly energetic host, giving us freshly baked rolls on arrival and helping us book our onward travel as well as help arrange transport for our trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge for the next day, all the while smiling and joking and making us feel at home. When she asked us if we wanted to have the family dinner later that evening we didn't hesitate! We put our bits away and headed out to check out the small town, wandering through the cute lanes and cobbled streets looking at all the handicrafts on offer in the local shops run by Naxi people.
The Naxi are a minority group who descended from Tibet hundreds of years ago and is the most common tribe in Lijiang. As mentioned above, It is said that the women are the leaders here
and not the men; this was clear to see as Mama definately ruled the roost while Papa just did as he was told - they were such great hosts. Mama would always refer to herself in the third person in broken English. For example, when Vic’s asked Mama if she needed a receipt for the room deposit, Mama replied “Mama don’t need give you receipt, when give key back to Mama, Mama give you money, No key for Mama, Mama no give money, ok, ok, yes” Or when I asked what was for dinner, Mama replied “Mama dinner you like, mama cook good family meal, you eat mama beef, chicken, fish, mama dinnnnner, ok, ok yes”. She would also tail off mid conversation and walk away but was the friendliest women I had ever met and if I could pack her in my backpack I would gladly take her around the rest of Asia with me.
Whilst walking through the town we found a great street food market and had some yummy noodles and meat on sticks then carried on walking until we came to one of the sqaures. Vic was thrilled to see a bakery in the square
so we got some delicious pastries and ate them sitting in the sun watching the world go by which was just lovely. We then quickly checked out the market square, knowing we would be back here to explore properly in a few days after Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG) and headed back to Mama’s for our first family meal. At 6.30 on the dot, Mama summoned for us and various other travellers to sit down at the table whilst ordering Papa to start serving the rice. The meal that followed was without question the best we had eaten in our 5 weeks in China. We enjoyed baked fish, sweet and sour chicken, fried eggplant, chill potatoes, beef with onion and a few more dishes whilst swapping various stories with other guests – including a nice Dutch girl called Florica who would also be starting the TLG trek with us the following day. After a couple of beers and a quick shower, we hit the sack ready for our early morning start and something we had both been looking forward to since before we had booked our trip to China.
We were up at 7am and after a hearty breakfast and
Mama slipping a few banana’s in each of our day sacks for energy, Us, Florica and a lovely Canadian girl called Cynthia were loaded into a mini-van for the hair raising 2.5 hour ride to the town of Qiatou which is at the start of the gorge.
Tiger Leaping Gorge trek is considered by many to be one of the finest treks in Asia and boasts the deepest gorge in the World. There are various treks which can be taken but being the adventurous types we decided on the high trail which although much tougher and strenuous than the others, it passes through remote villages, shady forests, terraced farmland and is flanked to the left by Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and to the right by Haba Snow Mountain (Both of which are over 5500m above sea level). We had been advised that the gorge trek should not be taken lightly, was dangerous in places and can cause havoc with the knee’s but the views which were promised out-weighed these con’s and we were soon to find out find out for ourselves.
The trail officially begins at Jane’s Guesthouse in the town of Qiatou and after Florica had dropped
of her big backpack as she was heading in a different direction after the trek and we had gained a fifth member of the team, YoYo from China, we set-off.
We had planned an ambitious hike for the first day and were determined to make it to Halfway Guesthouse (which is actually closer to the end of the trail rather than halfway) before last light which is some 17km-21km away. The first 2.5km of the trail was pretty flat and un-interesting passing a few local schools and villages before reaching Sunrise Guesthouse, it’s here where the trail started properly and the fairly easy hike started turning into an uphill strenuous climb. We passed herds of mountain goats, walked over paths which clung to the side of the cliff, witnessed scenary which one moment resembled a scene from Avatar and the next a scene from Cliff Hanger and continued walking uphill for a good few hours before reaching a Tibetian guesthouse where we stopped for a well-earned lunch. The hardest part of the trail was supposedly a section called ’28 Bends’ which we all felt we had already completed but no, when we reviewed a map over lunch we found
out that it was at least another hour uphill until we even reached the start of it, Eeeeeeek!!!
We all set off dreading what was to come and after shaking off the post lunch slump, we soon got back into it, forgetting about how tough the walk was due to the incredible scenary which was distracting us. If we thought the motning was hard, it was about to get a whole lot harder. 28 Bends is a very steep uphill winding path which goes on for around 7km/3.5hrs - As we approached the start a local villager had bananas, snickers and cannabis? to 'help' give energy for the trek ahead - we politely declined all of these items and carried on. Although it was very difficult on the legs and we had to stop several times to catch our breathe and take photos, the beautiful views at each turn made it all worth while and within a couple of hours we were at the top and celebrated reaching the highest part of the trek. After that we had a short decline to Tea-Horse guest house which was infact harder on the knees than any other part of the trek
and although it would have been easy to stop here for the night we all pushed on as we were keen to make halfway guesthouse a further 6km away. By this point, we were all really tired and pretty much walking in silence and when path started to incline again you could have heard a collective groan. When we finally arrived just before dark, YoYo managed to negotiate a decent price on a dorm room for the 5 of us.
After freshening up and watching the sun go down, we sat down to dinner and relived the highlights of the day. As we were pretty much in the wilderness at the Tibetian house and with no other lights around us for miles the stars in the sky were the brightest we had every seen and we spent a while picking out the various constalations. We then went to bed knowing that tomorrow would be slightly easier but that there was a bit of work still to be done. Those of you who have been following our blog will be well aware that we have found China to be a country of extremes and opposites - The toilet situation at
Halfway House was no different. Picture if you will, one of the most incredible views you had ever seen in your life of snowcapped moutains whilst relieveing yourself over a smelly squat trough toilet with no door. Just another bizarre moment but after all this is China.
After a quick breakfast, we set-off before the crowds as we wanted to make it to Tina's GH about 2 hours away so that we could book onto the afternoon bus returning to LiJiang, before begining the steep downhill decline to the bottom of the gorge where the famous Tiger rock resides next to the fierce flowing rapids. Tiger Leaping Gorge got it's name from Dynastic China where supposedley a Tiger jumped accross the gorge at the narrowest point (25 meters) to escape from a hunter.
The walk down was probably the scariest of the trek (parents should probably stop reading this part about now), the path literally clung to the side of the cliff with a sheer drop below and the only thing to hold onto was a small wire rope, we also had to climb down a small iron ladder which was nailed onto the cliff face before deciding
whether or not to take the 'safe' path or the sky ladder - a 250m long ladder which has been nailed to the sheer side of the cliff but results in a much quicker decent. On this occasion we decided to take the path which was still scary enough and after about an hours trek we were out the bottom. The noise of the rapids, views of the gorge and the sheer fact that we had almost acomploished a trek that was high-up on our to-do lists was an amazing feeling. After chilling on the rocks for a while we begun our climb back to the top. I am not quite sure if it was because we were exhausted or still buzzing from the trek but we decided to take the sky ladder back up - This is certainly something I wouldn't do again. A ladder with no safety harnesses, clinging vertically to the sheer cliff face with a drop of about 700m below, it was certainly one of those don't look down moments whilst praying the person infront of you doesn't slip. It all added to the experience but at about halfway up we were praying for the top.We
finally made it back to Tina's, had a bite to eat and waited for the bus back to LiJiang.
After saying goodbye to Flori and a painfully slow bus journey back to Lijiang due to big trucks on the winding mountain roads and our driver not being able to overtake (probably a good thing), we finally got back to Mama's about 7.30pm (an hour late for her official dinner) but thankfully she made us a tasty dinner which we had been looking forward to all day. We then freshened up and had some drinks to celebrate Cynthia's 30th birthday with Benni from Spain, who we met a few days ago in Chengdu and was also staying at Mama's, a nice guy from Israel and Hannah & Leigh who had just arrived. We started out on a few beers and some vodka playing drinking games but soon the rice wine came out, which is 55% proof and tastes horrific - luckily everyone was quite tired so it didn't turn into another Shanghai style night, but when everyone called it a night at midnight we decided to pop out and see if anything was going on in the town. The bars
were closed but we found our equivalent to a campfire sing song in the guise of a group of Chinese guys and girls who were singing, drinking and dancing while some local Naxi people played guitars and sang in the main square. It only took a second for them to spot us and invite us to join them, thrusting beers at us and speaking the little bit of English they knew, loudly, at ten to the dozen. Bless them they were very friendly and so happy for us to join them but Chinese people can't hold their drink and after a while of them shouting in our ears, getting a bit too close and excited to have English people with them and almost forcing us to sing English songs we decided to leave! But it was a nice experience. We got lost on the way back to Mama's as it was dark and all the narrow lanes look the same, but we found it after 45 minutes and had a well deserved and much needed sleep - we didn't even set our alarms for the next day, a first in ages.
We woke up to sunshine and spent our
last day in Lijiang wandering around the old town and taking some nice photo's with Cynthia, Hannah and Leigh, stopping for a drink in a riverside bar with a band, doing some internet bits and generally just taking it easy for the day before having a last dinner at Mama's and saying our goodbyes - Think Mama and Papa were sad to see us leave and gave us big hugs - the feeling was mutual. Lijiang is such an easy town to spend time in and again, we could have eaisly stayed for a bit longer! Cynthia had decided to travel to Kunming aswell so the three of us set off for the train station together that night and we took our last sleeper train in China, which also turned out to be the nicest one we had been on yet.
We can't believe our time in China is nearly over - what a brilliant, challenging, exhilarating and crazy few weeks! We will be summarising our Hi's and Low's in one of the next few blogs.
S&V's Travel Info & Tips: General Info: Approx 10 RMB/Yuan to £1. If doing Tiger Leaping Gorge, we would reccomend doing it over 2 days, although it can be done in one but would be very tiring.
We heard that you are supposed to pay 80 RMB each as a fee to be in the LiJiang Old Town but we didn't pay and didn't see this being enforced. Transportation: From Lijiang airport we took a minivan for an hour to the old town for 50 RMB for both of us - the same price as the airport bus and taxi combo. Cars can't drive into the old town, so we were dropped just outside it and walked in. Mama booked us onto a minivan to the start of TLG for 35 RMB each which took 2.5 hours. Coming back to Lijiang, the bus from Tina's costs 55 RMB each and took over 3 hours. The train station is a 20 minute drive from the old town - again Mama arranged a shared minivan and we paid 10 RMB each for this, but you can also take a public bus. Food: We ate at Mama's every night as the food was delicous and for just 20 RMB each we had a real feast! Lots of places to eat in the old town, but they seemed a bit expensive and geared towards Chinese tourists. The food market was great with dishes for 8-15 RMB. On the trek we ate local food at Naxi & Tina's Guesthouse for lunch and ate dinner at Halfway House.
Accomodation: We cannot reccomend Mama Naxi guesthouse enough, it was just great and a dorm bed runs at only 35 RMB each. It's quiet but in the middle of the old town. They also have private rooms from 100 RMB up. Other observations: x) Too many bars and restarants for this small town - most of them were empty day and night, although they may fill up on weekends. xx) This was the first place in China we saw big dogs and not just the small ones we had seen everywhere else. Husky/snow dogs here were huge and gorgeous.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.12s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 11; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0756s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sophie and Dale
Sophie & Dale
Lovely scenery
Great blog, looked like a really nice hike with beautiful scenery all around. I'm not sure how I'd have handled the way down though! I suspect we may have been going back the same way! Look forward to more soon.. where are you off to next?