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Published: October 26th 2007
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Drive to TLG
You can see Jade Dragon Snow Mt in the back. One of Yunnan's most popular adventures is trekking the Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan (云南). It's a two day trek through a very large, deep gorge. I've seen photos of the hike and wasn't thoroughly impressed, but it's more for the experience than the scenery. I was planning to skip the Gorge all together, but since I was already in Lijiang, I decided to just go.
I told one of the girls at the hotel that I wanted to go to TLG and asked if she could recommend a driver to me. She suggested that I team up with some other guests in the hotel to hire a car together. TLG is about two hours North of Lijiang and it costs Y280 for a car for the day. I ended up chatting with a young guy from Fujian and convinced him to tag along with me the next day. The next morning a couple from England asked to join us. It was perfect to have 4 people! The wife from England is actually Chinese (Jiangsu) and married an English man a few years ago. Her English was quite good, but Mandarin is what she mainly yaps in 😊. She was
fascinated by my "ABC-ness". She thought it was funny when I told her I love cheese, salad, and sandwiches, and fluffy thick beds.
Spin the Buddha On our way to the gorge, we stopped at a vista point with a good view of Jade Dragon Snow Mt. There was a Buddhist temple nearby and the monks asked us to go in (free). There was this Guanyin spinning Buddha there, and you stand in front of your respective zodiac sign (monkey) and spin the Buddha. When Buddha stops turning, you find out your corresponding "number" and you get a paper with your fortune on it. Then some monk leads us to this room to explain the "fortune" to you (in Chinese). I couldn't quite understand what he was saying.... something about how I should marry someone poor (?) something to that extent, and he said I would meet nice people throughout my life (um...as if I needed a Buddha fortune to tell me that). haha. Anyway, after his talking about this and that he whips out a guest book with corresponding donations! Darn it! I should have know better. Of course my Chinese counterparts knew that a donation would
eventually be required, but I didn't know! Monk guy asked me for Y600!!! Are you kidding me???!! I gave his incredulous look (even though it might have been a little rude), and repeated to him that I am not working and am a budget traveler. I said I would be happy to donate Y100. Well, I got duped into Y300. I have a hard time saying no to a donation, and especially to some monk guy! Who knows what they do with all this money, because Fujian guy shelled over Y200, and the English-Chinese girl shelled over Y300. So each donor over Y300 gets their named carved into a marble stone. The man said I should write my parent's names down for him, but I had no idea who to write their names in Chinese! So my name (in English) ended up being carved into the marble donor stone. Sigh. Now I know. Unless you want to donate, don't spin any Buddhas!!!! 😊
Tiger Leaping Gorge The drive to TLG was nice, and I enjoyed the views and the conversation in the car ride. We get the gorge (Qiaotou), hike down to main viewing area, snap some
Where the Tiger Leaped
Legend has it that a tiger leaped from one side to the other. photos, and go back up. Very unexciting. The gorge is definitely deep, long and the rapids are definitely powerful. I'm glad I didn't do the two-day trek - I would have been bored. The view of Jade Dragon Snow Mt was nice too.
I've enjoyed the Moon Inn in Old Town Lijiang a lot. It's clean, quaint, and the staff is so nice and helpful. The girls that work there unofficially help organize travelers into groups to do day trips. The other traveler's I've met here are so nice and outgoing also. I've loved talking to people from all over the world and hearing about their travels. One family I met was in China visiting their adopted daughter's orphanage and birthtown. They were visiting the director of the orphanage on their daughter's 10th birthday. The family asked me join them for dinner (I declined), I think to expose their daughter to other Chinese American women. It was so moving to me that these parents (Caucasian) have given this child such a nice home and so loving to take her to her birthplace in hopes to expose her to her Chinese background. It also makes me so sad that that
there are orphanages of unwanted kids.... their daughter was so smart, good-mannered and cute!
The Police (again?) I spent the afternoon hanging out with Canadian. We walked around Old Town and we stopped to buy some local steamed rice cake, and when he pulled out his wallet, he got pick-pocketed and got his camera stolen. We were standing in a very croweded area, and when he put his wallet back into his pocket, his camera was missing. Oh no! And he had 3 weeks (1GB) of pictures on his camera - travels from the most beautiful parts of Sichuan. He took really great photos too. Very, very disappointing and unbelieveable. I felt so, so bad. Anyway, we went to the police department and reported it - and of course the Lijiang police station consists of 7 people sitting around a television set. A female police filed the report for us. Looks pretty hopeless... quite a bummer. 😞 The next day I backed up my photos onto CD and sent them home to my mom.
We still managed to go eat dinner. I know I wouldn't be able to eat if I had lost all my photos and camera.
We went to a Tibetan restaurant and had some Tibetan dumplings, some kind of soup that reminded me of Italian Wedding soup, and some potato dish. We tried the Tibetan yak butter tea which is really icky - salty and buttery tasting. Tried a Tibetan cocktail - a hot wine with honey and yak butter - really, strong. I had yak meat in Sichuan - reminds me of a porky-beef.
Back to Dali tomorrow - seeing if the nice weather can do justice. Dali needs to redeem itself.
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ellie
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"Unless you want to donate, don't spin any Buddhas!" hahaha that goes on my list of favorite quotes.