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Holy Crap
The best shot I could get of the sheer madness that was the road into tigerleaping gorger Well, not really lost, just looking around .. slowly.
But back to Dali first. After the last entry, we took a cable car (number 2!) on the recommendation of Kelly and Corb, and headed up Mount Conshang. It was a peaceful place, about 2600m up and about 600m above the main city. We then hiked our way up painful stairs to the beautiful Higher Land Inn (yes, I was a little wary about the name but it turns out it was completely drug-free 😊 ) It was a lovely little place - only 7 of us staying there with a dog, a cat and a few geese to keep us company. Long story short, lovely walk to a kick-ass waterfall and amazing views of Dali and Erhai lake (thankfully the weather had cleared!). It was a little cold up there but we settled in to a wonderful shared meal and got to know the 3 american girls and british couple that were up there with us. Nothing like a cold night and one hot little fire to sit around to make the conversation work! Amazing place and so peaceful ... really enjoyable!
Well, after saying no to the evils
of drugs and high altitude, we moved on to another fine little place known as Lijiang. Kinda similair to Dali in a lot of ways but at the same time entirely different, it is an old town surrounded by a new town with a strong dollop of tourism thrown in.
The old town itself (which we are staying in) is this absolute maze of alleyways and sidestreets, where maps are fairly pointless and every alleyway looks remarkably similair to the the last - gorgeous. This was Kelly's favourite memory from her last trip to China but as with all good things, time has changed it somewhat. The tour groups have moved in and a lot of the Naxi out, taking away some, but definitely not all, of the soul of Lijiang. We got in mid-afternoon and pretty quickly walked around trying to see if Kelly could remember anything. She found a few places that she knew but alas, we couldn't find the orphanage she visted last time - really sad as that was going to be a nice reunion! After heading back to relax a bit, we then headed out for dinner (don't worry, the story gets better). On
Cablecar!
Reliant on chinese steel cable, we headed up Mt Chonshang (I keep spelling it wrong though...) our way out, we noticed a crowd gathering in the main square. Hoping for some sort of cultural show, we pushed our way in for a better viewpoint. What we saw was incredible. Along the main street of the town (which is split in half by a creek/river) all the shops were shut and people lined both sides of the river with candles in hand. Some were on little polystyrene boats. Not quite sure what was going on, we hung around and finally, when everyone lit their candles, people began dropping them in the river - my guess would be around 3-400 people all doing this, including clusters of the local minority, Naxi, in full regalia.
We finally tweaked that this was all to remeber the earthquake in Sichuan. See, Lijiang had a large earthquake in 1996/97, so they obviously felt some kind of resonance with what was going on. Candles usually float along the river at night, just not usually on this scale. Anyway, it was breathtaking, and with the whole crowd cheering out something like "china, rembember, Sichuan, remember" and the spontaneous singing of their national anthem, it was a very special moment.
Hilariously, we'd left
Us at the bottom of the gorge
I was less happy after climbing to the top :) the camera in the room, so it shall remain only ours to remember - sorry guys!
Following that, we wandered around a park (not much of note except the random bongo drummer by the waterfall and awesome guy with feathers in his hat) and had another lovely night snapping pics of Lijiang.
Yesterday was another story. We stored our packs and went into mini-bag mode for the trip out to Tiget-Leaping gorge. We basically had two options. One was to join the intrepid travellers on our bus, head straight up for 900m and see the most spectaculr views of the gorge, then cross the death-defying '28 bends' where sheer cliffs fall away to the side of the path and certain death awaits a misstep orrr ... take a taxi in.
Guess which one we chose?
Yeah, yeah, we're lame and bad representations of the rough and tumble kiwi spirit but we were both a bit tired and sniffly and believe you me - the drive was just as scary. I'm sure our driver was intent on breaking the speed record despite half-made roads, unsealed sections and a general lack of barriers keeping us from those same
sheer drops ... I think the only thing we said the whole way was 'slower please' ... eeek. But well worth it, unbelievable views were had at the end. Suprisingly, as we sat down, we met the american girls again who had just finished the actual hike ... suckers! Anyway, our intent was to walk down to the river itself and see where the tiger actually lept the gorge (I don't actually think there was a tiger but if there was, this was where he would have done the jump - being the narrowest part and all).
The path was hilarious - mostly a sketchy vertical descent covered with slippery bits, roots and loose rocks .. oh, and sheer drops .. eek! Anyway,we mosied down and saw an incredible waterfall and the powerful rapids from the river - really really amazing. And you could look straight up and see mountains 3000m above you almost straight up - wow.
Suffice to say the walk up was painful and best not mentioned 😊
But, we made it out alive and that's the important bit. That, and the fact that one of kelly's photos got published in the herald as
part of the travel photo competition - she hasn't won yet but very nice recognition nonetheless.
Anyway, off to the cold of Shangri-La tomorrow and then coming to terms with China being over for us ... whoa, that went quick.
Team Shwinter
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