Tiger Leaping Gorge

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We're starting to come to terms with our limited Chinese! We're managing to get what we want but it takes time!

We left Guilin by train for Kunming in the south of China, from where we'll have another 10 hours of buses to the gorge itself. On the train there were seven Europeans (that includes English and Welsh for the Euro-sceptics), along with us tow there were three Germans, Jan - a young guy with an infectious enthusiasm for anything, and an older German couple who couldn't stand Jan. There was also a couple from Manchester. Leaving the German couple behind the five of us went to the restaurant cart and bought a few beers, chatted the night away gently easy the journey along until a worker on the train shouted at us. From the motions he was making, he wanted us to go to sleep. It was 8.30pm.

His colleagues kept serving us, and the worker kept shouting at us. The colleagues seemed to find the episode amusing and so kept bringing us drinks to wind up their friend some more.

Arriving in Kunming at 10am we found we couldn't get our bus to Lijang until the next day, so our new best friend Jan suggested we go to the same hostel as hime to see if there was space there. Which there was. We met another of Jan's "Friends" - Mahsa, a Dutch girl of Iranian descent. Jan and Mahsa exchanged a few jokes about Jews and it livened us all up!

We left for Lijang in the morning and stayed at an Arts centre as all the hostels were booked up. The arts centre was run by a non-plussed Frenchman who couldn't care less if we stayed or not. Lijang is a nice place to hang around, so we spent a couple of nights there before heading for the gorge.

When we got to the start of the gorge, we found out that Jan has an appetite that can never be conqquered and we had to wait for him to finish three courses before we went anywhere. Mahsa had a different way of delaying things, every few steps she would find something to photograph. This was before we even found the start of the path.

The gorge is one of the deepest in the world and really impressive with the sides rising from a river far blow to the tips of the mountains that are the start of the himalayas. It did somewhat justify Mahsas picture taking, but it was starting to get dark and we were still looking for the tea lodge to stay in overnight. Just after 7pm we stumbled into a lodge bustling with activity and managed to find a room for the four of us. During dinner we got chatting to a couple (he was Canadian and she Chinese) and they introduced us to a potion called Baijo. It's a clear liquid similar to rice wine and is about 60% proof.

The next day MaoLin (or Maggie) and Sean had been married one month, Rhi and I seven months and it was Jans 23rd birthday. It seemed right to celebrate.

Unfortunately, we broke Jan. When we got up in the morning we spent a good hour trying to drag him out of bed. Oddly, Sean and I had drunk the same amount and while a little hazy, we were doing just fine. At about 10 (three hours later than schedule) we got going. Two hours later, Mahsa was taking pictures of everything that moved and most of what didn't, Jan was throwing up every 500 metres, Maggi was picking flowers (because she hates hiking) and Sean was smoking five an hour and complaining that the pace was too much for his lungs.

After leaving the rest of them to it we arrived at our destinatio in time for the last bus. The others eventually got there, and we went back to Lijang. Jan passed out.

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