Lijang & The Tiger Leaping Gorge

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Lijiang

We arrived at Lijiang bus station and waded through the sea of touts. We decided to follow the advice from a couple of American - Chinese girls and head to Mama Naxi's Guest house. Mama Naxi is fantastic, although she is probably walking the fine line between sane and insane, in many ways she reminds me of my gran! (Those fortunate enough to have met my gran will understand what I mean!)

Lijiang old town is a visual feast. There's your movie set red lanterns dangling from the buildings, traditional Chinese rooftops, tiny streams and stone bridges winding their way through cobbled streets lined with beautiful wooden carved naxi houses.....really touristy but nice. It's plain to see why this place is so popular for the Chinese tourists... at every corner you turn there's a different colour flag and a Chinese tour group wearing red hats eagerly following, combined with the constant flash of their camera's.

At night the rowdy tourists flock to the main night spot and all join in a singing competition between cafes and bars across the narrow canals that wind through town. We were informed by locals that Lijiang has long been a traditional place were Chinese people come looking for love! The chats and songs are a kind of propositions aimed at the opposite sex in the neighboring bars! It was crazy to see so many drunken but good humored songs be chanted from one cafe to the next.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

After a hearty breakfast cooked for us my Mama Naxi which consisted of "Bready, eggy and tomatoey!" it was just the meal we needed to prepare us for our trip. After a two hour ride on a minibus we arrived. After some discussion we took the uphill high road of the gorge. After a good few hours walk through fields of corn and sunflowers we turned round a corner and bam the view hits you... The gorge itself is phenomenal, way below the rapids of the Yangzi river surge through the foot of the snow capped mountains. It is one of the largest gorges in the world.....rising to a height of I just over 4,000 meters from water to peak!

We took the two day trek at a steady pace and the only difficult segment which was named the "28 bends" a series of relentless switchbacks. I'm not sure who counted these bends but I'm confident math was not his/her strong point as it felt more like 48 bends! After the hard slog the view from the top, as usual, was definitely worth the climb. Shortly after the "28 bends" we made it to the Halfway Guesthouse where we had a bite to eat and swapped stories with a few other travelers. There was a good mix of people from all over the world, one of which resembled Ewan McGregor from Star Wars (Check out the photo). Some how one drink turned in to five and it was not long before the topic of discussion bended towards how bad England were in the World Cup and ended in me defending Peter Crouch!

Up early the following morning after only a few hours sleep, we set off to finish the remainder of the trek. On the first downward slope I must have been still half asleep… I failed to notice the huge spider sat in its web hanging across the path and walked straight into it. Understandably the spider wasn't very happy after I had destroyed its web and had to pull it off my face. I quickly ran away!

After a few wrong turns we finally made it to the end and saw the spot where legend states the tiger jumped the gorge to escape capture. At no point in our guide book or the literature I have seen does it state if the tiger made the jump or not. Looking at the 15 meter is gap and the ferocious rapids I'm guessing not!!

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Comments

[Tom]

Those photos
You've taken a fair few snaps on your travels so far but these of the Gorge are the most spectacular I've seen (well of the landscape anyway!). It looks amazing out there. I'm off to Prague this weekend so will make the most of your recommendations. Peace out - Murphy.