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Published: July 22nd 2007
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One of our big aims on this trip was to see Tiger Leaping Gorge in the headwaters of the Yangtze River. In Lijiang we were close and so we rented a car and driver for the day and left at 9 a.m. A rental like this is not as expensive as you might expect - it cost us 260 yuan which is about $37 Can.for the whole day. The driver could not speak a word of English but knew what we wanted to see and was very helpful. Leaving the city we travelled over mountainous roads with some spectacular views, mountains higher than any we have seen before on this trip. The highest areas were rather like the highlands of Scotland, above the tree line and grassy and stony. We saw several honey camps along the road - these were clusters of maybe a hundred hives with an old army style tent for the bee-keepers to live in through the summer and a table facing the road with three or four jars of honey for sale - not exactly a high pressure sales operation!
The driver stopped for a photography opportunity and WC break when the Yangtze first
came into view, far below us. Several tour buses had stopped there also. We walked down stone steps to a series of lookouts which offered slightly different views of the muddy river. The last one, which few people reached, was a small Buddhist temple with prayer flags fluttering in the breeze beside it. A young lad with a shaved head and orange and red robes ran up to us and announced "Me boy lama" and asked for a donation to the temple. We took his photo in exchange and he took one of us for us too, Inside the temple there was an adult lama busily chanting his prayers. The young novice offered us incense sticks and then amused himself by teasing his superior. He continually dropped incense sticks on the floor, every time he did the lama stopped his chant and had to begin over again - the small boy was giggling throughout this.
The drive continued down the hairpin bends into the gorge for another 20 km or so. The gorge itself is deeper than the Grand Canyon, about 4,000 metres deep. Pine forests borfered the road and the mature ones were barked in V's ,
Approaching Leaping Tiger Gorge
You can see the walkway cut into the cliffs ahead of us. like rubber trees are tapped, with a cup on the trunk below to catch the resin. This seems to be the same as the operations in the Basin of Aquitaine in France, where it supports a turpentine production industry.
When we got down closer to the river the driver left the fairly busy highway with its trcks and tour buses when they crossed a bridge over the Yangtze. We stayed on the side we were on and drove along a good but narrow and empty road through many small and interesting Naxi villages. The land was covered with trees - all sorts of apples, plums , peaches, walnuts and chestnuts plus grapevines and fields of corn and tobacco. The farm buildings were built of mud or adobe and each farm compound had a tall, square corn crib, with an peaked tiled roof, beside it, the equivalent of our silos. The larger farm building had open ended upper floors for straw storage.
Finally we arrived at our destination and left the driver to wait for us. Admission to this geopark was 50 yuan (about $7 Can). We walked along a paved path cut into the the side
of the gorge. At the beginning of this walk the river was wide and looked fairly calm, but eddies and whirlpools showed that there was turbulence below. The walk was about 2 km or so and there were numerous warning signs about rockfalls and the need to keep close to the rock wal, away from the river side, so that falls could possibly miss us. There were also many soldiers posted at intervals to add to the warnings, they held small megaphones through which they shouted at Chinese tourists to keep in single file. Just as I commented to Norma that this was of little value to Westerners one switched on a little taped English version about keeping in single file and close to the cliff side !! Part of the walk led through a tunnel to avoid a particularly dangerous section and there were several other locations where more tunnels were being carved out of the cliffs and you could sometimes hear the drilling sounds coming out of the cliffs, obviously close to the path.
Meanwhile the gorge was getting narrower and the walls steeper, the river became noisy and turbulent as it roared through this rapids
Leaping Tiger Rock in the Yangtse
If you look carefully you can see people on the far bank - this gives you a better idea of the scale - the dividing rock is the size of a house!! section. At the end of this trail was the most spectacular spot, the famous Tiger Leaping Rock. This is a huge block the size of a house in midstream which splits the river flow. An ancient legend claims that a hunter was pursuing a tiger through this area and the animal escaped by leaping to this rock and then across to the other side. The distances involved make this somewhat unlikely - some tiger!!! Other huge rocks break the flow along the side of the river and tributaries drop down via waterfalls to join the flow. The noise and the energy of this place make it one of the most spectacular and inspiring places that either of us felt we had ever seen. We lingered and soaked in the experience before reluctantly returning to the car and our long drive home. A great day and not to be missed.
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Gretchen
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Glad you guys are having a great time. Enjoy the last week of your trip! Looking forward to seeing you both when you come to Ottawa - bring the photos!! Gretchxx