Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

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Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge have now become our favourite places in Asia. We thought Dali was pretty but Lijiang old town is so much better. The cobblestone steps are much more like you would have expected them to be hundreds of years ago (whereas it is obvious Dali has been rebuilt). The are all kinds of little winding roads and little canals---it is really easy to get lost in them. It was just out of a Charles Dickens novel but obviously in China.

We spent an afternoon exploring the town and getting lost (to be fair rob was much better at not getting lost than I was). We found a very nice guesthouse with a family who spoke very little English. It was more difficult but the house was so cute and the family so nice we decided it was one of the best places we stayed in while in Asia (with exception of Hua Hin).

The next day we got out of town and went to the Snowy Mountains where you can take a cable car up to an elevation of 4,500 meters and then walk to an even higher elevation. You could see glaciers and absolutely fantastic views. It is worth mentioning that this was our most expensive excursions in Asia and cost about $100 total—loads more than we are used to spending but worth the money. After going up to the top of the mountain we went for a walk at the base of another cable car (which we could not afford to go up, but it did not go as high as ours). It was a very pretty walk and we were again surprised to see a really nice path and no tourists on it!! Overall a fantastic day!

Next we went to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We took a bus there and arrived around 11:00am. After getting a little lost in finding the start we were on the path by noon and starting walking up. The scenery, as you can imagine, was again fantastic. It was a good long climb uphill. The toughest part was a place called 28 bends and we did it about 1:30 or so and there was quite a bit of sweating. It is worth noting we counted 41 bends so found it that much more difficult. We hiked until about 6:30 and found a lovely guesthouse along the way. We got to take showers and had a fantastic meal. As an added bonus, our room had views of the mountain!

The next day we had a shorter walk to the end of the path. From there we had the option of walking straight downhill to the river which we did. The path was tricky and we saw lots of spiders (rob was not happy about this) and a dead snake (again, rob didn’t like that) but the views were again spectacular. We had lunch at the bottom and then had to climb back up. The climb up was easier than we thought it would be as they had huge ladders (quite scary to climb as it would not be good news if you missed your step) that made it quicker. Once at the top we caught a taxi back to town and bus station and then got a minibus back to Lijiang. We spent the night in Lijiang and then headed back to Dali.

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Photos

Tiger Leaping Gorge
We think this is where the gorge gets its name, legend says that a tiger leaped across the river here (we think)