The bus ride to Lijiang alternated between beautiful and bucolic, and horrible and industrial. Followed a tributary of the Yangtze down the mountains past several different dam complexes culminating in the Southern China Power Grid station (according to the sign.)
Lijiang is a welcome relief from Shangri La. There's no question that it's just as touristy (although once again, few Westerners), but it doesn't seem nearly as fake. The Old City actually seems old as opposed to a carefully constructed facade designed to separate as many Chinese tourists from their money as possible.
Cobblestone streets lit by red lanterns, with gurgling canals flowing through everything. Yes, there are the same three different types of trinket shops on every block, but it's nice to be in a place that has not quite yet completely bull-dozed its own history.
The next morning we headed out for Tiger Leaping gorge, one of China's premier treks. Took a mini bus from our Hostel (The Panba- amazingly nice and under 10 dollars a night per person. I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone passing through Lijiang) to Qiao Tou, the town at the start of the gorge.
As we set off, a light rain was falling, and ahead of us loomed mountains shrouded in mist and clouds. We ascended gradually, and as we passed through local villages, I couldn't help but feel that I was in a Vietnam movie. Fortunately there was no need to keep my eyes peeled for trip wires or punjee pits, so I was free to take in the rather breath taking scenery.
Charlie don't surf!
The rain continued to fall steadily, and by now it was definitely more than a drizzle. We entered "The 24 Bends," a tortuous hour plus ascent through, you guessed it, 24 switchbacks. Halfway up we encountered a woman selling water, fruit, snacks, and...pot. She said that Americans were very strong and needed their marijuana to rest. We politely declined and continued on our way.
Throughout the trek, locals wait along the trail with donkeys offering to hire themselves out to tired hikers, either to ride, or to carry packs. The higher you get into the 24 bends, the more of these guys you see. It's actually pretty clever, as people are much more inclined to hire a donkey when their calves are burning and they can hardly catch their breath, then when they are fresh at the bottom of the trail.
Anyway, we were soon sandwiched in between two different groups of these poop machines of burden. In front of us rode a lone Korean man in a green poncho who gasped and groaned with each step the burro took as if it were he who was exerting the effort, and behind us was a surprisingly rugged Sino-Australian family whose two young girls traded the burro. Each donkey also had a bell around its neck, and the ringing was maddening until we were finally able to get by them at the top of the bends.
What to say about Tiger Leaping Gorge? Easily one of the top three most beautiful natural experiences I've ever had...From the top of the 24 Bends, the trail leveled off and we had uninterrupted views of the opposite wall of the gorge: waterfalls, forests, mountains, all of which were beautifully framed by clouds and mist.
Below us the Yangtze river raged along the in-construction paved road that the Chinese are currently building in order to make the gorge more accessible to its legions of tourists who don't seem to be too big on stretching their comfort zones. I highly recommend this trek, but if you're interested, you'd better do it quickly as it will be completely different (resorts, chairlifts, golf courses, etc...) in five years...
After about 6 hours of hiking we arrived at the Halfway House, located, appropriately enough, halfway along the trail. This place (once again under ten dollars a night per person) is one of the nicest places I've ever stayed location-wise, and it's showers had heat lamps which really made for a relaxing and pleasant experience after six hours hiking through the rain.
The Halfway House (Something might have been lost in translation)
Halfway House also has a rooftop deck. Here are the things you can look at from it:1. Gaze upwards and watch mountains disappear into mist hundreds of meters above you, look directly ahead and watch clouds form at literally eye level, look down and watch waterfalls plummet into the Yangtze below. Simply spectacular, there's no other way to describe the location and the view.
The Roof Deck
Day 2 took us to the bumbling and fumbling portion of the trek. Chris and I are both very experienced hikers, so I'm really not sure what was to blame for the debacle that the day turned into....
It started out when we neglected to buy water when we were checking out. We assumed that we would be able to fill up down the trail, but we inexplicably failed to read the map, or we would have seen that there were no more guest houses on the high trail (as opposed to down on the road) within hours of us.
As we hiked, the day began very pleasantly. We passed under waterfalls, and had to hustle our way through a local farmer's herd of goats. shortly after we passed them, they turned as one and galloped down the nearly vertical slope to graze. Quite impressive.
All aboard for the Goat Train!
soon the trail wound away from the river and followed a tributary up a supplementary gorge. We descended through bamboo forests only to realize that after hiking all the way down to the river, we would now have to hike all the way back up the other side. This ascent was as bad, if not worse than the 24 Bends, and our misery was compounded by the fact that we idiotically declined to fill up on water before we left.
I promise Chris is not peeing in this picture
After climbing out of the bamboo forest, we again started to descend through a beautiful alpine meadow that had one horse tethered contentedly while munching on the local flora.
Throughout the trek we had been relying on painted arrows to show us the way. Somehow (even in retrospect we can't figure out what happened) we followed the wrong set of arrows down from the high trail. We didn't make it all the way down to the road, but we were somewhere inbetwein betweenin a series of corn fields and (occasionally) pot fields as well. For a while I was disconcertingly reminded of Alex Garland's The Beach where naive European and American backpackers stumble upon fields of Thai marijuana only to meet disaster at the hands of the growers.
Reefer Madness IndeedOf course, my paranoia at this point has a lot to do with the fact that I've been hiking strenuously for several hours without water. Fortunately, Chris kept his head together enough to get us to backtrack to the last dwelling we passed.
Here we encountered several men lounging about, clearly amused at the plight of the lost, foreign backpackers. They chuckled amongst themselves, but eventually a woman with some english emerged. She was nice enough to fill up my water bottle, although she wasn't much help at helping us relocate the trail.
About this time, a tiny, adorable feral dog (adorned with bells, Lhasa-style) started following us. It would prance several steps ahead, the pause and look back at us. We named him "Laddie." Since Laddie was heading down the mountain (at this point we had given up on linking back up with the high trail, and decided to hike down to the road.) we decided to follow him.
Our canine hero, Laddie
As we hiked downward we heard a tremendous explosion from somewhere up the river from our location.
He lead us right to a very faint trail that slowly and steadily switchbswitch backedhe mountain. each time we would pause to try and figure out the best route, he would turn and look back expectantly. we eventually came to realize that his knowledge or instincts were right on and just started to follow him.
He lead us all the way to the precipice of the road, but unfortunately, there was a sheer fifteen foot cliff from where the Chinese had carved the road out of the mountainside. Fortunately there was either a water or drainage pipe not too far from our location. We used it to stumble/slide/climb down the remaining distance. Laddie pranced down as nimbly and agilely as one of the mountain goats we had seen earlier.
From the road we were able to flag down a minibus back to Qiao Tou. Along the way, we picked up two other American backpackers along the way, but soon halted as the road ahead of us was impassable due to rubble from dynamiting. (Remember the boom we heard earlier?) After waiting for an hour or so, we finally were able to pass.
It took two other minibuses, one sick driver, two car accidents, and one awesome Mandarin app fror the iphone (Pleco) to get us back to Lijiang.
Pleco is amazing because not only will it tell you how to say certain things in Mandarin, but it will also give you example sentences. If you look up the word "want," it will tell you how to say it, but it will also give you such communist-inspired gems as "I want to see the Commisar." or "The wants of the people will be met!" Thanks to Pleco, we were able to determine that our driver had a headache, but not due to beer, and that she did not have diarrea!
All in all, it was one of those travel days where everything seems to go wrong, but seems funny and adventurous after a shower and a nice meal back in the hostel. Knowing how it turned out, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
We're in Lijiang for another day, then pushing on to Dali tomorrow...
* It means sugar free
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