the gorge

So when I last posted I had just arrived in Dali... Now I'm practically in Tibet and am somewhat exhausted. In the end I really like Dali, but only stayed there two nights. I could probably have stayed a bit longer and may actually stop there a day or so on my way back towards Kunming. After Dali, I hoped a small mini-bus for a 3 hour ride north to Lijiang - another small town in the Yunnan province. Although the guidebooks claimed it was nicer than Dali, I thought the exact opposite. Lijiang's old town just seemed like a tourist village full of shops selling all sorts of crap that I didn't want. Not much fun. I arrived there at 3pm and walked around for a while, eating some dried yak meat along the way... tasted just like beef jerky to be honest -- not so exciting. That night I went for a drink with Merek, originally from PA, whom I met at the Hostel. He's lived in China for three years so he had plenty to say about the Chinese... I may meet up with him again later down the road back in Kunming as we are both headed for Viet Nam.

Anyway I decided to leave Lejiang right away and head straight to Tiger Leaping Gorge. This gorge, which is supposed to be the worlds deepest and narrowest river canyon (along the Yangtze River) is a very popular hike with backpackers, and the hostel I was staying at organizes regular tours there. So I left bright and early the next morning for the 3 hour ride - on pretty rough roads and again in a small mini-bus to the starting point. There I met Daniel, a Quebecois, and Gorka who is from the Basque Country, and without ever really saying so, we agreed to hike the gorge together. The three of us got along quite well as we journeyed along the 15km long trail which runs the length of the gorge. Needless to say, the views are stunning and really made the whole journey worth it. We hiked about 6 hours to a lodge called The Halfway Guesthouse where we spent the night. The weather was mild with a few sprinkles and quite grey, but the clouds rolling over the mountains made the whole trip that much more enjoyable. The next morning, Gorka headed down to the main road to catch a bus back to Dali. Meanwhile, Daniel and I continued on through some rain, mountain goats, waterfalls and more breathtaking scenery. This second part was really the highlight of the trip - really amazing stuff. The hike goes on for quite a bit longer than the 15km we did, but we called it a day around 11AM because we were both headed north to Shangri-La.

The bus trip back from the end of the gorge was typical of my travels lately. Daniel and I were walking down the main road and pretty much had to jump in front of a mini bus to stop him. We discussed a price for the trip back and jumped in. Maybe discussed is a strong word since the driver spoke no english and us no mandarin. The trip back was bumpy - with lots of land slides obstructing parts of the roads and other areas left totally unpaved by waterfalls. Once we arrived back at the beginning of the gorge, we picked up the bags we had left there the previous day and immediately and somewhat by chance were pointed to a bus headed to Shangri-La. Again, we agreed on a price and jumped on. Two hours later the bus stopped and Daniel and I concluded we had arrived. We looked up a place to stay in the Lonely Planet, found a cab and showed the driver the chinese characters for where we wanted to go. Once there, we were shown a couple rooms, negotiated the rate down a bit and layed down are bags... Somehow, without any speaking any mandarin and no prior plans of any sort, we had arrived.

So now I'm in Shangri-La with Daniel and haven't quite figured out what we'll be doing for the next couple days. This town is pretty much in Tibet, so there are plenty of Tibetan monastaries to visit... I'll probably stick round these parts for 3 days or so before slowly heading back south towards Hanoi. I've managed to upload pics from the last few days. Tiger Leaping Gorge pictures didn't come out great because we were in the clouds half the time... but if you want more, there are plenty on the internet.