Tiger Leaping Gorge: Beautiful, but no tigers
Trip Start
Sep 24, 2008
1
28
132
Trip End
Jul 21, 2009
Qiaotou,
Yunnan,
China
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
On the bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge, I met an expat family, living in China, who are from America. The father works for Intel and his 12-year old daughter, Katie, came along for their tour. Katie, living in China for two years, has learned a great deal of Mandarin and she was our translator telling us when we were supposed to buy tickets and get off the bus at the trailhead. What a phenomenal and valuable experience for a young American.
We were dropped off literally on the side of the road with a dirt trail leading up. Not the official trailhead, but we knew we had to get to the high trail, so we high-tailed it uphill. We passed by a few farms and people on the trail and they set us on our way to the main path. A wonderfully way-marked trail, there are red arrows nearly the whole way (and a litter of guesthouses that spray-paint advertisements along the trail, which also serves as a good navigation tool). We soon ended up on the high trail on the Haba Shan side of the gorge, to be rewarded with a full day of views of the Yu Long Mountain range and the 2,000m drop down to the Yangtze. Perhaps because it is such a sudden increase in elevation (there are no foothills), or we are relatively closer to the equator, the treeline is incredibly high and lush. With the autumn season, we could see myriad colors tracing all the way up the hill until the jagged and snow-covered rocks at the peak.
After an hour and a half of "Peruvian flats", we stopped for lunch at the Naxi Guesthouse. One of the best meals we've had - chicken and veggies, fried peanuts and steamed rice. It was here that Ali ran into a friend from his travels through China, Adi - an Israeli traveling for an indefinite time. Adi is a great spirit, but grounded in reality, and has spent some time volunteering back home, living/working on a farm and working in kitchens and has the right traveler mindset. We also met Jeff, a young Chinese man living in coastal China and bilingual (this would later prove to be immensely valuable). Jeff and Adi set off ahead of us, as well as a group of kids from Hong Kong on a tour.
After our lunch break was the most torturous part of the trail, the so-called 28 Bends, from our elevation of 1,800m to the high point of 2,700m. The trail was a bunch of switchbacks, but incredibly rocky, and reminded me of a poor man's version of the deadly climb to Dead Widow's Pass along El Camino Inka. We passed by some stalls selling snickers, water and...
TLG in the morning mist
ganja. I later found out that these natural herbs grow wild throughout this area (and a bar in Li Jiang that I couldn't find has barrels full of it for free). We eventually reached the top of the hill to find a "money" rock. Guarded by a gatekeeper who charges 5RMB, it was worth every penny for the views, and we linked up with Adi again. The gatekeeper was enamored with my beard (this would be a continuing trend through Viet Nam) and took pictures with each of us. Perhaps, it's because most Asians are challenged when it comes to growing facial hair; I have no idea. We met an Englishman and his Swedish girlfriend (I must go to that country) who took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moskov all the way to Beijing and were learning Chinese in Kun Ming. I told them about Sachin's travels through Mongolia and in the reverse direction on the train. The rest of the hike that day (and few hours the next day) were a cakewalk as it was some steep downhills and flats until the halfway point where we would stay at the Halfway (Guest)House. It was quite a humorous name given what a halfway house means in the US. Adi and I took a long coffee break at a gorgeous waterfall where the goat herder inside of him was able to coax a family of goats down from the hill and across the bamboo bridge over the falls. Adi, traveling with a camping stove, kettle and tea cup, would be dubbed a cow for the way you could hear his clanging from several hills away. Ali had pushed on ahead, so Adi and I hiked the rest of the day together, getting lost and ending up in Animal Farm with a rabid dog hungry for our heads, pigs, chickens, horses and water buffalo all greeting us and no farmers in sight.
We reached the Halfway Guesthouse close to sundown, checked into the 20RMB a night guesthouse with the most wonderful mountain views one could ever have from a toilet and kicked back for some much deserved food (and delicious fries) and beers. All day long we passed along the range, getting different perspectives and seeing them in different light, and we were treated to the wonderful sun's glow at sunset. We met Rebecca, a Brooklynite from El Paso on a travel sojourn herself, and the four of us spent the night staring at the mountain and the stars and exchanging travel stories. Adi is going to write a short story/poem based on the beauty and hysterical fatigue-enduced tales of that evening. Adi told us a hysterical tale of a night in Nepal. He was with some villagers who kept guilting him about the value of rice and fed him until his belly exploded (and sat back in laughter when he finally cried uncle). That night he had some really vivid and awful dreams and woke up to find that an elder man in the village had passed away. Though in poor taste, it is still hysterical, he joked that the man must have died from eating too much rice! While we were all relaxing on the couch outside our terrace and under a warm blanket, we were like children gazing at the clouds as we saw formations on the mountain that was basking in the moon's glow. Having just discussed Dark Knight, Rebecca noticed The Joker on the mountain and it was thus re-dubbed Joker Face Mountain. I'm sending Lonely Planet a note. What a perfect way to end an amazing day of hiking.
After a few poor nights of sleep, I slept in until 9:30a on Nov 10 (we had a breezy few hours of hiking ahead of us) expecting to miss sunrise. Because Beijing is the center of the Chinese universe, the entire country is on one time zone, thus five minutes after rising I saw a dark shadow fall on Yu Long Mountain as the mighty sun's rays glistened from behind. As we were eating breakfast, an old man was manually milling corn in the courtyard and we saw a gigantic pig get slaughtered. It was awful and the loud squeal of the pig knowing what the table in front of it was meant for was unbearable. However, given you eat meat, there was something more wholesome about raising, killing and using every part of the pig rather than buying a slab at Safeway. We pushed off down the hill to the gorge on a leisurely hike with more views of the mountain and better views of the roaring Yangtze. En route, we passed a phenomenal waterfall that passed over the trail and we stopped for a refreshing break (and a shower for Adi). Middle of nowhere, beautiful mountain, refreshing waterfall - Ali, Adi and I were in a state of bliss. We reached the end for me at Tina's Guesthouse as I had to get back to Li Jiang to catch a night bus to Kun Ming. We met Stephane (German working in autoparts supplies who developed a nosebleed from altitude sickness), Rebecca, Anthony and Florie (Belgians) and all had a big lunch together before all of us (ex Stephane and Ali) headed back to Li Jiang.
I made it back to Li Jiang with enough time to walk all of my new friends to the hostel through the maze that is the old town and to grab another serving of that wonderful curried beef at Suzie's. I bid farewell to Adi and Rebecca and hopefully we will cross paths again.
I made my bus and finally met some Chinese people on a bus who speak English and are friendly. He Gu is a middle school teacher in Li Jiang, but she is studying oil painting in Kun Ming (and her loving boyfriend who was with her also lives there). She was a sweet Naxi girl and promised to link me up with one of the beautiful Naxi girls should I return to Li Jiang. That night was one of the smelliest nights in the history of buses. Not because of prawns or some ridiculous Chinese dish, but because of the stench of my unshowered-in-several-days feet and someone's awful flatulence. Kind of reminded me of the tent Sachin and I shared while trekking in Philmont as boy scouts oh-so-long-ago.
On the bus ride, I was reflecting how I had felt weary and perhaps homesick in Kunming only a few days earlier, yet now felt more excited than ever. Since my birthday, a mere 10 days earlier, I had been to Bombay, Delhi, Hong Kong and now Yunnan Province and was heading to Viet Nam in just over 24 hours. Finishing Three Cups of Tea on the bus ride (Sachin, please thank James for providing me with one of the most moving stories I've ever read and no book that was ever more appropriate at the right time), I couldn't sleep because I was so excited for SE Asia and my future Peace Corps endeavors.
As an aside, everyone MUST read Three Cups of Tea. It is about a mountaineer, Dr Greg sahib, who failed on a K2 ascent, but instead found purpose building schools for mostly Muslim girls in Pakistan and now Afghanistan - both before and after 9/11. It is a wonderful book about the power of secular education and one man's mission (and failures) to bring change to places that are oft-neglected. It should be required reading by every single American citizen to realize the true tolerance and compassion of most Muslims out there. There are wackjob fundamentalists in all faiths, not just Islam. It's a quick read and was perfect for me as he lived in Berkeley, loves mountains and is a passionate believer in education.
I arrived back in Kun Ming in the morning of Nov 11 to grab a quick meal of dumplings and sleep for two hours before hopping on another epic bus ride to He Kou, on the China-Viet Nam border. Along this bus ride, our bus was up in smoke (literally), making me friends with the drivers as I provided them my headlamp, and we were stuck in a massive jam in darkness along the lush hilly banks of the Yong Song (Red River) as a massive semi was crumbled to nothing and being craned off the road. Chinese drivers are not known for their safe driving. Alas, I made it safely to the shady border town of He Kou and passed out in the nicest bed I'd been in for a long time for $10. As an indication of what kind of a place this was, the bathroom had male enhancement pills and packs of condoms. At least the room rate wasn't by the hour.
The following morning I would cross over into Viet Nam and begin the next segment of my journey, the much-awaited trapse through South East Asia.
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PS Again, I PROMISE pics of the wonderful gorge will be up shortly. Stay tuned. .
Farmer on trail up to high trail
Comments
Tiger Leaping Gorge
Someone has made it through the Gorge alive - albiet inside a sealed barrel. Not exactly rafting.
More info at happysheep's blog.
sverige
i am WAY down for a trip to visit our nordic friends ;-) and you know this, man!