Tiger Leaping Gorge
Trip Start
Aug 25, 2003
1
26
38
Trip End
Jul 23, 2004
Lijiang,
China
Friday, March 19, 2004
I won't go on again about the smoke-a-thon on Chinese buses, but suffice to say that escaping the bus in Xiaguan resembled Sean Penn's classic smoke-filled van exit in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"
Dy-no-mite!
. We did meet a very cool Australian couple, Lucy and Michael, who hiked with us for two of the next four days, and introduced us to the glory of Magnums (they're ICE CREAM BARS, you bedroom-minded Americans!). The first day was long; three hours of gradual elevation, then another three hours of tight, steep switchbacks on sandy terrain, all in brutal sun on an exposed mountainface. We rolled in to the Halfway Guesthouse just before sunset hungry and sunburnt, but it felt good to do some real exercise (especially with the biking-through-Tibet trip looming...), and the hot shower was heaven. Our food orgy (we ordered three meals apiece!) was disrupted by the owner rushing us off the gorge-side porch into the sheltered courtyard. Not sure what was going on, and never one to waste perfectly good food, I grabbed my plates (yes, that's plural) and ran down the stairs just as a huge explosion rocked the guesthouse. The owner shrugged and said, "Dynamite." It was a sound we would hear several times over the next few days as the road work crews blasted away pieces of the southeast-facing wall. We heard several explanations, from "New road" (although the blasts were directly below the brand new road, which we expected to see slide into the gorge at any moment) to "Collecting rocks". This reason was the most confusing, because most of the rocks fell straight down into the gorge, presumably irretrievable. So it remains a mystery...The second day we had a choice between hiking to Walnut Grove along the new road, an easy walk with beautiful views of the gorge, or a new, poorly marked trail which climbed 1000 switchbacking meters on an inhumanly narrow path that was equal parts mud and sand, through herds of possibly hostile livestock. We, of course, chose the latter. It was strenuous, Lucy almost fell off the cliff face, and I had a tense staredown with a territorially minded goat, but we had lunch next to the crystal-green pools of a gorgeous waterfall and an exciting boulder-scramble down to the guesthouse
The goats
. Plus, the hard day's hike justified me ordering three chocolate pancakes for dinner. Don't tell my mom. By the third day, Lucy and Michael had come to their senses and declined to accompany us on the climb to the 3500 m peak. Undaunted, we bought some Snickers ("lunch of champions") and started off on a well-trodden path. This turned into a not-so-well-trodden path, then a donkey path, which became a goat path, and, finally, a tangle of painfully poky pricker-bushes. Determined to get to a peak, any peak, we climbed straight up the enormous boulders to the top. This peak, which didn't actually appear on our hand-drawn map, was enough of an accomplishment for us. We triumphantly ate our Snickers and climbed down to our guesthouse for some chocolate pancakes.
Our plan for our fourth day was to hike down to the gorge in the morning and catch the ferry over to the town of Daju, where we could get a bus to Lijiang, city of souvenir yak-fur pillows. The trip down to the gorge was incredible, and included two iron ladders (one of which was at least three stories tall) which were held to the recessed rock face by pieces of driftwood. Although it crossed my mind that there are potentially safer ways to descend a cliff than a driftwood-moored ladder, I was too busy trying to get down the very irregularly spaced rungs without looking too much like a drunken treetrimmer to really ponder that
Tiger Leaping Gorge
. At the bottom, the noise of the water crashing through the narrowed gorge was astounding. We climbed a huge rock right next to the river and really appreciated the awesomeness of nature by having a little "discussion" over who would survive swimming across the gorge, the Flash (Phil's choice) or the Green Lantern (mine). Who says kids today don't read good literature? We hiked back to Woody's Guesthouse, grabbed our bags, and (breakfastless!) headed for the new ferry dock. What our guidebook and map neglected to mention was that the 3 km walk to the new ferry site along the paved road was only part of the journey, which also included an extremely steep hike-n-slide down to the ferry site, a desperate yelling session to get the ferry to our side of the river (we learned later that the ferry doesn't run after 11:30 am; we were very lucky the boat guys were still there!), and a nearly two hour trudge back up the other side. We missed the 1:30 bus to Lijiang by a long shot, and dragged our sweaty, hungry, crabby (ok, that was just me. It takes a lot to make Phil crabby) bodies into the Snowflake Guesthouse in Daju. It actually was cool that we were there that day; three craftsmen were building a traditional wooden coffin for Grandma, right next to where Grandma was washing veggies for dinner. The guesthouse owner, the granddaughter, said this is a very lucky lunar year as there are 13 months in the calendar instead of the normal 12, so the coffin was being constructed now and would be stored until it was needed. The Chinese have a much healthier view of death than Western cultures, I think. Most people would be offended and more than a little suspicious if younger family members commissioned their box of eternal rest while they were still alive and well. But here, Grandma had a kind of supervisory role as she did her chores; she inspected the builders' handiwork at regular intervals, and even made a few constructive criticisms. Just business as usual, I guess.
We returned to Lijiang early the next morning, and bought our ticket to back to Kunming; this time, having learned our lesson on the "sleeper" bus, we paid the extra 50 yuan and bought the express bus ticket. It's worth it for the luxury of riding the toll roads instead of enduring the goat paths run by the night buses...
