June 5, Lijiang: Hiking the Tiger Leaping Gorge

Our day today started early with an 8 AM bus departure in the direction of the world’s largest valley, called Tiger Leaping Gorge in English. We've read that the government plans to dam the river flowing through the gorge to harness its potential electric power, and thus the opportunity to see this natural wonder before its demise was too compelling to ignore.

We paid 120 yuan (about 15 bucks) each for transportation in a rickety van:

It was filled with random Chinese tourists and two people we met at our hotel; a multi-lingual kid about our age named Justin (born in China, currently working in Congo for a telecom company – spoke English, Chinese, French, and several local dialects in varying degrees of fluency) and his girlfriend of a few months. Like many Chinese my age, they met over a facebook-like social networking site.

The trip out reminded me of a drive through Bozeman, Montana, except without the careful driving of my father (happy early father's day, Dad). The Chinese drivers passed each other on blind turns, into mountains, as we climbed higher and then decended.

We made several stops. Some were great, affording a lookout of the mountains:

Some were not, however – we were dragged into various tourist traps hawking overpriced goods. In any case, we eventually made it to the gorge – absolutely incredible views! See the pictures below, taken throughout the 3.5 mile hike:


We returned about 6 PM, and ducked into a random British bar that we found for a early-dinner/snack. We had been served food (lunch) during the day, but it was not… um, quite what we were looking for. We chatted to the proprietor, a well-travelled Brit with a Chinese wife, who was enjoying life in Lijiang since opening his bar 2 years ago. He offered suggestions about things to do and where to go, including a change to our itinerary which we plan to do – skip Dali entirely (as we have a great set-up here) and get into Hong Kong early. We talked about playing poker sometime during the week and bid au revoir.

We returned to the hotel, and took care of some bookings – moved our flight, booked more nights here in Lijiang, and began to prepare for tomorrow – a trip to the top of the highest mountain in the province. It's more than 15,000 feet high, and from there we will be able to see quite far on a clear day. Pray for good weather!

Thanks again for reading!

Mike