The past three days have been full.
Full of fun, hard work, shenanigans, hoopla, and near death experiences.

I will try to describe them as best I can, though it's impossible to remember everthing that has happened with the detail I wish to share. (if you care to read from the beginning, just scroll down to 'Mama Naxi day 1: Lijiang'.

Enjoy!


You say Low Road we say Die (Tiger Leaping Gorge: Day 2)


The next morning was raining and we had a delicious breakfast with our friends and set out on the path to Tina's guest house where we would catch a mini bus on the low road back to the base of the gorge.

The walk was pleasent, long, and not hard at all as Stuart and I enjoyed each others company with the peaceful sounds of nothingness and occasional trickeling water around us in the mountains.

We re-met up with the 2 couples that decided to stay in a more expensive place for the night with western toilets and heat (those snobs!!) haha.
We hiked about the next 1 1/2 hours with them down to Tina's and the weather cleared up a bit.

At the bottom we decided to all have a nice lunch before heading back.

I can barely describe to you the journey back on the low road, but I will try my best to do it the horrific justice it deserves.

I now know the reason that Tiger Leaping Gorge was closed: Major landslides on the lowroads, lots of dynamite to blow up parts of the road (to make it better and safer) and lots of big machinary.

Let me tell you about the low road.
On one side you have steep rocky mountain that is very prone to landslides (there were warnings everywhere)
On the other side you have a sheer rocky drop off into the gorge with no guard rail at all.

Additionally, the roads are winding, the driver sometimes having to avoid large rocks by getting painstakingly close to the edge of the road, and not knowing if there is a driver coming from the opposite direction.

We were in a mini bus that was scaring me half to death as we drove in silence. The driver said 'is very dangerous' to us and that made me feel even sicker.

After a few minutes we got out of the mini bus. There had been a landslide and rocks covered the road. We could climb over them fairly safely, but seeing the tower of rocks above, prayed that none would come tumbling down as we hurried to our next vehicle.

The next mini bus driver was crazy fast. We got out again, fearing for our lives as before us we saw that a massive landslide had taken out a good portion of the road and the only way to get across was to climb over massive rocks over the edge of the road, staring down to our rocky death below should we slip.
(Everyone was pretty terrified)
The woman that was taking us to our next mini bus looked more scared than us. 'Is very dangerous' she said to me.
I was the first to go after the lady. The first rock to climb up was a big boulder (I don't know how I climbed onto it, it must have been sheer adrenaline)
The woman yelled 'Hurry!' as if the rocks would tumble down to the gorge at any moment and I climbed as quickly as possible trying not to look over the cliff right beside me. With shaking legs and hands we all somehow managed to get across, relieved, yet fearful for the final leg of our journey.
I honestly don't remember the rest but somehow we got back to where we needed to be to get the heck out of there. We were all happy to have made it.

We calmed down and ended up cramming into a 7 person mini bus to Shangri La (a town about 2 hours from the Gorge that's way up in the mountains). Many people who travel to Shangri La experience altitude sickness as it's way way up in the mountains. Luckily only one of us has experienced it so far.

After a long ride with a few stories but mostly silence and sleep, we arrived.

After showers and relaxing at our new hostel (the Dragon Guesthouse) all 8 of us went out for a long and enjoyable dinner of yak meat, potato bread, and curry soup. We got home quite late and it was FREEZING (because it's in the mountains, Shangri La is VERY cold... Stuart and I were not at all prepared as we had initially planned to go back to Lijiang but spur of the moment decided to stay with our friends and experience a new area of China).

And there you have a jam packed day!

It Smells like Zippers and Penny's (Tiger Leaping Gorge: Yunnan)

Tiger Leaping Gorge is the deepest gorge in the world and is about a three hour journey outside of Lijiang.

Right now, Tiger Leaping Gorge is officially closed (we didn't know why, we just thought maybe it was the 'off season'. Anyway, right now it costs nothing to get in and lots of people have been doing it so we knew that it would be safe.

The ride up to the gorge was bumpy... VERY bumpy. 3 hours of this made my stomach churn, and it was nice to be out of the van when we reached our destination near the base of Tiger Leaping Gorge.

This is the group of people we went with:
2 guys from Toronto and Detroit who are traveling after studying abroad in Hong Kong
1 guy from Singapore
A couple from England (A lawyer and an aspiring school teacher)
and a couple from Switzerland

A woman yelled at us when we got to the bottom of the Gorge (We think she was trying to get us to pay). A chef at Mama's hostel warned us about her and told us not to pay her so we walked on by as she yelled. (It was easy to do that because she wasn't speaking our language).

The journey was HOT HOT HOT and Stu and I forgot to bring sunscreen and didn't pack a lot (Who wants to bring lots of stuff on a 2 day hiking trip? not us!)
It was pretty steep but we took plenty of breaks and drank plenty of water, enjoying the panoramic mountain views.

Let me describe to you what this place looks like. It's totally beautiful. Again, our pictures couldn't do it justice.

The way I can best describe it is that it looks like one of those National Geographic films where a plane goes through mountain ranges and shows views from all around and you think 'Wow! I wonder if I'll see a place like this in my lifetime.'
Well, we were right in the middle of it and loving it.

Mountains went higher than we could see into the clouds way above. Some green, some rocky, some laden with snow.

After an hour or so of pretty good hiking we found a place to have a bite to eat as it was approaching lunch. After some chicken, peanuts, apples and bananas, it was time to press on in the heat of the day.

It was hot and tough. We reached '29 bends' which is a series of rocky switchback that seem to last forever.
We finally reached the top and met a couple who tried to sell us water, snickers, and mary jane. Yes, you heard right.

Snickers sounded almost irresistable, but I wanted to press on, eager to find a place to stay for the night and have a good meal.

We stayed the night along with three other guys at 'The Tea Horse' which I thought was the dumbest name ever...

The showers were freezing and had no drain and no light. The toilet was worse than a normal chinese toilet and was just a trough, literally a trough. (I was scarred for life after using the shower/toilet and almost cried) haha.

We met a really nice Swiss couple who ad tandem biked from KL to Beijing (quite impressive indeed!) and had dinner with them which was quite lovely!

Our room was cozy, but had 2 small beds and a pig squeeling all night outside.


Mama Naxi, Banana Pancakes, Feasts: A Capital Time Had by All! (Day 1: Lijiang)

Our night train to Lijiang was glorious. I fell asleep on the bed, woke up, and poof, we were there.

It was a heck of a time trying to find our way to Mama Naxi's (our hostel) but when we did, we were greeted enthusiastically to say the least by a colourful character known, and loved by all as: Mama!

When we got there she was in a flurry, gathering people up to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge and giving them each a banana as they walked out the door.

A man who did not speak English told us to put our big backpacks outside and motioned for us to come back in and have some tea. So friendly! I immediately loved the place.

We got a menu from someone or other and decided to order a big banana pancake. (Mama's prices are the best around, and we knew we'd be getting a good home cooked meal).
We watched the little gross dogs that roamed around the common room scrapping for a while and chatted with people in the hostel when suddenly appeared the BIGGEST deep fried pancake you could imagine with bananas and honey covering it. It was the best thing we ever tasted and we quickly ordered another.

The rest of the morning was spent reading, showering, relaxing and talking to people in the hostel.
The afternoon was full of exploring, watching the old Naxi women dancing in the square, and climbing to an amazing sight seeing cafe, eating fried peanuts, playing games, and enjoying each others company as the sun shon over the veranda.

The evening was lovely and we spent it having 'family dinner' with the others in the hostel for 15 yuan per person (quite the bang for our buck). The feast, like the company, was warm and satisfying and we ate to our hearts content.

In the evening we went out for about 3 hours just walking around and observing the night life of old town Lijiang. We watched a candy maker, and hilarious dancers in clubs wearing full on traditional Chinese garb including head dresses.

(Old town is VERY touristy)

We ended the night early because we had an early morning ahead that we looked forward to: A trek to Tiger Leaping Gorge.