The Tiger Leaping Gorge

on the morning i was to leave lijiang for the tiger leaping gorge, i was waiting outside the toilet of my little hostel in lijiang (like a gladiator awaiting battle) when the door opened and out came...rene! (for those who forgot - the swiss german guy i'd spent time with in yangshuo). here he was, 500km from where i thought he would be!

as we blunder through life (and believe me i'm blundering) we occasionally chance upon people who are genuine 'diamonds in the rough'. people who are completely comfortable and true to themselves, accepting of everyone and so kind hearted that you feel good just being around them. such was rene for me.

i told him of my plans and he immediately packed his bags and joined me on the bus to the gorge.

the tiger leaping gorge is a sharp valley between two peaks - jade dragon snow mountian (5500m) and haba snow mountain (5396m). the yangzi river flows almost 4km lower than these peaks, resulting in one of the largest stone walls on earth. 4km of almost vertical slate grey cliff face from the river to the snow-capped mountain peak. can you imagine?

at the start of the hike is a place called 'margo's', run by an aussie woman. a belgian guide book actually states 'avoid margo's - she's a bitch', but we went there anyway. suffice to say, the guide book was spot-on, and in addition to being a bitch, she was one of those people who spoke to accented people with a form of pidgin english. you know the type: "you go here, bag there, eat after", "toilet close, busy no-no". it's one of my pet hates in life. as if people learning english need to struggle with a half-wit screaming broken phrases in a silly made-up accent that hampers everyone's understanding of what's going on. for god's sake, if you're speaking english - speak english! for anyone visiting the gorge, please avoid margo's - she's a bitch.

rene and i took the walk easy, breaking from the others after a few hours. instead of my usual power-hiking, we meandered for 2-4 hours a day, slept late and ate slowly, sat in the sun contemplating life and generally enjoyed ourselves.

the hike passed through a number of super-friendly naxi villages and even down a rickety old ladder attached to 20m of cliff-face with sticks and ropes.

on the third night we teamed up with an aussie jehova's witness, a disgusted frenchman and two canadian scientists for an evening of drinking games that left some of us at a complete loss as to how to control what we were saying or doing, and a cluster of empty beer bottles that seemed to stretch to the horizon. i recall falling down a flight of stone stairs wearing size 5 plastic ladies' slippers. not good.

all of sunday was spent staring at the 3.9km wall of rock opposite the guest house. anything else was a bit much.

and so finished the tiger leaping gorge.

pic 1 - naxi girl with suspiciously un-chinese toy animal

pic 2 - the wall of rock

pic 3 + 4 - naxi farmers

pic 5 - the drinking team

pic 6 - menu at guesthouse