We left Lijiang very early on Wednesday when our bus driver came to collect us to travel to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We left most of our luggage behind, carrying only a small day pack each containing lots of snacks and warm clothes. There were very few of us on the bus – 6 or 7 passengers – and he dropped us off at the part of the trek they call Lower Tiger Leaping Gorge. From there we were able to follow arrows all along for the 7 hours we hiked that day.
It started gradually going uphill until we came to the portion they call the 28 bends. I am convinced there were more like 45 of these turns that seemed to go up and up forever. We took numerous breaks and were very glad we had brought so many snacks. We only took one wrong turn (costing us half an hour or so) and it eventually levelled off for the last 3 hours or so before we reached out hostel around 5:45pm. My dad took pity on me and carried my backpack for a good part of the way (leading to the Backpack Sandwich) and had we wanted to we also could have given in to the incessant cries of the locals pointing at their horses and saying “horse!” but decided against that as a) I didn’t want to smell like horse, b) it didn’t look too safe and c) I figured I could use my money for better things.
The Half-Way guesthouse was beautifully built and the view from our room was amazing, but the staff was less than helpful. The bathrooms were perhaps the most amazing part. Each cubicle had 3 walls and a trough down the middle. Where the 4th wall would have been, it was simply open onto the mountains! We had a nice dinner of fried rice and noodles before heading to bed around 7:30. We hadn’t brought any games or cards and despite them having both chess and go pieces there were no boards to be found, so there wasn’t much to do after it got dark.
We got a lovely 12 hours' sleep before having pancakes for breakfast and heading back out again towards Tina’s Guesthouse, where we were to catch a bus back to Lijiang. It was a two hour or so hike, downhill on uneven rocks most of the way. If I thought going uphill yesterday was bad, descending was perhaps worse. I lost my footing every minute or so, sidestepped scaring my dad at one point, fell another couple of times, scraping my hands up, and even face planted once. Whereas my Dad’s suggestion was: “Let’s walk faster and pass these people in front of us,” an amazingly nice Korean couple behind us got out their first aid kit, bandaged up my hand and even offered me one of their walking sticks.
When we finally made it to Tina’s, we took a short break for some more snacks and got directions to a path from there that was to take us down into the gorge, as we still had a while before the bus left. The Korean couple must have felt pretty sorry for me because the woman even bought me a cup of coffee and brought it outside for me – I guess all North Americans like coffee…It was a lovely gesture and I pretended to drink it appropriately.
The path we followed next was no less steep but had much better footing and we followed steps (and a short ladder) about 2/3 of the way down. At the spot we stopped, another long ladder continued down and we decided that the climb back up was going to be tough enough already. Also, as a guy who had gone all the way down said: “The view’s about the same…just closer.”
Surprisingly, the walk up was actually faster (I guess I had been watching my footing very carefully on the way down) and we made it back in time to have more rice and noodles at Tina’s before the bus. We both slept for a good part of the way back and went out for another stroll through Old Lijiang and dumplings before bed.
OH WOW beautiful pictures! Imma bookmark ur blog and show it to my parents & friends :D
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