Tiger Leaping Gorge – Day 1

  

Tiger Leaping Gorge is pretty much the reason I came to China. Last September, October, my friend Hilary – the Aussie who started the home in Cambodia for girls rescued from sex slave trafficking, did a 6 week backpacking trip with her 15 year old son. They did Vietnam, Cambodia and China and she posted her fantastic pictures, as well as detailed travel information, on her blog. I was home, working again and living vicariously through her adventures, as we travelers do when we are not travelling. It is funny because many of us are inspired by each other in so many ways. Meeting strong people makes you think maybe you could be stronger. Her description of the sites she and Nath saw in China, especially the beauty of Tiger Leaping Gorge, made me comment on her blog that I wanted to see that someday for myself. Hils posted such detail of how she got where she did, that I just cut and pasted her stuff and have followed her lead on this China leg – Thanks Hils!

So, that is about the extent of travel planning I ever do, because I like to be flexible and just go where I want to: so often you meet nice folks and you change your schedule to do a few days together. Asmok had left the day before to head in a different direction and I really had thought I would meet up with someone to do the 2 or 3 day trek with. My hope continued when I got to the bus station in Shangri-la but again, I was the only foreigner on the huge bus. The bus did have something ingenious that I had never seen before. At the end of each row of seats was a colorful Disney waste basket. They were all filled with a few inches of water. At first I thought maybe the roof was leaking but that was not the case – then I figured it out. They are puke and spit buckets!!!! Many Asians puke on the bus – in lots of developing countries (less in China), people just do not have much experience in cars or buses: they have lots on motorcycles. Add to that windy mountain roads and yup – puke. Chinese love to spit. Actually I think there is less spitting here than in Vietnam but here they also love to make that horrid 'HHHOOOOOrkkkk" noise. These buckets can be spit and puked in and the water neutralizes the catch. How great and luxurious is that??? Cambodia and Laos – take note.




So, only Westerner on the bus – I tell the driver "Qiao Tou” and show him my note from Kevin. He takes notice and I settle in for a stunning two hour ride from Shangri-La through the mountain passes and over the valleys to the town of Qiao Tou where the start of the trek begins. I hope to meet someone in town or maybe at the place I am planning to leave my big bag………the reason for really wanting to meet up with someone or a group of someone's was twofold. The most important one being is I didn’t even have a map. Everyone I meet has every detail of China or whatever country planned/worked out that I just am a travelling leech:  I absorb their months, and sometimes years, of planning and I don’t have to take any of the diminishing space left in my brain for those details…....and I don’t have to carry the heavy books either. Usually it works well.

The second main reason for wanting to hook up was because this trek is very dangerous. Very dangerous and just plain stupid to hike anywhere alone, let alone the deepest gorge in the world, 27 kms of walking on cliff hanging shale and rock paths. You trip, you die. And somehow it seems more important and far more acceptable to trip and die with a group so they can tell you family where you went over. Others before have tripped and died so it is not just an airy-fairy scary idea. I knew, from Hils pictures and descriptions, that this is the real deal. Hard, but going to be worth it.

Back on the bus, I was loving the scenery, loving the day and thinking again, what an incredible life I have, when the bus pulled over and the driver came back and yelled at me to get off. This happens to me a lot. Hurriedly, I grabbed my bag and hopped off on the side of the road – got my big bag from the hold under the bus and there I was, again, on the side of yet another highway - alone. I kind of had pictured it differently in my head when I left Kevin’s. Thought I would hook up with new best friends at the station…..make a plan enroute……look at their map, etc……..nope. My plan of sponging someone else’s plan, was not coming together!

Within minutes of standing on the side of the highway wondering where in the hell to go, I was approached by a group of young guys who had hand drawn maps and were miming something about horses or donkeys or something. From Hil’s account I knew you could rent a horse on the trail to carry your bag partway but I had no idea what these guys were offering on the highway so I declined….only after grabbing a map and asking where Jane’s place was. I was directed up a dirt road and headed off. After a few stops to ask the wrong types of people directions, I found my way to Jane’s Guesthouse. There are three famous guesthouse owners in these parts – Jane, Margot and Sean. And drama, and gossip. From other blogs I learned Margot and Sean were married and then broke up and Sean took up with Jane or something like that and then, just six months ago, Margot fell or got pushed, over into a gorge and her body was found only very recently – her dog returned and yes, she too was trekking alone and only her dog indicated her disappearance!!!! All of these people came to TLG and stayed….and got bushed…..and just maybe went a little crazy. It is very remote and the winters must be very long and lonely……

So I met Jane – she carries a mirror with her always and looks at herself, even when she is talking to you. Her guesthouse is rough – really rough but as they say in everything…..location, location, location….and there are no other choices in Qiao Tou. If you get stuck there, she is the only place in town. By this time it is now 10:30 am and there was no one else around. She said that the bus comes from Lijiang at 11 and that maybe there would be others doing the gorge on that bus……not looking good for me. So I stored my bag….which simply means left it beside a picnic table, and headed off to do a really stupid thing…..hike alone…..in China……on a treacherous 2 or three day trek – 27 km in length…..with a hand drawn map with Chinese lettering that mostly had pictures of horses on it…….what else could I do? Like waiting for the perfect man……sometimes you just have to say to hell with it and get on….alone.

Obviously you are reading this, after the fact, and I did not meet the same fate as Margot. But on that note – if you are going to trip/jump or get pushed…….I highly recommend this place. It is truly Shangri-la – really. Well not really, but it is close enough – 2 hours south of the ‘real’ Shangri-la.

The pictures can’t even show you how steep or how beautiful the walls of this gorge are. The Yangtze winds itself through the gorge and the legend is about a tiger leaping across the river – see, no guidebook so look it up if you are interested, this is the wrong blog to look for facts and details – I am sure it is fascinating. I intend to learn all these things when I am old – too busy right now.



I started up the path where Jane pointed, hopeful that, just around the corner, there would be some really nice people to hike with. There is also this little issue about me and directions….not so good. I get lost….everyday….everywhere…..and now……in the Chinese mountains….. huge Tibetan sized mountains….

I also knew from Hil’s account that there are infrequent markings of arrows on rocks that point the way. There are also fraudulent arrows to point you the wrong way, maybe to horse renters or to snack sellers….



I didn’t even get 300 m before a goat herder told me I was on the wrong path. I had missed the first arrow and arrived at his farm. He flailed his arms and waved me in a different direction. Not a good start but the sky was blue and the morning was really getting warm – just as I had hoped for. I continued on and Eureka! good Karma and all that, ran into three lovely young New Yorkers: Chinese Americans, doing a semester abroad in Beijing. My new best friends! We hiked on, in the ever increasing heat and I learned that they were not to be my forever best friends, as they were leaving on the 6 pm bus to Ligiang and were only going to go partway then turn back.

The three of them were not very helpful because they were as bad as I was with the sense of direction. We kept missing the arrows and kept taking the wrong paths. Their Mandarin was a godsend though for asking the few herders and farmers we encountered, where to go. The first hour we climbed somewhat gradually, up and down over terraced rice paddies and through immaculate farms perched on the side of the gorge. 


 


The day heated up and the girls, being typical obsessed Asians, had to stop and reapply sunscreen every hour or so. They told me tales of their friends and their mothers obsession with being as ‘white’ as possible – even in the States!   They were delightful and great company.
At about noon, a young guy appeared, on horseback, out of nowhere and offered to take our packs, for cash. I had also learned from Hil’s experience that it was the best $10 she had ever spent so I was all over that. The heat was scorching and my pack was really getting heavy – it is not the kind designed for long distances: it has no waist belt to take the weight off my shoulders and I had to rely on the chest strap to carry the weight of my emergency provisions – a rain poncho, an umbrella, chocolate bars that were melting, sesame bars, water, extra socks and my flip flops in case of blisters and way too much other stuff. My poor little boobs were flattened….and what is with that anyway? How can small boobs sag? Who knew? This aging thing is also packed with surprises!




The New Yorkers wouldn’t come in on the deal as they, being 21 years old and carrying pretty much nothing but sunscreen, felt that they should be able to carry their purses without a problem. We stopped for lunch at Naxi’s Guesthouse which was at the 1600 m mark and then the next hour we started to climb……after 10 minutes or so two of them gave in and put their purses onto the horse. These girls did not have a map either and the horse guy told them, in Mandarin, that we were headed to the 28 bends section which I remembered something about from Hil’s blog. From their translation – he was saying it was a 60 degree incline over 600 meters. We were not sure if something was lost in translation because one story said it would take two and half hours to do the 28 bends and anther was 1.5 hours. We all were concerned with time:  I was really concerned about being between Guesthouses in the dark and they were trying to figure out how far they could go before turning back in order to get the bus to Ligiang. The girls soldered on and I do say soldiered – this path is not for sissies – it was even hard at this point and there was just a whole lot more to come! We saw a few other groups of trekkers at the Naxi Guesthouse where we stopped for lunch but saw few on the trail.






 






The pictures cannot begin to capture the beauty. It was truly spectacular. From looking now at some of the data on the place – the climb from Qiao Tou to the top of 28 bends is over 1000 meters, in about 3 hours or so. It put me up around the 3000 meter level. The big mountain here (Haba Snow Mountain) is at 5400 meters, so there were big ones and smaller ones and I was around 2000 meters higher than the river below – straight below. The path continued on a nice level route, again past terraced rice paddies carved from the stone and along the cliffs of the gorge. Most of the time I could see down to the river below. Amazing to walk along the tops of the mountains. Every half hour or so I would see a rock with a note painted saying “Halfway in 30 minutes”…..then another half hour passed and a rock would say :” Halfway Guesthouse – 45 minutes”  or “Tea Horse Trade Guesthouse – 30 minutes”  I did know that the Tea Horse Guesthouse was first and it was about one hour from the Halfway Guest House so……..Signs – bulls***. The only thing they did was give me confidence that I was at least on the path to somewhere. The last hour up to the Tea Horse was just plain nice – no climbing, just rambling along on the top of the mountain, past herds of goats and the occasional farm, stopping now and then to take pictures and just enjoy the whole experience.

When I arrived at the Tea Horse GH, it was around 5 pm and I figured I had had enough. My feet were hot but still pretty much OK and I didn’t want to chance being caught in the dark. I just couldn’t trust the signs and did not know how far it was to the Halfway GH. Also, I had taken so many pictures I thought I was at the end of my second battery and desperately needed to recharge the camera for the next day.

I got a room – nice but very expensive – around $20 which is pretty expensive for here. It had a TV, hot water and a view over the gorge so I thought well worth it (location, location, location!) and also the other option was a dorm…..nah…..there seemed to be no one else there so I wondered about the rate but was too tired to negotiate. Luckily, the first thing I did was plug my camera in and hop in the shower. I was lucky because, again without the guidebook…..I did not realize the place only has electricity for two hours a day and I happened on the last 30 minutes of that day. If I hadn’t lucked out I would not have had any pictures from Day 2…….good karma again……so what’s with the TV and the sign for hot water???? Two hours only – in the afternoon. The place was nice though and somehow filled up with different French families later that evening. I didn’t realize that there was some road you could take from the lower path (riverside) up to Tea Horse.   It must be some road. As this was still “Golden Week” (May Day) – one of only two holiday weeks in China, the French families were expats working all over China and on their vacations. Seven kids under seven……..with male Chinese nannies, yikes!

Nonetheless, the kids ran around and screamed and the nannies chased them and the parents smoked and drank and I slept. Very well.