First annoying point is that last night I wrote a huge blog for Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG form herein) and this morning it somehow deleted itself, very annoying so now I'll try to remember what I wrote!

So, first question, why is it not wholly acceptable to wear skippers when trekking? Because I'm sure these swollen maggot shape blisters would not be decorating my heels if I'd been donning some fluffy, padded Marks and Sparks slippers!

So first up we were sat eating a leisurely breakfast when some squawking Chinese lady entered the hostel screaming "tiger tiger tiger", assuming this was our lift we jumped up and were hustled out of the hostel an rushed through the town then pushed onto various minibuses, after this mass rush, she drove at 50km/h or less for th entire three hour journey, which I'm sure should have taken two hours!

We arrived in Qiaotou, the beginning of the trek. Most people set off straight away so we were on our own....guideless, clueless and nervous with a single A4 hand drawn map as our guide. We started walking in a direction and trekked up a gravelly path past schools and fields until we saw it, the roaring first bend of the Yangtze river....! WOW what an incredible sight, we could see the gorge both up and downstream, it was surrounded by lush greenery which turned to light brown as it crept up the mountains and utlimately turne into metallic grey, snow-capped peaks high up in the sky. The peaks were occasionally smattered with fluffy white clouds that were dotted around the perfectly blue sky.

We walked up to a corner which gave us a 'postcard picture' and took a photo, a split second after I took it I heard a rustling sound and jumped back in horror at the sight of the tiny weathered gremlin that had jumped out of her homebuilt camouflaged bunker, she smiled a gappy, stained smile and held up three bent, leathered fingers up to our faces. Aaah, this is what we'd been warned about, apprently there are a series of old timers claiming to have dug out sections of the trek and charging people to take photos on their patch, fair enough, it's only 30p to us. She charged us twice for one camera and one photo then scuttled away, giggling to her hideaway where she would be waiting for her next group of unsuspecting tourists.

We carried on walking up the gravelly trail until we'd been going for two hours then we stopped for an energy boost in the form of chocolate of course with a cheery Spanish girl and her miserable
American friend. After ten minutes we set off again through tiny villages, population average: 20, fields and farms until we reached our next pit stop. This is a common resting point before the dreaded 28 bends. An elderly lady had set up an official looking school desk with fruit, drinks and snacks to get trekkers through the next section, she also gave us a well practiced sales pitch and tried her hardest to sell us a bag of her homegrown marijuana......crazy! We declined however, not sure it'd quite give us the boost we required to get up the next section.

The 28 bends are a series of gruelling switchbacks that take you up the mountain to the highest point of the trek, 2670m altitude. It was serious hard work and took us 45 minutes of climbing up steep, gravelly paths. Not only did we have to contend with the altitude causing breathing difficulties but there were also a few groups of mental donkeys legging it from top to bottom at high speeds, almost flinging us off the mountain face, followed by their equally mental owners. When we reached the top it was most definately worth it, the views were incredible, by this point we were level with some of the snow-capped peaks and the drop down to the Yangtze was heartstopping.
The following few hours were much easier and the trail took us through cool, dark green pine forests, more villages and over bridges. We walked until our feet pretty much bled and arrived at Halfway Guesthouse at about 5.30pm. The guesthouse was beautiful, it was made mainly from pine and looked like a huge ski chalet, it was all centred round a lovely courtyard. We checked into our double (no dorm tonight as a treat for working hard), the wall length window was incredible as the entire view was overlooking the gorge and mountain peaks....great thing to wake up to, I should also mention that the communal toilets only had three walls so as you pee'd you had the same view and were open to the elements of the gorge. We met up with some other trekkers and ordered food and beers, this carried on until thee were just six of us left out of about thirty (us, a Dutch couple and a hilarious pair of Swedish boys) and we were kicked out at 11.30pm when the generator was turned off an we were plunged into darkness, there was also a humongous storm taking place which was good in a way as the lightening lit our way!

The next morning we were up early (ish) and had a good feed before setting off with a really nice Israeli couple. Luckily the ground was bone dry after the storm and the sun was on it's best behaviour. We walked nonstop for about three hours through fields and under one waterfall until we reached Tina's Guesthouse on the lower trail.
At Tina's we booked minibus tickets back to Lijiang for 4pm and then walked for 45 minutes in the roaring heat down to Seun's Guesthouse for lunch and then back uphill to return to Tina's. The bus was pretty scary as the driver flew along the road that still had a very steep descent down to the Yangtze. What didn't help was when we had to drive around (on the smallest remaining bit of road) a house size boulder that had dropped onto the road during a landslide that had occured during the previous nights landslide......turns out you really should always opt for the high road...!
It took about three hours to get back to Lijiang where we shared a room for the night with our new Israeli friends and passed out as soon as our heads hit the pillow.....another exhausting but incredible experience to add to the list.
As I've written these a bit back to front we've now finished our 24 hour sleeper bus, phew! Apart from the smoking it was okay, we arrived at 7am in Jinghong.....well technically we arrived at 5.30am, they told Jinghong passengers to get off the bus (in Chinese), we missed that. Luckily the drivers were having a few hours of nap time before the next leg and we managed to wake up, figure out where we were and jump off before they set off....oops! Another close shave!

X