Tiger Leeping George

  Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Shuhe, China
Sunday, August 7, 2005

August 7, 2005
Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Shuhe, China

"Plays Well With Others"

Since my last entry in Dali I have; met 4 great people to travel with, learned how to play a really fun card game appropriately enough called "backpacker", faced my fear of heights/vertigo by hiking the ominous "Tiger Leaping Gorge, and finally, had all of my awe inspiring pictures of Tiger Leaping Gorge erased by some jackass who thought he knew how to burn pictures from my camera's memory card onto CD (when actually he only knew how to erase memory cards and then point at them and repeatedly say "broken" in Chinese while nervously laughing.)

Shortly after my last entry I bought a bus ticket from the old walled city of Dali where the minority Bai people live and the women wear cool blue outfits, to the city of Lijiang where the minority Naaxi people live and the women wear equally cool blue AND purple outfits. As I was waiting for the bus to arrive I met 2 other travelers who were taking the same bus, Jamie from Toronto, Canada and Kat from Sydney, Australia. Jamie and Kat had met on a different bus a week earlier and after chatting for a few hours during our ride we decided to make it a threesome.

Meeting Jamie was especially good luck since he's lived in Taiwan for the past two years teaching English (like myself) and diligently studied Chinese for those entire two years (unlike myself), so his Chinese is about 10 times better than mine. While I can order stuff, ask directions and generally make myself understood, Jamie can have full on conversations about a seemingly endless number of topics. Without it ever being discussed, he was immediately elected our unofficial "Team Leader."

Lijiang

After arriving in Lijiang we quickly checked into a cheap room amid the extremely un-gridlike cobblestone lanes and plugged in our "ipods" and digital camera battery chargers (I guess this has now become the modern equivalent of starting a fire for travelers of days gone by.) I still can't believe we never tripped a breaker or blew a fuse, each outlet we commandeered was a mass of voltage adapters and chargers.

After we got all settled and plugged in we had dinner at a restaurant where the waitresses kept sticking pens in their noses and laughing. They even asked Jamie, "Don't women stick pens in their noses in Canada?" At the time we thought they were drunk but now I think Naaxi people are just playful and irreverent about most things. Plus the women kind of run the show in Naaxi culture so they're a lot more outgoing and forward than some of their sisters from the other cultures in China.

Lijiang is a beautiful old smoky city with a maze of winding cobbled alleys filled with old women in their colorful dress selling fried bread and steamed dumplings, but it is also very heavily touristed, especially by the infamous "Chinese Tour Group!" There were literally hundreds of these groups (all wearing matching gaudy bright T-shirts or baseball caps) banging their way through the narrow streets while smoking, spitting, yelling and generally being obnoxious.

The only redeeming thing about these tour groups is watching the "Oh so stylish" rich Chinese women trying to walk on the cobblestones in their stiletto high heels while carrying a camcorder in one hand and an umbrella in the other to keep the awful sun off their precious, skin cream dyed, white complexions. Even with the hilarity of vain Chinese women snapping their ankles all around us, we decided to skip the rest of the tour group inanity that had invaded Lijiang and head straight to Tiger Leaping Gorge in the morning.

Us Guys


Kat & I



A Goat, Myself and Jamie

Before meeting Jamie and Kat I was planning on doing the somewhat lame bus trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge where you get out, walk around for an hour or two on paved roads and take pictures from big cement observation decks. I'd read about the trek, which takes a few days and has some pretty narrow paths and steep drop offs and decided that due to my morbid fear of heights and knee quaking vertigo that maybe I wasn't quite man enough. However, after a little peer pressure from my new "Commonwealth" friends I decided that if a couple of people who still have to answer to the Queen of England (she's still on their money for crying out loud!) can do the trek, than it was probably my patriotic duty to show them just what a Red Blooded American Male is capable of!

Jamie's Loney Planet (I was back in the company of a guidebook again) said that there were 8 different buses going from the city of Lijiang to the start of the Gorge trek at the small outpost of Qiaotou every day, and that tickets were 20 Yuan ($2.50) each. Unfortunately even with Jamie's excellent Chinese we were no closer to getting a ticket after a few hours of conflicting information and confusion. The woman at the ticket window was sticking to her story (against all other written evidence and common sense) that that there was in fact only 1 bus each day and that it had of course already left. So, since the 3 of us had already checked out of our room and had our packs literally on our backs, we decided to rent a car for 50 yuan ($6) each, even though we were fairly sure that the ticket lady and the private car drivers were in cahoots to rip off us "Waiguoren" (in Chinese, literally "Outside People", or foreigners.)

Even though I was a little nervous about the trek, I spent the entire car ride to the Qiaotou psyching myself up with happy thoughts and trying to imagine what Tony Robbin's advice to me might be. By the time we reached the little town I was sufficiently pumped up and confident that I could face my vertigo/fear of heights and tackle this hopefully imaginatively named "Tiger Leaping Gorge."

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world, carved by millennia of the Yangtze River's cutting waters. I guess it would be China's version of the Grand Canyon but I think it's a little narrower and the river seems much more powerful and violent (we were told by a local that everyone who has tried to white water raft the gorge has died.) Since it was the rainy season the river was a churning mud-brown of mountain runoff and especially high and turbulent.

Before starting the hike we stopped at a small cafe/guesthouse for a fortifying banana/yogurt smoothie. The place was owned by a manic Australian lady who is married to an equally wacky Chinese guy who owns a guesthouse at the far end of the trek. As we were enjoying our warm smoothies, I asked (as nonchalantly as I could) "So, how IS the ol' trail these days? In good shape? It's not REALLY dangerous, is it?" Of course the Australian lady just laughed and said, "No, no, it's fine. There haven't been many landsides lately, and unless you have vertigo or something you'll be alright if you're careful. The trail's almost a meter wide over the really high cliffs over the Gorge. I mean, there was a guy who had to crawl for 2 kilomters last week but he had vertigo, and a couple of Germans died 3 weeks ago, but I don't think they were being careful. You guys look like you should be fine."

Right. First of all, I have no idea how she thought she could tell that we would be "fine" just by looking at us. If she could have seen the horror show going on inside my head at that moment I think she would have changed her mind. Second, even though her tone was cheerful and reassuring I can't think of any sane person on the planet who would find the actual information comforting; "landslides?, a meter wide trail?, crawling for 2 kilometers?, death?!" What the hell?

At this point I turned to my basically British subject friends and confessed that this Red Blooded American Male was having second thoughts. That in fact, he was scared just a little bit shitless. Fortunately, both Jamie and Kat were totally understanding and comforting. They promised to hold my hand if need be during any scary parts and that if it got too sketchy for me to handle, we could turn back. So with a deep breath and a quick "Hail Mary" (I decided to become Catholic at this point for some reason, first thing that came to mind I guess) we started to trek the perilous and foreboding "TIGER LEAPING GORGE!"

It turns out that the hardest part about trekking "Tiger Leaping Gorge" is listening to the crazy Australian lady describe the trek before hand. It was really no problem, even for someone with absolutely no head for heights like me. There were definitely times when I was just about out of breath, but only from the steepness of the climb and the altitude, never from fear. At certain times it was best to look straight ahead but my knees never started shaking and I was never in any danger of letting my country down.


"Middle Tiger Leeping George", After I Saw This Sign I Knew Everything Was Gonna Be Just Fine. I'm Really Gonna Miss Chinglish

Describing the actual trek is a little hard I guess. Basically we walked up for a day, then we walked level for a day, then we walked down for a day. Sometimes the clouds were above us, sometimes we were in the clouds, and sometimes we were above the clouds. The whole time we were surrounded by towering black jagged peaks streaked with the white mineral residue of snow runoff and rushing waterfalls (some of which we had to walk through.) We crossed paths with donkey supply trains, friendly (but nibbly) goats, and even friendlier locals. Also there was a light drizzle most of the time that was actually kind of nice because it kept us cool, and we ate a lot of Yak Jerky which was really, really good.


Kat In A Waterfall

Our first night in the gorge we stayed at the cozy "Luye Guesthouse" run by a local Naaxi family and met a great couple from New Zealand, Mark and Sally, who introduced us to the highly addictive card game "Backpacker." After a couple of beers and a few friendly rounds of Backpacker we had all hit it off and decided to try to stick together throughout the gorge. We were now a five some.

The Luye Guesthouse, The First Guesthouse We Stayed At In Tiger Leaping Gorge



Mother and Daughter Who Ran The Luye Guesthouse



Mark Stealing The Last "Baozi" (pork filled steamed bun) while Sally looks on


Along the way we hiked hard during the day, gorged on great home cooked meals (gorged, get it?) at 2 more quiet little Naaxi family guesthouses in the evening, and played Backpacker until we couldn't focus anymore at night. The guesthouses along the gorge were really amazing. They could have charged us anything they wanted since we were basically in the middle of nowhere and had very few options. Instead, they charged 10 Yuan ($1.25) a night per person for a comfy bed with big thick duvet and only about 5% more than in town for food and drink, even though they had to bring everything in by donkey! On top of all this, the beer was always ice cold. I like Naaxi people.



Views Of Tiger Leaping Gorge



In The Clouds



Above The Clouds



Looking Down Into The Gorge (This Part Was A Little Scary)



Jamie And I Hiking Through a Cornfield On The Way Down To The Yangtze River



The Raging Yangtze



Some Of The Friendly Locals



Woman Carrying A Basket Of Ferns Up The Mountain



Cute Kids



Cute Messy Kid With Runny Nose



Coolest Looking Old Guy Ever, With Pipe



Washing In The River


After completing the trek and sharing a mini bus back to Lijiang, the 5 of us all took massive showers to wash off the three days of filth accumulated on the trek. Then we had one last dinner together before saying goodbye to Jamie who was heading off to Yangshuo (my first home in China.) Mark, Sally, Kat and I then spent the next day and a half resting our muscles and playing Backpacker (I'm telling you, it's addictive!) until Mark and Sally left for another province and it was just me and Kat.

Someone had told Kat earlier about a little town 15 minutes outside of Lijiang called "Shuhe" that was supposed to be a much smaller and quieter version of Lijiang (without all the ridiculous Chinese tour groups), so we headed there next.


"The Ancient City Of Shuhe"

Our first impression of Shuhe was about as bad as it gets. When we approached the "Town Gate" we were informed that it would cost 30 Yuan ($4) per person just to enter the "Ancient City Of Shuhe" (as described in our brochure? of the city.) After buying our tickets and entering, we noticed that the "Ancient City Of Shuhe" seemed to still be under construction? It was being built to look like an old city but it was definitely brand new. It was like being at some Disneyland "Old Town Village" creation or the Renaissance Festival, complete with fake antiques and "artisans." We had a feeling that whoever told Kat about this place was working for the Chinese government because it was obviously a made up tourist trap. It was also full of Chinese tourists who seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit. Needless to say we weren't impressed with "The Ancient City Of Shuhe."

It turns out that there IS an actual "Ancient City Of Shuhe" but in typical Chinese fashion the government has built a "New Old Town" (they actually call it this with a straight face) right in front of the actual old town. The New Old Town has one entrance "The Old Town Gate" and is almost completely walled in, cutting you off from the real town. Everything in The New Old Town is owned by the government so they can charge whatever they want since they have a complete monopoly. This invented town also keeps most visitors and any money they would spend away from the actual villagers. Of course the Chinese tourist groups loved it, their attitude seemed to be "Why would you want to go to an old dirty city with real people when you can go to a brand new one that looks old but doesn't smell as bad?" Kat and I were not satisfied with this fake experience and started to plan our escape from "The New Old City."

Luckily after about an hour of following the inside of the white washed walls like caged rats we found a hole. I'm not kidding, we literally had to sneak through a hole in the wall to get to the original Ancient City of Shuhe. Once we got there and saw the authentic old architecture and local people doing their thing for real we sighed with relief, we'd made it.

We ended up staying in Shuhe for 2 nights in a ragged old locally owned guesthouse being lulled to sleep on beds as hard as boards by a little brook running through the town. We also ate at a goat roast (like a pig roast, but with a goat.) It was a pretty good time all in all. The only problem was that when it was time to leave we had to walk back through the "New Old Town" to catch a bus back to Lijiang. We scowled the whole way.




Views Of The Real Shuhe


Goat Roast


Breakfast Noodle Girl



Me In A Chinese Tractor



Baby On Board



Woman Carrying Water At Dawn



Houses On The Side Of A Hill


Quotes On Friendship:

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
Dale Carnegie

My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet. She's now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia.
Dame Edna Everage (1934 - )