Yunnan Provence (June 2007) - Part 2 Tiger Leaping Gorge

Yunnan Provence - Part 2 Tiger Leaping Gorge

My main reason for wanting to go to Yunnan Provence was to go hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge. This is a hike in the mountains along the side of the Yangze River in the far west of China. This is the second time I have been to the Yangze River. I went to the Three Gorges between Chongqing and Wuhan at Christmas. The reason I wanted to go there is because I had heard that they had just finished building the Three Gorges Dam (San Xia Da Ba), the largest dam in the world. And the water level would rise 165 meters by 2008, so I wanted to go see it before it disappeared forever, but I was too late. The water had already risen 155 meters and only had 10 meters to go.

Well, they have plans to do the same thing in Yunnan provence in Tiger Leaping Gorge and supposedly they have already started blasting. We heard some blasts when we were there, but never saw any real dam construction works. At least I got to see this gorge before it becomes a huge lake.

At the bus station, I met Paul and Sarah who are from Wales. We had a great time talking about Wales and reminiscing. They have been in China studying Chinese for 3 years. They are preparing to do some mission work eventually in minority villages. They are really nice people. I hope to keep in touch with them. After trying to study chinese on my own time and struggling with it for 10 months, it was good to talk to somebody who has done it seriously and heard that they go through some of the same headaches and struggles. It was also great hearing about some of the work they are doing for the villages. They have lots of friends doing the same kind of thing here in China. Maybe I will do something like that someday. I often think that making engines isn't what I was really put on this earth to do. Nice to meet people who seem to have found their life's work and are enjoying it.

We also hiked with three dutch people Olaf, Efan and Sane. Along the way we hiked with and stayed at the sam hotel were 4 more dutch people, some americans, british, canadians, spanish, and french people, as well as 45 singaporean high school students and a big australian family. Even a few chinese people!!

It was a really sunny hot day and the trail was very dusty and dry. I had gotten sunburned the day before and stupidly didn't bring any shirts with sleeves. As they say, "when in Rome, do as Romans". The chinese who have naturally dark skin want to be as white as possible so the women always walk around with umbrellas in the sunshine. To us it looks kind of funny, but they probably think we foreigners are silly for wearing sunglasses and wanting to get a tan. Anyway, I borrowed an umbrella from Sara and hiked like that for half a day. The chinese probably thought "Finally, a foreigner with some common sense!!" Hahaha.

We stopped at the "loo (british for toilet) with a view" and it really did have an awesome view. This is a view of the loo and the view from the loo.

But once you get to the top, it is a great view and only a short, easy walk down hill to the Tea Horse guest house which is where we spent the night. The view of the snow capped mountain (Jade Dragon Mountain) on the other side of the river was really awesome.

We were all hot and dusty and tired. Look at Sarah's feet!!!

There was an australian grandpa there who claimed to be a mountain climber and said he had climbed Mt.Everest. He told us it that nobody had ever climbed Jade Dragon Mountain which is about 5600 meters high.

He said and that it would take a month to climb and that you would have to move slowly up the mountain setting one camp, then the next day moving no more than 300 meters higher to set your next camp.

We all thought a month was a bit of an exaggeration and that became the joke for the rest of the trip. Everytime we said how beautiful the mountain was, somebody would say "but it will take a month to climb it and the last 80 meters can take you 4 hours. It's very painful..." haha

Because the Singaporean high school kids got to the guest house before us, there were only 3 rooms left when we go there, which meant that Olaf and I had to share a room (twin beds). We were so tired that we all slept really well on the top of the mountain.

The next day's hiking was much easier, all down hill and we took it at a really leisurely pace, stopping often next to a beautiful view or waterfall and soaking in the views and serenity.

We stopped hiking at Tina's Guest house at about lunch time. Had a long break for a couple of hours and took our hiking shoes and socks off for a while and enjoyed the sound of the river some cold drinks and food and a Olaf and Paul serenaded us with a guitar.

After that we took a van back to the start of the trail. We heard about some landslides, but there were two huge ones.

We aren't really sure if they were natural or man-made, but we had to pay 3 different taxi drivers to shuttle us back and forth. That 20 mile taxi ride cost us two times what the two and a half hour bus ride cost the morning before.

After a Short stop at Maro's "Gorged Tiger" Cafe, we were off to Zhongdian (Shangrila). See: Yunnan Provence (June 2007) - Part 3 Zhongdian, Dali and Back to Kunming