Lijiang

The old town of Lijiang was recently made a world heritage site due to its unique layout and architecture from many of the local ethnic minorities over its 800 year history. Most of the buildings have now been turned into shops, restaurants and guest houses, so the area has a bit of a theme park vibe to it, but despite this the town is undeniably stunning. We were lucky to be here in the low season and were able to walk around the small winding alleyways without the hordes of tourists.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest Gorges in the world and the waters feed into the Yangtze River. Our trip to the Tiger Leaping Gorge was on the "maybe" list when we landed in China due to overall lack in good information, vast amounts of misinformation and considerable contradictions between all available resources.

After a good discussion with some people who had actually done it we were convinced that the danger of the trail was over-hyped (largely by locals in the nearby Lijiang who want you to stay longer) and it became one of the most anticipated items on our itinerary.

We chose to do the hike over two days so that we were able to enjoy the scenery and save our legs. I'm not sure of the actual distance that we covered, but it is around 14km between the start and finish as the crow flies, not including the descent to the rapids.

As soon as we set off we had a local on a donkey following us ominously at a distance waiting for us to break down and seek assistance. The scenery was spectacular and the photos don't do justice to the amazing views all along the track. The most anticipated portion of the first days hike was the appropriately named "28 bends" where the rocky track winds its way up a near vertical ascent. At regular intervals there were lovely old ladies selling "Water? Banana? Hemp...?" although it was a mystery as to how they managed to get to the more remote parts of the trail, where even the donkey droppings seemed to be absent. We spent the night at the Tea-horse Inn in an old farming village where we watched the snow capped mountains disappear with the setting sun and rested our legs in preparation for another hard day.

Where the first day was missing the narrow paths along sheer cliff faces that we had expected, the second day did not disappoint. We made a gradual decent from the high path to Tina's guest house, where we had a quick meal before descending down narrow paths cut into the cliff face to reach the middle tiger leaping rapids. The path down was exhilarating and the spectacle that awaited us at the bottom was well worth the effort!

After spending some time relaxing on a large rock next to the rapids we made the gruelling climb back up to Tina's guest house to catch the bus on to Shangri-La.