Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Two days of trekking across the high route along Tiger Leaping Gorge is not really to be taken lightly, especially if you are me! My god it was hard, well the walk up was anyway, so much so that one of the local's and his donkey followed us up for the first couple of hours at first telling us he would take our day packs for free, then as the day wore on the price went from 40-100 yuan. We saw a couple of chinese tourists coming down the path on donkeys telling us the climb was "too difficult", though to be honest there was no way I was going on a donkey on those paths at that height! Eventually the man and donkey gave up on us when he realised that we were stubborn westerners and that he was not going to make any money out of us.
Now as you can imagine the scenery on the trek is stunning, particularly rock formations in the mountains, we were also lucky that it didn't rain for the two days we were there, if it had I reckon I would have refused to have done the trek and gone on the easy way by bus and met the others at the last guesthouse. The pathway is quite precarious and there are quite a few dangerous sections where you have to walk across waterfalls, if it wasn't for Alex or Richard I think I would have turned around and walked back the way we came as it was pretty scary for someone like me (hence I think I have developed a fear of heights now!).
There are also quite a few people selling provisions along the way and a couple of guesthouses that you can stop off to sleep and eat, we stayed at the Halfway House and I must say the setting was stunning, though I don't actually think anyone slept very well the night we spent there.
The second day I ended up suffering with vertigo, maybe it was the lack of sleep or just because when I looked down I could see the river. Anyway I really really struggled on the way to Tina's guesthouse (the final stop) and I made the decision to not go down the final way.
Now I may have been on various road to hell in Mongolia but the drive back from Tina's was the most scariest ever, landslides, falling rocks and roadworks along the way really shot my nerves to peices!
- comments