A Journey to Well Known Places

After three nights in Lijiang we boarded a bus from Mama Naxi’s guest house and headed for Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was a two hour mini bus ride to the train head; which is not at all marked. We were met at the minibus stop by a nice Australian lady that gave us some preliminary directions and a map. The four hour hike was not particularly strenous, but we had eated bad Chinese the night before and Erica was pretty sick. She was vomitting all night. When we got up in the morning she was feeling better and off we went. Maybe it was the heat or maybe it was the winding bus ride, but somewhere along the way she took a turn for the worse. I felt pretty bad for her as she paused to dry heave in the magnificant valley. What a trooper. We reached the mostly halfway pointed and stayed at the Tea Horse guest house. The view was great. Clouds clung to the mountains and the river raged in the valley below. There was greenery everywhere. Banana trees, corn, and mellons all grew on the side of the terraced slope. In the morning we could see clouds roll through the valley below us and shift on the mountains above. Very pretty.

We stayed two nights in the Tea Horse before setting off to finish the trek. It was a very relaxing time. They had a sad little money in a metal cage off to the side of the building. It would occasionally howl and rattle it’s bars. It was raining the morning we were supposed to leave. I asked the inn keeper if she sold poncho’s. She didn’t say anything, but walked away to another building. She came back with an empty rice bag, cut it up one side, and slipped it on my head. I must have looked pretty silly because everyone around started laughing. Especially the inn keeper. She was still laughing as we walked off in the rain. It was a slippery walk along a rocky path with a sheer drop to one side. There were a number of places where if you slipped that would be it for you. It took about four hours to get to the bottom and another 20 minutes to get to our guest house. That night we splurged on western food and drinks. It was good.

Having walked the trail in the rain I thought the excitement was behind us. Oh no. We got up in the morning started our day at a leisurely pace. Around 11 we started asking about how we were going to get to our next destination: Shangri La. We were informed that there was a mud slide the day before and the normal road out was closed, but we could take the other way around the mountain and the ferry to the next town. From there we could take the bus to Shangri La. OK. We joined up with two Irish girls and hired a driver to take us to the ferry. The ride was only 10 minutes long, but it was 10 minutes of pure terror. Our driver, appearantly having made peace with his life on earth, raced around the corners like a drunk teenager in Dad’s new car. There were rocks on the raod from the previous days storms and parts of the edge of the road were washed out. There were no guard rails. Occasionally there we nine inch tall squares of stone sticking out of the edge of the road on the curves, but all they looked to be good for was a final reminder to abandon all hope. It was a half mile drop into the swollen yellow river if we were to slip. At one point we were rounding a corner so quickly I almost slid uot of my seat. One of the Irish girls spoke Chinese and told him to slow down, which he did until he got to the next turn. On the last corner we were excelerating through the blind curve when another minibus going the other way came at us head on. Our driver compensated by swerving closer to the death edge, then swerved again back toward the cliff and dup truck that was parked on the side of the road. We lived, but I think I aged a little.

We were finally let out and given a vague point to a path to the ‘ferry.’ We walked through the mud and stone houses of tge village and into the corn fields. There was a huge pig tied to a rope sleeping in mud under a tree. The small trail led us down to the river. Grunting Chinese were carrying huge bags of rice and parcel up so figured we were going the right way. The ‘ferry’ was a rustying boat that went all the way from one side of the river to the other. The entire trip took three minutes. Maybe the bridge is in the works. After a death defying cab ride, a walk through the stix, and the annoyance of the expensive ‘ferry’ I was happy to be catching the bus to Shangri La. We walked back up the side of the river bank on the other side a negoited with the waiting driver to take us to Da Ju where the buses leave from. Again we were vastly overcharged for what turned out to be a three minute drive. Whatever. We were at the guest house/bus station. I enquired about the buses to Shangri La and met with only puizzled faces. I got a ’stupid forienger’ laugh out of the driver that told me there were no buses to Shangri La from here. We would have to go back to Lijaing and catch a bus from there. Defeated and tired with again teamed with the Irish girls and went back to Lijaing.

Tiger Leaping Gorge was brilliant, but we decided we were done with China. We agreed that we would leave China post haste and head to Vietnam. China, however, was not quite done with us.

Pictures to follow soon.

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