Patricia and Andre’s RTW Adventure

This trek to Tiger Leaping Gorge got us a little worried.  Considering that we just spent the last 2 months swimming in beer and wine in Vietnam, well, we weren’t sure how much muscle power we may have lost…….was that a question or a fact?  hmmmm…. 

Our trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge meant we needed to figure out if we were taking everything or leaving things behind……hmmmm at 20 kilos each, I think we’re leaving things behind! We got the general idea across to little old lady that we would like to store our things here if it was ok…..she said sure and no charge. Yesterday, we booked 2 tickets at the bus station by oursleves, of course that was after we were approached again, by someone offering us their help. We said no thanks, told him we were ok and we were. For 15 yuan each we got our tickets to Qiaotou!

Next morning took another breathtaking ride through mountainous scenery to arrive in Qiaotou. We stopped at Margo’s, an Australian running a cafe and made sure we had enough water, food etc. Then we were off at noon time….that’s right noon. Entrance fee into the Gorge cost 50 yuan/each which we paid inside the ticket office across from Margo’s. Apparently some locals are trying to overtake the office and ticket selling job so they try and persuade you to buy their tickets, but until this changes, just go inside to buy them or ask Margo, who is very vocal and will help you out if things seems hairy.

The beginning of the hike we had 2 horse men follow us for about an hour or so. We thought that maybe they were going our way as well, but everytime we stopped, they stopped and this happened 3 or 4 times in a row.  At one point I had to pee and so their tagging along became quite annoying.  It was at this time that my limited Chinese paid off again and I told them we didn’t want them or their horses. Please go. It was especially unnerving because here we were in the wilderness trying to enjoy the outside and all we could smell was their cigarette smoke. Thankfully they left.

The hike started out intense from the very start and even though we unloaded alot back in Lijiang, Andre was still carrying about 15 kilos plus water and I was carrying about 12 kilos plus water. The altitude was at 1800 meters at the start and climbed to a max of 2650 meters, reached about 5 hours and 20 kilometers later. It was like doing the Grouse Grind for 5 hours straight! We thought we may die a couple of times, battling blisters and a cold I’ve had for a week or so now. I decided I would exercise the cold out of me! Not sure yet if it worked!

The views were great and the tiny pathway along the mountain side was about 2-3 feet across at any one time. These paths were also being used by local mountain people for moving their goats and horses loaded with just stuff. The path had been almost washed out in one section where a waterfall crashed across the path. All the other times, the shear cliff face was right there and Andre had to remind me to STOP while I looked around at the view that was visible for the entire hike – just a little distracting! At one point you come to a part of the trek called The 24 Bends. Well, I thought I had counted all the switch backs and then we came across a hut where a lady was selling cold drinks and walnuts and honey, chocolate bars AWESOME. Well, her English was good enough to tell us that no, we hadn’t finished the 24 Bends, we were just going to start them!!!!!! For 50 minutes, we battled uphill to finish these Bends….Damn Bends!
After the Bends, there was alot more mountain trekking and around every corner the Gorge was evident. The mountains in this part of the world just seemed so close it was like you could reach out and touch them. At other times they seemed to be only 2 dimensional.  Just shear cliff-face of rock, no trees. Because of the light dusting of snow on the peaks there was enough of a contrast to show every crack and crevice.  Andre said that he hadn’t seen mountains quite like this in Vancouver, BC on any of the hikes he did there.

There were little baby goats everywhere and I tried to catch a few although the cliff drop-offs kept me away! Crap!  They’re built for that terrain, but I am definitely not!
We tried to follow the markers for the trail which are apparently good.  There are red and yellow spray paint on some rocks although they’re not placed at cross-roads, only on very obvious paths, so not much good.  With the mountains on one side and the gorge on the other, there really is only one way to go anyhow.  It was only a question as to whether you would descend too far and have to climb back up.  One thing’s for certain, everything that goes down ALWAYS goes back up!  Take the high road when in doubt!  There were so many paths that you could see in the distance but because of the perspective, we couldn’t tell whether they were goat paths or trekking paths.

We were initially going to try and make it to Walnut Grove/Garden on the first day which would have been about 8 hours, but at about 5:30pm the clouds started to come up the valley and every once in a while you could feel the spit of rain.  Considering that we were on rock paths we thought it would be wise to get off before they beacme too slippery and decided that the Halfway mark would be the best stopping place.  About 45 minutes before we arrived at our destination the rain started to pour down and the wind started to really blow.  Andre kept telling me to lean into the mountain because with all the weight we had on we needed to be extra careful on the cliffside. 

When we finally arrived at the Halfway Guesthouse, we had just enough time to drop our gear and feel all the aches and pains in our legs and back when 2 cups of hot green tea arrived at our door!!!  That made this place that much more awesome!!!  We were cold and wet and sore and hot tea within seconds of reaching our door was a godsend!  This Halfway Guesthouse started out as a place where wayward trekkers would blindly find themselves in the dark  a couple of years ago.  The guy who owned the modest house at the time would graciously offer up one of his rooms in his house.  As the trek became more popular and this happened more often, he decided to make a business out of it.  Whether it’s beacuse he likes it or he was compelled to, well, we don’t know.  We’re just happy it was here, in the most spectacular setting on this entire trek!!  Here the gorge seemed to be at it’s most narrow part with the mountains on the other side being only a shear rock face extending an additional 3000 meters above our present elevation making the peak at 5500 meters!!  We also ate great food here and shared some tea with other Canadians doing the trek.    At about 8:30pm we were all ready to get some sleep!  the room was cozy, as Andre likes to describe it with fantastic duvets and one tea-lite I managed to remember to bring.   The only thing missing from this magical place was an outside firepit, but seeing as firewood is scarce in this part of the trek, there wasn’t anything like that.  Too bad!  But I guess you can’t have a bunch of drunken trekkers burning cords of wood for entertainment when it’s your main source of fuel for cooking and heat.

 We took our time getting up and having breakfast the next morning and as the sun came up we could shed all those layers of clothes from the night before.  Andre strapped on his solar panel to charge the bluetooth module for the gps……yes, very geeked out!  And we started the second part of the trek.  We were pretty excited about the next part as we heard that Walnut Grove/Garden is the place where most people end up extending their travels.  About an hour after leaving the Halfway Guesthouse we realized that we were heading to a road below.  And not a local road but a paved one.  Another hour later and we had arrived at Walnut Grove which seems to have changed quite a lot since Lonely Planet last wrote about it.  If given the choice, we would have happily stayed at the Halfway Guesthouse rather than come here. 

The surroundings were still beautiful but it was just closer to civilization and motorized vehicles than we had wanted at the moment, especially after the last 24 hours.  We stayed at Sean’s Guesthouse which is run by Sean, a local who was born and bred in the higher mountain parts and made a living here as a guide and running the guesthouse.  His place was really great and laid out nicely since from his deck you wouldn’t even know that the road was there.  And even though it was paved there really wasn’t much traffic.  He did tell us that there is now another project underway to flood this part of the gorge as well by building a damn just down the river from Walnut Grove.  In a couple of years it will be complete taking with it the lively hood of the farmers at the bottom of the gorge and his guesthouse as well.

That evening we spent having drinks with Sean and some Dutch people we met there.  We got up the next morning planning to get back to the main town.  We found out that today was a Chinese holiday and so no taxis were running.  We had to try and flag down a vehicle to take us back to town….hmmmmmmmm.  So we started out and about 30 minutes later we were happy to flag down a local bus – that or we would be walking another 20 km back into town!

  Notes:

Lijiang to Qiaotou tickets prices = 15 yuan each

Tiger Leaping Gorge entry = 50yuan each – find Margo if locals give a hard time, see above

Half Way Guesthouse (40yuan) and Seans guesthouse (40 yuan) see above

Tags: sensory overload?, sensory overload?, Travel, Travel, Travel

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