Before we actually got to the Tiger Leaping Gorge we were in Kunming for slightly more than a day and Lijiang for another few. Kunming’s dull really, it’s just another grey and unremarkable big city. The stone forest about an hour away is pretty, true, but very touristy. I guess the only memorable part was when Thamarai and I were trying to find one of those motels where you could rent a room for just a few hours rather than an entire night. The story being our train only left in the night and we had to check out of our previous room at Holiday Inn by noon, so we wanted somewhere to shower before boarding the train. I did my research and found one near the train station but they didn’t accept non-local guests (racist!) so we were out on the streets trying to find another place with about an hour before our train was scheduled to depart. This lady on the street (there’s tonnes of people just hovering on the streets, not sure why) told us she could help us find one and started making all these calls. I don’t know why we didn’t walk away then. Then she asked us to follow her and let us to this 2-star looking business hotel. I was relieved because I was expecting something dodgier. Little did I know we were about to experience the epitome of dodgy. She led us straight past the front desk to the lifts to go up, and by that time both of us were beginning to sense something amiss, so we started to refuse and balk, but she and her guy partner who met us outside the lifts insisted that they were a legit travel company (my ass). The room they showed us was uncleaned but empty, and they told us to be quick about the shower. I guessed it either belonged to some poor hotel guest who was outside at that time oblivious to the hijacking or it was a room whose occupant had already left but was yet to be cleaned. Either way we should have just declined, and I did try albeit weakly, but between their insistence and my own tractability, coupled with our desire to shower before getting on an overnight train… we just gave in. Stupidest idea ever. To think of what could have had happened to us if they were also evil in addition to greedy. We took turns showering, one of us keeping watch at the door while the other was in the bathroom. It costs us about 70 yuan I think, my most expensive shower to date. But I’m just grateful that all they wanted was some extra cash and that we got out unscathed.
Lijiang is full of traditional buildings, whether original or built for tourism purposes I’m not too sure…. My guess would be original but refurbished since it’s a UNESCO heritage site. Being there makes you feel like you’ve been transported back to one of the dynasties of ancient China, if you can overlook the people walking around in T-shirt and jeans and your own phone beeping away in your pocket. 90% of the shops there sell either one of the following:
1. Freshly roasted rose tea
2. Rose pastries (a Yunnan speciality)
3. Souvenirs (that they all got from the same supplier)
4. Pu Er tea
5. Yak-made products
So yeah it was really touristy, but as a tourist I enjoyed it. And touristy and commercialized it may be, there is no denying its beauty and history.
Still, the main event of our trip was the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike and it was by far the best part of the journey for me. We took a bus from Lijiang and arrived at the starting point – the town of Qiaotou around 11 am and after dumping our luggage at Jane’s Guest House, we embarked on our journey, this block here indicating the start of the trail:
It all quickly became very disappointing because I didn’t realize that the first one hour of our hike would consist of walking along an asphalt road dodging huge trucks and their toxic exhaust fumes.
Sure, there was a nice valley view (albeit slightly marred by the huge amount of construction going on) but in the pictures online everyone was hiking through greenery and mountains and there we were walking alongside a village road with noisy and dusty trucks. I was starting to wonder if we had come too late, that human development had reduced the Tiger Leaping Gorge trail into this travesty, when we came upon the actual starting point, a gap in the fence bordering the mountains in the midst of some houses. The trail went steeply up into the mountains, littered with lots of what I presumed to be horse dung and it was about noon at this point so we were sweating profusely, but finally it was soil and grass beneath our shoes instead of asphalt and I was glad to be finally hiking in nature.
When we decided to go hiking here I was kinda worried we would get lost along the way, especially since my sense of direction is non-existent, but I needn't have worried, because throughout the trail there were these blue signs every now and then guiding us forward. There were also writings on the rock by the various guest houses indicating the direction to their establishments, which even though was a bit of an eyesore, gave me comfort that we were going the right way:
I think we were about an hour or so into our uphill hike when we came upon one of the mountain natives with his horse. He asked us if we would like a ride since it would be a challenging hike but we declined politely. I didn’t come all this way just to sit on a horse and let it carry me to my destination. In the case of hiking, the journey is what defines and makes the experience memorable no? It was around this time also that we bumped into some other hikers – a local Chinese couple, which made me feel better cause I was starting to wonder if we were the only two souls around in this place. I’d read that from the start of the trail, getting to the next main stop - Naxi Guest House would take around 3 hours, but we took around 4 hours I think, which could be partially due to our physique not being as great as those writers I guess. More significantly though, when we were about half an hour away from the village where the Naxi Guest House was located, we met the local village doctor who told us that we had to make a detour because a lone elderly Australian hiker had passed away on the trail not too long ago. Then he took us and the Chinese couple on a detour through almost half an hour of corn fields after which we finally reached Naxi’s, where I had the best scrambled eggs and tomatoes in my life and a pretty darn good fried rice too. My own eggs and tomatoes are just inedible by comparison. I will also be adding the fried rice at Naxi’s to my list of acceptable fried rice, now of which only contains Hong Kong famous boat restaurant Jumbo’s.
The sky was a tad bit dark when we were about to depart Naxi’s at around 4:30 p.m. and we heard a loud clap of thunder once. Another hiking group emerged at Naxi’s saying they turned back since it seemed like it was going to rain, and the Chinese couple also said they were gonna stay at Naxi’s for the night despite having bookings at the next guesthouse, the Tea Horse, because they weren’t confident that they could tackle the next stretch – the infamous 28 Bends, which is supposed to be the hardest part of the journey, and make it to the guesthouse by sunset. I didn’t really want to stay the night at Naxi’s because it would mean that we would have a lot more trail to cover the next day. Besides, I had already booked rooms at the Tea Horse and most visitors agreed that they had the best rooms in the Tiger Leaping Gorge. So Thamarai and I decided to go ahead and tackle the 28 Bends even though we didn’t have flashlights just in case we had to hike in the dark. We had just started out when we heard the jingle of bells and spotted one of those mountain natives and his horses behind us. The trail was still continuing upwards and we had ample self-awareness of how slow we were going, so we told horse guy to go ahead but he declined. That was smart of him and horrible for us. As he was on a horse he was moving much faster than we could have ever hope to, he was constantly hovering behind us, like an annoying fly. It made me, the person at the front, stressed out as I felt like I had to move faster and faster so that he wouldn’t be caught up behind us. Thamarai said she felt stressed too as the horses kept having to stop since they were moving faster than us, and they were also literally breathing down her back. We tried telling horse guy to go ahead again, but he claimed he was fine following behind. He said that we would never make it to the Tea Horse before sunset, and that the 28 Bends were perilous, that many other groups rode his horses to get across, that he was our only hope so how about we just hop on his horses? Well, his fear-mongering was starting to really get to me, and I almost gave him my backpack to carry not because I couldn’t carry it but rather because I just wanted to get rid of him. Thank goodness Thamarai didn’t let me do that. We tried again to tell him no thank you, we didn’t want to ride his horses and not to waste his time on us. I said he could give us his number and we’ll call him if anything. This time, after an annoyed “If I go back to my village I’m not coming back out to get you girls!”, he left for good. After that the hike was much more enjoyable for the both of us. Honestly, in spite of its reputation, I don’t really think the 28 Bends was that difficult to hike. If anything, I thought the stretch before Naxi’s was worse. The path was windy as it followed the side of the mountain, but I’m not sure what’s considered a bend and hence I can’t say if there were really 28 of them. The view of the mountain range across the canyon was just spectacular, and the clouds feel impossibly close by.
After a while, the trail started to go more down than up, and Thamarai and I picked up our pace. We finally made it to the Tea Horse at around 7:20 p.m., 10 minutes before sunset. Two middle fingers up to annoying horse guy. There, we proved you wrong. The family-run Tea Horse felt a bit like heaven after a long day’s hike with a pesky horse guy, even more so with its location tucked high up in the mountains. As we had our dinner in the guest house’s restaurant with its huge glass windows overlooking the mountains, our surroundings were already dark, and we could hear the wind howling incessantly through the mountains. Boy was I glad we were quick enough to arrive before it got dark. We got a room in the renovated wing, and for a mountain guest house I got to say it was a really great room. New, cosy, comfortable and with a slight vintage vibe. No wonder the reviews online said it was the best guest house in the Gorge.
The next morning after breakfast we continued our journey. This part of the hike was very pleasant, we were basically walking on a narrow trail along the side of the mountain, with villages and the river below us. Not much ascent or decline so it was relatively easy. It wasn’t scary either cause it was just a gentle grassy slope to the side so no worries if you tripped or fell off the trail.
We arrived at the Halfway Guest House in time for a lunch of pancakes. The dining area faces the mountains so I had a great view while devouring my pancakes. It was also over here that we met a very cool Malaysian couple, but more on them later. The Halfway is also famous for its toilets with a great view so of course I had to try them out. As with all the other toilets up here, there is so separate cubicles, you’re separated from other occupants by a chest-high wall, and everyone pees or poops into this common drain so things can get a bit awkward. Thank goodness there was no one there when I entered. I didn’t take a picture but I guess it was definitely the best view I ever had while peeing.
The trail after Halfway was similar, but scarier in the sense that rather than a grassy slope, to our side was a much steeper, rocky cliff. The path was rockier and there were openings in the mountain wall that we had to passed through. There was one point where a whole herd of goats was coming from the other direction and Thamarai and I had to stand aside to let them pass cause the trail was only wide enough for one. This happened a second time but with horses instead. I think I almost got smacked in the face by one of the horse’s tails. We also had to ford two or three waterfalls during this part of the trail. It was slow going because the rocks were wet and slippery and a wrong step could spell the end of you.
The final, descending part of the trail was boring. It was a red mud road, and the scenery was relatively dull after all the beauty and wonder of the trail before it. We arrived at the end of the trail which was by the side of Tina’s Guest House:
This was where the Malaysian couple from before caught up with us. While checking with the lady at Tina’s (Could she be Tina?) on transportation back to Kunming, she also told us that we should visit the Middle Leaping Gorge, which is basically hiking and climbing down the rockface to this big rock in the middle of the raging river where a tiger was said to have leapt across the gorge to escape from hunters, hence the name Tiger Leaping Gorge yada yada. Well, the thing is we really wanted to go but couldn’t as we would have to pay the natives because they claimed to be the ones who developed the trail without any help from the government and built a tiny rickety bridge from the edge of the gorge to the rock, and we didn’t have enough cash, especially since we had to put aside some money for the next day’s long trip to Kunming. So feeling rather bummed, we continued walking by the side of the main road to reach our lodgings - the Tibetan Guest House. Along the way though, there was a signboard claiming to have a good viewing point overlooking the Middle Leaping Gorge for a payment of only 5 yuan per person.
The disappointment from not being able to hike down to the Middle Leaping Gorge still stung, so we decided to go for this one instead. The trail went through a farm before going steeply down through wild thickets, it took us about 15 minutes to reach the viewing platform and I was pretty tired by that time. The viewing platform was exactly what it claimed to be and nothing more, a stretch overlooking the famous rock with some barriers by the side to alleviate slightly the fear of falling over the edge and becoming fish food.
The Tibetan Guest House was nestled in the area known as Walnut Garden about 2 km away from Tina’s, a family run establishment owned by a friendly elderly man. The man and his son were the only two people running the whole show from check-in to cooking meals. I think they mentioned that the chef was on maternity or something. The rooms were old and run down if compared to the luxury (going by mountain lodge standards) we had at the Tea Horse, and hot water was limited as well, but still, it felt cosy and homey, and had a great mountain view as well.
The Malaysian couple we met at Halfway were having dinner at the dining room and asked us to join them. Turns out they were not really hardcore hikers but enjoyed travelling and went on trips about 3-4 times per year. I had a great time talking to them, only wished I had asked for their Facebook or something, because trying to stalk the guy based on the name card I got has been a complete failure thus far.
The next day we took a bus back to Lijiang. Nothing much here except I guess for the part when we were getting our suitcases back from Jane’s and hauling them on to the bus that would take us back to Lijiang. All the other tourists had hiking packs or reasonably sized luggage, the locals had small briefcases and handbags only, and then in waltz Thamarai and I with our super duper gigantic suitcases and everyone just flat out stared at us. The Malaysian couple even started laughing. Oh well guys, we can’t help it, we pampered princesses need all our skincare and clothes and makeup ya know?
