Lijiang

Except for a few short trips, one to Dunhuang (where I went to the amazing Mogao Caves and the Crescent Moon Lake in the middle of the Gobi Desert) and one to Shanghai to visit January who just moved there, I've pretty much been in Beijing. I finally left last Friday for my 7-week trip across Asia. My first stop is northwestern Yunnan Province in southern China.

I left on Friday the 13th and the trip did not get off to a good start. My flight sat on the runway forever due to poor weather in Beijing. We did not land in Kunming until 4am in the morning, at which point it did not even make sense to leave the airport. My flight to Lijiang with Alice left at 7:15am, so we had to spend a few hours at the airport waiting for our flight. We found Julia and Lauren, who were traveling with us as well. Their flight to Kunming did not take off until 2:30am and they made it to Kunming just in time for our flight to Lijiang. Luckily, our flight to Lijiang took off without any problems, but at gate 13... and Alice and I were in the 13th row. Lijiang was rainy when we arrived. We went directly to Mama Naxi's Guesthouse, a charming place run by Mama Naxi, who seriously treats every traveller like her child. We spent the morning recovering from our flight, grabbed some lunch, then spent the afternoon exploring Lijiang's Old Town while waiting for the last 2 people in our group, Fred and Xiao Yu to arrive from Shanghai. But the continuous rain put in doubt our plans to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge the next day.

The next day, the weather looked okay, so we headed off to Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest in the world, as planned. Although it was sunny when we started the hike, we were lucky we bought rain ponchos. It was a grueling 2 hour uphill hike in the hot sun to our first stop - Naxi Guesthouse, 6 km into the hike. We had lunch there and then left, prepared to hike the infamous 28-bends, an even more grueling 1+ hour uphill hike to the highest peak. However, less than half an hour later, it started to rain. We found a small shack, which we reached just in time before it started to pour. When the rain let up, we took horses up the 28-bends, the roads too slippery for a bunch of novice hikers to go up. At the peak, we got off the horses and hiked another 2 hours before we reached our second stop, the Tea Horse Guesthouse, were we had amazing Naxi Sandwiches - layers of pita-like bread with cheese, tomato, onion, lettuce and egg. After we finished eating, we quickly left for our last stop of the night, Halfway Guesthouse. The name is pretty self-explanatory. It's the half-way point of the gorge hike. About 2 hours later, with just a bit of sunlight to spare, the 6 of us rolled into the guesthouse and collapsed on the terrace to enjoy the amazing few of the mountains enshrouded by misty clouds, and the gushing gorge far below. As the sun set, the moon and the stars appeared, casting a silvery light over the mountains - it was simply ethereal.

It rained all throughout the night, and most of the morning. We hunkered down at Halfway, hoping the rain would let up. Even the guides were predicting tough hiking conditions. It was still 2-3 hours to our final stop, Jane's Guest House at Middle Tiger Leaping Gorge. We hung out with a group of 3 Belgian guys doing the hike, and a couple of other Europeans. When the rain slowed to a drizzle, we started out again. We passed the beautiful Guanyin Waterfall and reached Jane's early in the afternoon. After grabbing lunch, we hiked 2 km down to the bottom of the gorge. We clambered onto the Tiger Stone, where we enjoyed the amazing vista that surrounded us. Then we made the grueling 2 km hike back up to the low road. I was completely beat by the end. We got into a car which made the treacherous drive in pouring rain back to Lijiang. The roads were covered in loose rocks and flooded in many sections. I was so glad when we got back to Mama Naxi's.

The weather predicted rain for the next 3 days. So we scrapped plans to go to Lugu Hu and instead, decided to stick closer to Lijiang. A plan to go to Baisha villaged morphed into a full-day horseriding trip up to Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. Horseback riding - so much easier than hiking. Our amazing guides hiked the whole way, and did not even seem the least bit winded. We went through a forest of moss-covered and cloud enshrouded trees. At 4,000 meters, we learned that we picked the wrong path to go up. Instead of going up the left path and coming down the right, we had asked to go up the right path which is too steep at the top to go up to 4,900 meters on horses. So we ended up having to hike 2 kms up to the meadow at the top. As Alice said, we were like little mountain goats. The hike was hard, but nothing compared to the gorge. And the views at the top, even more incredible than the ones at Tiger Leaping Gorge, were worth the hard work. We were surrounded by green mountains on top of this meadow covered by grass and flowers. On the way down, we got amazing views of the valley. The trip took us 7-hours, not the 2 our original tour guide told us it would. But the weather held up, with only moments of slight drizzles, so we have absolutely no complaints!

Today, it is nice and sunny. We definitely plan to take advantage of the amazing weather.