So we left Xi'an in the evening for a 2 night one day train trip to Panzhihua. We had initially booked a hard sleeper and a hard seat taking turns at having a sleep. The train was nothing compared to the luxury of the Lhasa to Xi'an train. I took the first turn in the sleeper only to wake the next morning to find that Princess Robina had upgraded to a soft sleeper and had a complete compartment (4 beds) to himself. We were dropped off at Panzhihua at 4am and proceeded to negotiate with the bus drivers outside to take us to Lijiang. It was only when we were dropped off at the bus station that we realised we had been talking to the wrong people. We managed to make it Lijiang thought and what a great city. It has an old quarter which has pretty much become a tourist haven and at night there are a row of bars along either side of a narrow little canal which is lined with red lanterns and becomes very lively at night (with singing battles between patrons and staff of opposing bars, judged principally on volume).
The chinese tourists (which make us pretty much 90% of the tourist population in China). Some of the bars have got pretty good music and it is a lot of fun. You can even order Chateau Lafette Rothschild (a snip at over $650 per bottle) and NZ lamb chops ($10), however we opted for Tsingtao beer at the outrageous price of $2 per bottle ($0.50 in shops).
The day after arriving in Lijiang we headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge which is about 2 hours away from Lijiang. Arrived at around 11.30am and headed on our merry way. And we were lost. We asked some locals were we were and we had missed the turn off. Not surprising when there are no signposts, only occasional advertisments for the next guesthouse painted on rocks. The walk follows the gorge along at a high level so you get great views of the mountains. A fantastic walk the first day, but very hot in the sun. Lunch was at the Naxi Guesthouse and then a night at the Teahorse Guesthouse. The teahorse was kind enough to treat us to 2 spiders that must have been about 8cm's across as we were about to go to bed. They didn't last long, being no match for vulcanised footware. I also woke in the morning to find a centipede like insect that was about 5cm long about to nestle itself into our clothes. Again bested by the awesome kinetic power of the sandal.
Tiger leaping gorge is a steep rocky gorge between two 5000m mountains with a river level of about 1500-2000m. They are threatening to dam(n) it in a few years, which will be bad for a few thousand tourists and good for a few million chinese electricity users. It gets its name from a point in the Yangtse river where a very large rock has fallen into the middle of the torrent and divided the river into two flows of only about 15m width each, legend has it that a tiger once evaded hunters by leaping from bank to rock to bank. It is very spectacular, with steep rock cliffs rising 1000-1500m up on one side of the river. A rock-climbers wet dream and a roadbuilders nightmare.
On day two we descended 200m into the gorge on a private-enterprise track which we had to pay 10 Yuan to go down ($1.60) and dipped our feet in the mighty Yangtse. The walk up was a bit scary, stung for another $1.60 at the bottom before we are allowed to ascend we climb up a cliff face on hewn rock stairs that at one part includes a ladder made of 6mm steel rod welded into a lattice and bolted, glued and tied to sticks stuck into the cliff face. Again very hot and exhausting, but definitly worth it. We stayed a Sean's guesthouse on day two which had a great deck to sit and view the stars and sunset and the massive 1000m high cliff faces on the opposite side of the gorge, we were a little dissapointed that there was no rain as there were markings for waterfalls of at least this height as well. The power seemed to be an issue in the gorge due to slips etc and the only meals on the menu where chicken vegetable burrito (very good) and fried chicken vegetable. Basically the same thing, just served a different way. The menu also boasted that "for our very special friend we have Real Good Stuff" which would tend to back up our observation of a particular plant that seemed to grow a lot around the toilets of the guesthouses. We had a great night there with lots people to have a few drinks with and enjoy the scenery. An Irish guy we were with tried to start a fight with the only English man within probably 30km which was pretty funny, but hostilities were abandoned due to a lack of firearms/interest.
The trip out was a bit scary, so say the least. There have been two massive (and some minor) landslides across the road the preceding week (we ran into a German Chick who was there for this, who had to run along the road due to lack of vehicles and fear of falling rocks). We had to take 3 minibuses in a relay to get out, with drivers of a somewhat kamikaze bent, swerving across the narrow road to avoid boulders at 60km/hr on blind corners over shear drops. Who knows how the minibuses got in there in the first place. The most scary bit was the fact that the road in many places was pretty shear and there were a ridiculous number of smaller slips and boulders on the road with the odd bit of gravel still coming down (the one thing the drivers would slow for). Didn't give us overwhelming confidence. We did get out safe though and back to Lijiang for a great burger at an English pub and a night out on the canal.
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