How many tigers does it take to kill a dragon?

Richard writes:

My calf muscles are full of lactic acid, my heart is racing and I am straining every sinew of my lungs to suck enough air inside me to continue to breathe. I am half way up the infamous 28 bends in Tiger Leaping Gorge, a one hour steady ascent to the highest point in the gorge hike. Despite my physical suffering, the magnificence of the surroundings more than makes it all worthwhile.

The Gorge

 

Tiger Leaping Gorge is a deep gorge in Yunnan Province, China, that the River Yangtze hurtles through on the way to Shanghai. Its name derives from a rock that a tiger apparently once lept from to get from one side of the gorge to another.

 

The gorge hike takes approximately ten hours (which we did over two days) on mostly uneven and undulating terrain. The views are some of the most spectacular I have ever witnessed, from the snow capped mountains to the torrent of the river below. Along the trail are fiendishly fit Naxi local minority people who walk the trail endlessly selling energy drinks and snacks to help keep you going.

 

The walk was hard. I don't think we are unfit, but we are certainly not going to be setting any beep test records. The uphill stretch through the 28 bends was at times agonising. We did the walk with a self assembled posse consisting of five Israelis, three Chinese and ourselves. The group went from a constant murmur and chatter on the downhill and less strenuous uphill sections to a silence on the 28 bends. Every last morsel of concentration was required just to successfully place one foot in front of the other rather than to waste it on chitter chatter. Inevitably some who embark on the walk are not able to drag their bodies through the physical torment. For these poor folk, the Naxi are here to help. As you walk up the 28 bends you are closely followed by donkeys and their owners waiting for the first sign of weakness so they can charge you 300 Yuan (about $50) to assist you to the top. The more fatigued we became, the closer the donkey trailed us. Casey christened the donkey 'Hades', the God of the underworld, just waiting for one of us to drop off our perch so he could scoop us up and take our money.

 

It was with great relief at about 5:30pm we arrived at the end of our first day of walking, at the Halfway Guesthouse. Having Chinese representation in our group was a god send. Between themselves, with our self appointed leader Kevin co-ordinating proceedings and translating, a feast was ordered for us all to share. We had all sorts of tasty Chinese fare, including various meat and vegetable dishes, but also the surprisingly sumptuous simple dish of cold tomatoes generously sprinkled with sugar. After the much needed refuel we chatted and quizzed Kevin about every last detail of Chinese life and his opinions regarding other nations and their people. His candidness was hilarious, saying he found western women attractive due to their big noses and less than flattering comments about some of China's Asian counterparts. The conversation was very funny, but also a fascinating insight into how young Chinese see their country: its strengths, weaknesses and where it fits into the world. Above all the Chinese members of our walking group, Kevin, Kim and Sarah (self given English names to help us ignorant non-Mandarin speaking folk understand) were all a pleasure to be with and helped reinforce our extremely positive view of China and its people that we have gleaned so far in our first ten days here. After our chat, we began a game of Taki, an Israeli version of the card game Uno. We played for several hours, and was a fun way to end a long, but most enjoyable day.

 

Card Game Fun

 

 

The next morning we had a two hour walk ahead of us that mercifully was predominantly down hill. The sun tried to break through the overcast sky after a little morning drizzle. After a quick sit down after the completion of the gorge trek the group decided to hike to the stone of the Leaping Tiger legend. The stone sits in the river at the foot of the gorge, a massively long way down, and more significantly a massively long way up once we had reached the bottom. The climb down seemed to take an eternity, and throughout I was acutely aware what this meant for the way up. I gingerly navigated the rickety suspension bridge to get to the stone, whilst Casey sprinted across as it swayed violently from side to side (Casey has way more guts when it comes to these things!).

 

The route back up!

The Suspension Bridge

 

About half way back up we arrived at a ladder that was at least 50 metres tall, that didn't seem particularly well affixed to the rock face. All was going well, until I realised how high up I was. The closer to the top I got the sicker I felt and the tighter I clasped the rungs. At one point overcome with fear of falling, my legs shook and I thought I was about to burst into tears unable to move. I pulled myself together and dragged myself to the top where I found Casey waiting anxiously for my arrival. From this point on we required more breaks as the climb got steeper. A local Naxi woman began following us, waiting to call down a donkey to assist. After the christening of Hades the day before, I referred to her as the Grim Reaper's wife.

 

 On one of our many breaks, we chatted with a local man who told us his grandfather saw the apparent great tiger leap (he also said it happened 200 years ago, which must indicate they live very long lives in the gorge). Slightly delirious and in need of entertainment we hypothesised how many tigers it would take to kill a Chinese dragon. We had no answers so we asked Kevin to translate the question to our tiger expert. His answer seemed to take an eternity. We assumed he was taking the question very seriously considering all permutations and factors. After what seemed minutes, Kevin simply translated his answer as "he doesn't know". We laughed before tackling the remainder of the climb.

 

Once at the top the group went separate ways, and we made the short walk to our guesthouse for the evening. Our room was gorgeous, with half the walls glass, looking over the gorge. The evening was spent on a terrace with some travellers from Australia, America and Portugal. We shared our food of dumplings, and various chicken and rice meals over some beers and discussed our various travel plans.

 

A room with a view

 

The next day was a leisurely one, where we sat in the sun at the guesthouse, before returning to Lijiang by bus. We met up with Kevin that evening for food, beer and some games of pool. The next day we managed to fit into our schedule a visit to Dali as everyone we had spoken to had great things to say about it. It was a less tacky version of Lijiang, but we somehow didn't like it as much. We had a lovely day meandering through its streets before taking a cable car up a local mountain called Cangshan, with fantastic views over the city.

 

Cable Car in Dali

 

And so ended our week long trip into rural Yunnan province.