We had a three day weekend because of National Tomb-Sweeping Day (Yes, that's correct) so Anokhi and I booked tickets immediately for Lijiang! Lijiang is in the Yunnan Province to the South of us and supposed to be suuuuper beautiful! We left right after school on friday and headed for the airport only to find that our flight was delayed three hours...Great start. Instead of getting in around 10, we got in around 1 am and hailed a taxi for the Old Town! Our driver wasn't exactly sure where our hostel was and we had been trying to call it for HOURS. When we booked it, the directions were to call them and have them talk to the driver...that's kind of a problem when they don't answer. So, we were wandering around a dark, cold, new city trying to find our hostel and calling them over and over again. We finally decided around 2 to go into the 24 hour KFC and hole up until we could get ahold of our hostel.
We slept for a little and kept calling our hostel until they finally answered around 7! Ugh. They gave us directions and then sent a guy to pick us up. They said they didn't answer because they were drunk at the bars all night, well of course! We were exhausted and slept for a the better part of the morning until going out to explore the city of Lijiang.
The view from our hostel!
Lijiang is one of the only remaining Old Towns left in China and one of the biggest. It was so beautiful and what you think of when you think of China! We just wandered around the stone streets and down alleyways looking at all of the shops and trying some weird food!
One of the famous and interesting aspects of Yunnan is the nature! This province has the most famous and largest gorge, Tiger Leaping Gorge. You can drive to see it, oooor you can hike to see it! Guess which one we decided to do?! The hike takes around two days and is literally through the mountains. Since we arrived late on Saturday we missed the chance to sign up with a tour to take us to the mountain and then through the mountain. So, of course, we had to do it the hard way! We took a public bus on Sunday morning and had them drop us off in Qiaoto, the city where the trail begins (Our hostel wrote it in Chinese for us). Then we walked through the town looking for signs of the trail and doing charades with the townspeople, until we found it!
The beginning of a long journey!
This was Anokhi's first time hiking! Her first time seeing a mountain was in Xi'an so I was really excited to show her how amazing it can be! She was excited too, and a little nervous :-)
The Haba Mountains! So beautiful!
Along the way there were many villagers who had set up bathrooms, snacks and rest areas for the hikers, it was so nice and they were all really sweet! When we walked up they would say, "Shoshi," which means, "take a rest" in Mandarin and then offer us a Snickers and a Powerade.
After hiking for a couple hours and before getting to the really hard and famous "28 Bends" a man with some horses found us and somehow convinced us to ride horses up past the bends. We met a Chinese girl, May, along the way and she helped us all negotiate with the guy and then we hopped on for a scary but exciting climb!
Bend 1!
Our new friends enjoying the view
We had beautiful weather! No rain and very sunny! I did get sunburned but it really was nice to get away from the cold!
sneak peaks of the river
We ran into a goat herder on the side of the mountain, not an awful job eh?
Had to take my regular jumping pic!
after 6 hours of hiking, we made it to our destination! The Halfway Hostel nestled in the mountains! Halfway to the Gorge!
The next day we set out early and made our way to the Gorge!
Once we got to the village where the Gorge is, we had to make a 3 hour hike down to the Gorge! This was one of the hardest parts, it was straight downhill, at times we were on the side of the cliff and we had to take a perilous ladder down at one point. But we made it!!
Tiger Leaping Gorge!
I decided to hike further down to get right up close and personal with the Gorge. Gotta get my time's worth! I had to cross this brige and then slide down that rock...
YAY!
We did it!
We hiked back up and decided to try the village's "delicacy," Yak cheese dumplings dipped in honey. Not my fave....but glad I tried them! Yak cheese has a really strong flavor!
It was so challenging and crazy but so worth it! I would do it again in a heart beat!
It ended up being 2 days and 15 miles total and the next couple days we were both SO sore!
I especially liked getting out of the city and being in nature again. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I was back, but living in a city can be hard sometimes. I can't wait until our next adventure!
"I hear people go crazy for steady, but me, I run every time"
-Gavin Degraw
