Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge
on Tina's Journal (China), 20/Jul/2009 15:44, 34 days ago
Friday Morning we spent walking around Dali and just took in the sights and sounds. It was interesting to discover that some Westerners have opened up either bars or restaurants in the town. It was so nice to chat to a guy in Italian who comes from Foggia in Italy who has only been in Dali a month and runs an Italian restaurant and then we met the owner of the Pheonix Bar who is Canadian and has been in China fourteen years, he is also a Professor at the local university and I had an interesting discussion about Teaching Methodology and thework I am doing with VSO. It was refreshing to hear him talk about the same issues and problems I have experienced in the schools here and particularly his reference to the fact that students don't think!We left Dali in the afternoon and made our way to Lijiang by bus a three hour journey north. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in China especially for the Chinese. The local people are called the Naxi who descend from the Tibetans, however despite being very pretty in the old town it is basically made up of shops selling souvenirs. I love it though because the buildings are rustic in style and unlike anything else I have seen so far in China. The following morning we set off from Lijiang on a two hour car ride to begin a two day walk through Tiger Leaping Gorge. The canyon is at 2500m altitude and is the tail end of the Himalaya Mountains. We began the walk at noon with Sarah and Tim a couple we met in Dali and soon felt like they were becoming friends. The trek was not too tough, the hardest part being a one and half hour uphill climb in the afternoon sun. The first day walk took about five hours and we stayed the night at the Tea Horse Hostel directly overlooking the Mountains. The views all the way were stupendous and it felt at times like you could just reach out and touch the mountains as though they were alive and emitting a unique energy all of their own. The second day took about six hours mostly downhill, again fantastic scenery and blissful surroundings. I think all in all it was a 37km walk. We took the bus back to Lijiang and got back early evening. Today we have just strolled around the town but it's quite easy to get lost here as all the roads look the same and merge into each other. Tomorrow I am sorry to lose Jiang Yun Qin's company as she will head back to Simao and I am going on to Chengdu where I will met up with Sarah and Tim and get to visit the places I had originally planned to go :-)