Yunnan -China

Broadly translating as Cloudy Mountains, Yunnan province is famed as one of the most beautiful in China.  Sadly it’s also on the other side to Beijing so we waited until a long weekend (Dragon Boat Festival) before heading over to explore.

We took an early flight into Lijiang rather than the province capital and while that cut out some overland travelling it limited our flight options to Capital Air or Lucky Air.  I’d rather hear words like skill and experience than lucky when it comes to aviation so we opted for the other one and hoped.   Although the journey itself was fine, the experience made us question whether we’d opted to for temporal as well as spatial travel.  The seats were hard backed, the head-rests at shoulder height (for us) and just enough leg room to ensure maximum discomfort for 4 hours.  No inflight entertainment, not so much as a magazine telling you what routes they fly or what tat you could buy to counter the boredom - instead, one of the crew stood at the front and bellowed into a handheld mic for 25 minutes, describing each of the random items you could buy from them.    Eventually someone cracked and bought a fluorescent nylon backpack and the shouting stopped.  Just enough time to get 15 mins sleep before the descent started and a new set of instructions were yelled at us. 

Lijiang

Landing at altitude (2600m) meant it was only about 15 degrees (as opposed to 33 in Beijing) so it was a novelty to put layers on and breathe clean mountain air.  First stop the ancient town of Lijiang

Due to an earthquake in 1996 a lot of it has been rebuilt and now has the honour of being a UNESCO site though we struggled to see why.  The ancient town was very formulaic having been rebuilt sympathetically but completely homogenously – each shop front identical to its neighbour.  We enjoyed the translations of the shops though – someone had clearly got the contract for the whole town and was very literal in their approach.  We liked the ‘family surname guest house’, the ‘21m square fruit shop’ and the ‘Sichuan borrowed meat shop’.  Gave the latter a miss in favour of ‘standard china dishes’ complete with home made cordial of stuff. Some was clearly fruit, some clearly not anything we’d associate with drinking (3rd in - garlic?)…

Through the old town we witnessed a traditional display of Naxi singing and dancing – sort of atonal harmonies done with surprising gusto. I liked it, Chris not so much. 

Onto the Dragon’s Pond where the reflection of ‘Snow mountain’ (again, imaginatively named) is famed for its beauty. If you can see it.   On the 99% of the days it’s cloudy you can see a pond. 

Luckily  we hadn’t gone there to see reflections, we’d gone there as a convenient town from which to start the Leaping Tiger Gorge trail so the next morning we got a 2 hour bus to Qiaotou.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Through the medium of limited speech and hang gestures we got dropped off at the bottom of a mountain and left our backpacks to be dropped off at the trail end.  We never did our DofE at school but  looking around us we couldn’t help wondereing if a more detailed map might be in order….

7 other trekkers got off the bus with us – 2 of whom hot-assed away with steely determination while  rest of us politely nodded and tried to stay in our separate groups while walking within meters of each other. Every trek starts this way!

A Naxi local touting the use of his horse immediately identified who he thought would crack first and started his 3 hour long sales pitch.  Within 30 mins one of the Canadian students got freaked out by how steep it was/how hard her lungs were working and entered into first stage negotiations with him but her friend talked her out of it and we all continued on foot.  Followed closely by an increasingly sulky local and his horse.

Given it’s China’s most celebrated trek we expected it to be pretty well marked but the first 2 hours gave plenty of opportunities to get lost.  We spotted the breakaway-2 trekkers in the distance and assumed they’d found the path only to be shouted at by the horseman and pointed up a barely visible path to a hut in the distance.   The following 90 minutes were hardcore uphill.  A Singaporean gap-yearer attached himself to us after declaring it all ‘really scarey’,  the 2 Canadian girls told us to go ahead but keep them in eyesight and 2 super-fit French guys surprised us all by going really slowly behind us.   Thus we began – like a global Benneton advert for people who should’ve have prepared a bit better.

 2½ sweat drenched hours in and we reached the first guest house where we regrouped and laughed bitterly at the fact that we’d just descended almost the full distance we’d climbed.    Thankfully the village between Naxi Guest House and the start of the hard bit (28 Bends) was having some building work done on the path which meant the horseman was forced to give up on us and turn back having convinced no-one his ancient horse would be the easy option.   

The 28 bends are switch-backs up the steepest part or the mountain – they vary from pretty wide natural stone steps through to shail path (which always makes me think of the Travellator at the end of Gladiators: lose momentum and you’re going back more than forwards). The common factors are very narrow and very steep.  After 28 of the bastards we reached a hut where an ancient woman offered to sell us water, banana’s and massive bags of weed.     Gasping for breath, heavy footed and a bit dizzy from altitude?  What you need is to get stoned too.  Mountain safety 101.

This point is where the legendary Tiger did his legendary leap across the gorge in order to escape the hunters.  It’s also the point where the gap-yearer once more declared it ‘really scarey’ and one of the French men went horribly pale and fell asleep for 15 minutes.   After which we saw the Canadians coming round the final switch-back so felt it was OK to set off again.

We were all a bit surprised to see the Breakaway-2 stride past at this point laughing through gritted teeth that they’d gone the wrong way twice now and had a lot of time to make up.  Suspect they were using the same map as us.

From this point cloud cover meant we got snatched views of the snow-capped mountains, of the gorge below and occasionally both at once.  The sound of the water below was incredible given how high up we still were. 

A few hours more and we’d descended a fair bit, grabbed some noodles  for lunch and reached our aimed destination for the night, at 24km misleadingly named ‘Halfway House’

Showered, fed, few local beers on the roof terrace with the French men (now much recovered having been hit with a bit of altitude/lack of sleep/lack of food earlier) and we were sound asleep by 9.30.   Didn’t last long though as the Canadian girls alerted us to their safe arrival through the medium of shrieking in the room next to us as only 18yr olds relieved to be off a mountainside can do.   

Day 2 – we strapped ourselves in for the same distance again but all downhill.  As we’re both much happier going uphill than down, we set off early to allow plenty of time. The cloud was very low and it’d been raining through the night so the walking poles came out.  Although the view was largly cloud the atmospheric setting was beautiful.  For the next 2 hours we heard and saw no-one. The only noise was of waterfalls and the gorge below getting louder as we got closer.  The path was narrow with sheer drops below so it was either looking or walking, not both at once, but very enjoyable.

Amazingly, after 3 hours ish we reached Tina’s guesthouse where our backpacks awaited.  As we drank a coffee and admired the view the Gap-yearer turned up.  His view of the descant, unsurprisingly ‘really scarey’,

We had a choice of heading north to Shangri-La or south to Dali next but as Shangri-La suffered a lot of damage in a fire a few years back we chose Dali – an ancient town with a hippy vibe. It’s where the crazy Chinese youth go to let their hair down ; At one point I saw a woman with a nose-ring. It’s as close to anarchy as you get in the PRC.

Dali

4 hours on a bus where made all the more enjoyable by 3 old men smoking continuously until the bus became too full and and the ashtray (bucket) had to be upturned to become an extra seat. 

Yunnan seem very keen on dogs as pets which isn’t something we see in the cities. In BJ you’re not allowed a dog who’s legs are longer than 35cm and a yearly measurement check ensures this is adhered to. If your dog has the audacity to grow and break this rule you either have to move to the city outskirts or hand it over to the dog pound who ‘re-home’ it.   As such people play it safe and get little yappy dogs that fit in handbags and wear shoes and matching coats. They’re called ‘teddy bear’ dogs which tells you all you need to know really. In Yunnan there is ample space so these rules don’t apply and there are some huge dogs. Tibetan breeds that roar at you if you walk in their street were particularly impressive/terrifying.  Our guest house had 4 dogs so the first few hours of Dali was spent playing with them. Amazing how much spit/lick 4 canines can produce.

Dali has a very relaxed feel to it.  The climate is warmish but not too hot, the air clean, lives led far enough away from the seat of power to be pretty chilled.   There’s a steady stream of foreigners here because of Tiger Leaping Gorge, and it’s appeal to Chinese 20-somethings means there’s plenty of little bars with bands doing western cover versions and selling craft beer.   Perfect recovery environment for trek-legs.

The ancient town here is more interesting as while there are plenty of buildings now used for more modern purposes, the buildings remain original.  There’s a big Confucious temple where people go to have a think/sleep (but never to step on the grass),  water alleys (to ensure the feng shui of the town), and outside of the old city walls, there are 3 pagoda’s towering.

The name tells you what to expect really but behind the pagoda’s are a series of temples climbing up towards the mountains. The symmetry of the place means you can’t see the next one until you’ve reached the one before it and after the first dozen that ilicits mixed emotions.  Near the top there is the 9 dragons temple complete with a statue of a man who really hadn’t grasped the concept that clothes could cover one’s dignity as well as offer warmth/protection.

Time to go home after that. So with a mere 6 hour flight delay we headed back to Beijing planning the next jaunt to the mountains.