Got up at 7:30am this morning - which is the crack of dawn thanks to China's 'one time-zone' policy - to continue our trek along the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Once again I was totally in awe of the Haba Peak across the gorge. It's so high that you actually don't see the sun until about 10:30am - which meant we walked in the cold shadow of the valley for a couple hours. The landscape beautiful and grim at the same time with the dust, rocks and sparse vegetation. It almost felt like we were 5 soldiers of a small unit patrolling a rocky mountain pass in Afghanistan about to receive enemy fire from the other side at any time. These are the thoughts and mindset you have when you trek in an all male group, it's quite the bonding experience and even though we'd only met 48 hours prior we felt like old mates by the end of the trek cracking jokes about women, sex and our daily bowel motions.
A bit of drama occured when we encountered our first 'toll collector' on our descent down to the bottom of the gorge to see the Yangtze rapids, the little cheat had set up a 'toll booth' on the path to collect 10rmb off anybody who passes - anybody can see it's all an elaborate scheme to rip people off but he gave us a story about how his rural compatriots 'built' the dirt road and maintained it for us tourists so that gave him the right to collect a toll. I told him to f off as politely as possible and that we weren't giving him a cent but he'd chosen a strategic position where it wasn't possible to walk around him. Stefan, being the most impulsive German I've ever met decided to give the guy a bit of a push and a shove and we all made a run for it but he was used to the mountain air and terrain so he was able to chase us down and grab Stefan - things got ugly, there was swearing from both sides in all languages - in the end we decided it wasn't worth 50 Euro cents per person to ruin our day so we gave him 5rmb each instead of 10rmb that he wanted originally and he begrudgingly let us pass.
We were all shitty afterwards so we didn't care too much about the rapids at the bottom as there were more 'toll collectors' - we avoided the next one by bush bashing around the path and climbing some rocks, and the third one was nowhere to be seen after we climbed back up to the road to get the bus back to the beginning point and then another back to Lijiang.
To be honest, the most impressive part of the trek was the yesterday, walking the high road which most people don't do (especially Chinese tourists who just take the bus to see the rapids). The rapids are nice with the sheer rock walls on both sides but you can't get a sense of the enormity of the gorge from the bottom whereas you do from the top.
Had Pizza for dinner tonight in Lijiang - the 2 days hiking up and down mountains in heat and cold had really taken it out of us so everybody wanted something western for dinner. We didn't even have that many beers because we were all so tired - I'm going to crash early tonight - that means now....
A bit of drama occured when we encountered our first 'toll collector' on our descent down to the bottom of the gorge to see the Yangtze rapids, the little cheat had set up a 'toll booth' on the path to collect 10rmb off anybody who passes - anybody can see it's all an elaborate scheme to rip people off but he gave us a story about how his rural compatriots 'built' the dirt road and maintained it for us tourists so that gave him the right to collect a toll. I told him to f off as politely as possible and that we weren't giving him a cent but he'd chosen a strategic position where it wasn't possible to walk around him. Stefan, being the most impulsive German I've ever met decided to give the guy a bit of a push and a shove and we all made a run for it but he was used to the mountain air and terrain so he was able to chase us down and grab Stefan - things got ugly, there was swearing from both sides in all languages - in the end we decided it wasn't worth 50 Euro cents per person to ruin our day so we gave him 5rmb each instead of 10rmb that he wanted originally and he begrudgingly let us pass.
We were all shitty afterwards so we didn't care too much about the rapids at the bottom as there were more 'toll collectors' - we avoided the next one by bush bashing around the path and climbing some rocks, and the third one was nowhere to be seen after we climbed back up to the road to get the bus back to the beginning point and then another back to Lijiang.
To be honest, the most impressive part of the trek was the yesterday, walking the high road which most people don't do (especially Chinese tourists who just take the bus to see the rapids). The rapids are nice with the sheer rock walls on both sides but you can't get a sense of the enormity of the gorge from the bottom whereas you do from the top.
Had Pizza for dinner tonight in Lijiang - the 2 days hiking up and down mountains in heat and cold had really taken it out of us so everybody wanted something western for dinner. We didn't even have that many beers because we were all so tired - I'm going to crash early tonight - that means now....
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