My first trekking in China is Tiger Leaping Gorge and it was a fantastic experience.
Tiger Leaping Gorge is located 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Lijiang, Yunnan.
After spending two nights in Lijiang (we stayed in
Naxi Mama 3) and bought a van ticket at Naxi Mama 2 (2 minutes from Naxi Mama 3, this one is good for single travellers as it offers dorm room) for Y25 which took you to the entrance of Tiger Leaping Gorge.
The ride took around 30 - 45 minutes. After we paid the admission fee of Y50, we were dropped at Qiaotou. We stored our backpacks at
Jane’s Guesthouse for Y5 each and had some food first.
We left the Guesthouse in the midday, passed a school and saw a High Rail sign on our left. That means it is the real entrance to explore the beauty of Tiger Leaping Gorge.
There are well-marked signs throughout the route so you need not to
worry and you can easily get a route map in hostels. When we were there, we saw couples of trekkers as well as Chinese guys offering donkey riding service.
After walking for 7 hours, we spent a night in Halfway Guesthouse. It was the most expensive hostel (¥150 per night) we stayed during the trip, yet it offered the best view.
The next day, we walked for another 4 hours and had lunch at Sean’s
Guesthouse. After that, we decided not to go down to the river and
returned to Jane’s Guesthouse instead.
The guide book says you can easily take a bus to go back to the
entrance, well, it is not true! Since the bus only ran once everyday
from Tina’s Guesthouse (if I remember correctly, it starts at around
4pm). We were told in Sean’s that the only option we had was to rent a
cab which ridiculously cost ¥100 for a 15-minute drive! He also
suggested us to walk to Tina’s Guesthouse and see if any backpacker
would share a cab with us.
Well, we took his advice. On our way, we saw a black car which didn’t
look like a rental cab, so I waved my “magic hand” and it stopped! The
Shanghais couple inside graciously offered us a lift and took us back to
Jane’s.
They marked the perfect ending of our Tiger Leaping Gorge adventure! Big thanks!
(Note: I used my film camera to take the pictures but forgot to switch off the date mode! It wasn't even the right date! I went there last year not in 2000!$%*^&**(&^)
