Hetaoyuan

Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest Gorges in the world and has a famous trail to tackle. The bus dropped us off at the beginning and the driver pointed vaguely up a dirt road. Eager to begin, Kevin, Briony and I marched off. The scenery to begin with was rather uninspiring but we soon left behind the town and started ascending the mountains. The morning was hard; we were laden with water and the sun was beating down on us. A sherpa followed us, waiting to see if we wanted to hire him and his donkey to take us up the hill... No chance. At lunchtime we stopped at Naxi guesthouse and devoured a cold drink abd noodles. By this time we had acquired Lee (from Singapore) and the group became four. The afternoon was much more pleasant; shaded by trees we meandered along the cliff edge chatting and taking in the spectacular views. By five we made it to Tea Horse Trade guesthouse and called it a night. We showered off the caked-on dust, watched the sun set from the rooftop and shared a meal before bed.
The next morning we continued on deeper into the gorge now looking down onto the Jinsha river. We stopped for morning tea at Halfway guesthouse which has a loo with one of the best views ever, as Michael Palin claims in his book 'Himalaya'. I had to investigate and yes, I agree.
On the way we saw some great sights including farmers with their goat herds and little goat kids running behind. We reached Tina's guesthouse (the end of the main trail) by lunch and explored a bit more of the gorge although the wind had become ferocious by now. We got the bua back to Lijiang in the late afternoon, tired but very contented.Read more