Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge, China

Wednesday to Tuesday, 1 to 7 November 2006

Lijiang is in southwest China. Fairly recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the local tourism industry likes to call it the "Venice of the East". Its Old Town consists of hundreds of old wooden houses built around a network of narrow cobblestone streets, bridges and streams. From a hill overlooking the Old Town, the roof-tops look like a set from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". At night it has a bit of a wonderland look to it as the place is lit up by hundreds of red lanterns and floating candles bobble along the streams. Outdoor bars look out on the waterways and the atmosphere is pretty rowdy (for China). Groups of Chinese tourists in opposing bars try to out-sing each other, issuing a challenge that sounds like "Yeah so! Yeah so! Yeah yeah so!". We help an American tour group from Alabama to rise to the challenge, with patchy renditions of "The Fields of Athenry" and "The Irish Rover" (to our shame, the only Irish songs we know complete verses of, apart from the national anthem!).

We stay at Mama Naxi's Guesthouse. "Mama" herself is a canny businesswoman but, as the name suggests, has a maternal side. She insists that we all have breakfast and dinner at her place. Woe betide anyone who misses out on dinner as Mama will welcome you back to the guesthouse with the stern interrogation "What, no Mama dinner?!?". In fairness, the banana pancakes we get for breakfast are tasty and the spread put on for dinner would feed a small army.

For photos of Lijiang, click here.

We spend 3 days trekking the nearby Tiger Leaping Gorge. The gorge is ranked according to some definitions as the deepest river canyon in the world. It is spectacular. Vertigo-sufferers wouldn't fancy the sheer drop of a few hundred feet into the frothy gorge below. We join up with Rob and Michelle, from Adelaide, for the trek: they give us a bit of a crash course on Australian culture (e.g. toilets, comparing the merits of Australian "drop dunnies" with the Chinese "squatters") and it's good to be able to chat to take the mind off the pain of climbing some of the hills. The "28 bends", a long snaking path up to the top of the gorge, is the toughest bit: at every bend you have to stop and catch your breath. Meanwhile the locals stroll up. At bend 27, one guy tries to take advantage of our knackered state and scam money out of us for photographs of the gorge. We later learn that he is a bit of a thief and has managed to extort money out of tourists as a finder's fee for cameras that have "gone missing". We stay at the Halfway Guesthouse, the toilets of which are pretty smelly but have a great view over the gorge. On the final day, we walk through farmland to the short ferry crossing over to Daju village. From there we take a bone-shaker of a minibus back to Lijiang.

For photos of Tiger Leaping Gorge, click here.

There is not much else to report from Lijiang, although Dara does eat a creature's lung, mistaking it for a mushroom. Should have stuck to Mama's home-cooking.