We decided to go for a four-day hike after Kai’s graduation.  I looked online for “things to see” within a day’s train ride of Kunming, and ran across “Tiger Leaping Gorge” – supposedly the deepest gorge in the world and an overnight train ride to LiJiang from Kunming, and then a bus and a hike (the “small stream” beside us in the picture above is actually about 1000′ away straight down – and we had to hike downwards on steep terrain to get even to that vantage point).

We started from the Kunming train station and caught an evening train to LiJiang.  Cost: 230RMB per person (soft sleeper baby!).

Soft sleeper was nice at first – we could close the door and control our light, etc…

It soon became apparent that the main draw back was we couldn’t turn down the volume to the speaker in our compartment.  It played and played rousing anthems and encouraged us to go to the meal car to eat fried rice etc…  Luckily, there were coat hangars and pillows provided – just enough equipment to rig up a speaker dampner…

Upon arriving in LiJiang, we went outside the train station and hopped onto bus 18 (1 RMB) that some people said went downtown to the bus station.

Sure enough, after going to the old town area (Li Jiang Gu Cheng), we got off 2 stops later, had breakfast on the street and walked a block to the bus station where we got tickets to QiaTou (XX RMB – can ask for Hu Tiao Xia/Tiger Leaping Gorge) and waited a bit in the morning sun until the bus was ready to board.

 

The bus took about 2 hours to get to QiaTou, but the road was pretty good.  It stopped briefly upon coming into the town, and only the German tourist “Tetsian” got off and everyone else just looked confused since the driver told everyone that this was not yet the stop to get off at.

 

Luckily, the bus pulled just around the corner and had to stop at the park entrance, which I recognized from the online travel blogs, so we got off as well – at which point most of the other foreigners followed suit.

We got a park ticket for each of us (XX RMB) and checked out the map on the well as well as recalled “Sean’s Guide Map” that was created by a guest house on the route.

  

We headed off into the park, somewhat consternated because there was absolutely no signage about a hiking trail.  After about 15 minutes of walking, we came to a Y with a sign pointing upwards that said something about “Upper Trekking Route” – score!

We walked on the road for about 45 minutes up and up.

Finally came to what looked like a path going up the hill – we took it and were promptly rewarded with some signs indicating this was indeed the Upper Trekking Route.

  

Path went up pretty hard, but there was a little stone shack in about 30 minutes that had some water and hats – the girls got the hats, and we stocked up on water.

Every so often along the path, there are signs apparently warning about the dangers of forest fires.

After about 3 hours, we came into a valley that was breathtaking – Big Snow Mountain (Da Xue Shan) in the background, harmonious farmers in the foreground, traditional Naxi village in between.  Very peaceful.

After walking about 20 more minutes, we came to the “Naxi Family Guesthouse” – our favorite of the trip.

The views of the mountain are spectacular, the host family the nicest you can imagine, the food excellent, the beds & bathroom clean/relatively comfortable (100 RMB per room with private bath).  The LaoBanYang told me the story of how she got started: 20 years ago, their village noticed foreigners coming through from time to time, but they were afraid of them – they didn’t know what the foreigners were doing nor if they were friendly/trustworthy.  Then, one night when it was raining cats & dogs out, they got a knock on their door – a group of foreigners was drenched and were desperate to find some cover.  She discussed with her husband, and they decided to let them sleep under a roof overhang.  They served them some tea and got to know the trekkers a bit and realized that they were super friendly and fun to be around.  Thereafter, they started offering tea, food and eventually lodging to people as they trekked through the village.  She gestured at her sons – those boys (grown men now) were only this high (1 meter) when we let those first guests stay here.

The next day climbed up pretty quickly to the highest point on the hike where you could see both the canyon and the valley side.

At the top, a lady was selling oranges, water and walnuts.  She hikes to that spot every day, traveling 5km each way on some tough terrain.  She and Lana took a picture together, and she named Lana the “Tall Mother” (Gao Ma Ma).

We kept hiking and came out in a village and ended up grabbing lunch at the Tea Horse Trade guest house.

Since we still had some energy, we decided to press on to the Halfway Guest House, hiking through some of the funnest terrain of the journey.  We had originally thought about staying the night at Tea Horse Trade, but I’m glad we pressed on – although the amenities seemed great and people friendly, it had a more corporate feel to it.

This was the most awesome wood shed I’ve ever seen – note the timber frame construction – Selah is gonna get one of these!

We crossed a bridge and looked up stream and saw a cool canyon, so back-tracked and scrambled down into the canyon.

We arrived at Halfway Guest House about an hour later – as we came into the village, Family (which was written in big red dripping scary letters many times on the hike) and Come Inn Guest Houses were respectively first and second.  Family seems like a recent venture, a bit desperate really, while Come Inn had a bit more soul but very “book me online” esque.  Very glad we went all the way to Halfway Guest House were we enjoyed the “inspiration terrace”, good food, and helpful host (who has been running it for 24 years – he grew up in the town and has only lived away for 3 years in his life – very cool guy).  The only negative about Halfway is the 150RMB room walls are PAPER THIN – the Koreans downstairs sounded like they were in our room at all hours of the night and day – likewise the neighboring rooms (although less inherently loud).  Maybe try the 200RMB rooms that are right along the gorge.

After halfway, there is first a totally polluted stream (some sort of mining or concrete operation above and below), and then a beautiful waterfall.

The trail winds around with a uber-cool water flume carrying water to the next village – must have been about 3 miles long!

The trail drops down finally into the village where Tina’s Guest House is at (actually, Tina’s Guest House is out of operation, but Tina’s Hotel right on the road is up and running).  We ate lunch at Tina’s.

Tina’s tries to get you to go down to Middle Tiger Leaping stone, and recommends two paths so that the awaiting path-minders can fleece you due to you using two paths.  However, due to a report from faithful Tetsian who ended up paying five path-minders and felt worn out from the haggling, we decided to forgo the hike down the gorge and instead went up into a waterfall valley above the bridge right beside Tina’s.

If you are ok with some heights, relatively fit-to-boulder-climb, and don’t mind the frigid water, you can make it all the way up to the slot canyon where there is an awesome canal-like pool.

When we were done and refreshed, we headed down the road (yep, no more path!) to try to find the Tibet Guest House.

However, on our way, we spotted a 5 RMB “Viewing Deck” hike – and headed down there – about a 15 minute steep climb down.

After walking about 20 minutes, we came to the Tibet Guest House (incidentally, Sean’s guest house is a little nicer/more expensive and only about 2 minutes further – great coffee @ Sean’s!).  Rooms cost 150RMB.

  

True to the travel blog’s information, Tibet Guest House had AWESOME food – highly recommend the shaved beef, the Tibetan mushroom, and the Yak Butter Tea (best I’ve had).

The Tibet Guest House was under construction to add brand new rooms for travelers.  They were building it when we were there – all using traditional building techniques (note the hammer) and architecture.  Should be finished in September of 2016.

The Tibet Guest House LaoBanYang’s son gave us a ride in their minivan for 300 RMB back to LiJiang – at the last minute two other travelers joined us which made the price 55 RMB each instead.  We asked if they could take us to BaiXia town – a less touristy old town than LiJian Old Town.  He did and we negotiated a 2 hour visit and the extra drive time for 50 RMB more.

At old town, we strayed into a number of alleys, and got greeted in one of them by a nice little old lady who insisted on us coming to her house to have some tea.  We joined her, and she busted out her stacks of guest books with notes etc… from other visitors that she has convinced to visit her in the same way.  She has been doing this for about 8 years – she moved here 10 years ago when her daughter married a Naxi man who lived in this house.  Her house was 300 years old, built with the same traditional techniques as the Tibet Guest House was being built with.  As we left, I asked her if we could pay her (she had given us tea, food, candy, etc…), and she said “well, it is up to you, but i’m just a little old grandmother” :-).  RMB 100.

We jumped back in the minivan, went to down-town LiJiang, found bus 18 again for the return trip to the train station, and hung out at the train station for a few hours until our train was boarding.

We were tired campers, but loved every minute of it!

 

We got into Kunming the next morning just as planned and headed back to repack for the trip homewards to Oregon (we helped Lana’s parents and Kai move back – 17 bags in all between the three of us!).