Day 6 – 8 Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

It was pretty central though which meant we could easily get a bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge the following morning, the bus left at 7am so it was a late night and an early start, we hoped on the bus on the way there that the hike wouldn’t be so bad.. It was a real tough one.

We started the walk in Qiatou from what looked like a lay-by, the beginning of the walk was up a road and then the rest was walking path up the gorge. Because of the high altitude every step we took felt 10 times harder and I reckon we stopped about every minute (we got over-taken by other hikers a lot, we never overtook anyone!). 

We had been given a ‘map’ which was a drawing essentially of landmarks along the walk and the times that it would take to get there. The first section was supposed to take 1.5 hours according to this ‘map’, it took us 3 hours. 

Once at the highest point of the hike it was so worth the pain for the views which were amazing. It took us about 7 hours in total from the start to the guest house where we stayed the night (called Half Way Guest House – not half way, more like 3/4 of the way through the walk). We were certainly feeling proud of ourselves once we got there and enjoyed a few beers and chatted to other hikers who had passed us earlier in the day.

The next day we finished the hike which took about 2 hours (maybe longer having been held up by the goats and horses on the track), and was thankfully all downhill. Once we finished the hike we booked a bus back to Lijiang at a guest house called Tina’s and then walked down to the bottom of the walk which was another 2.5 hours down and up. We had had good walking weather the day before, dry but cloudy, today was sunny which made this hike particularly tough. 

At the very bottom of the gorge, it is possible to cross a little wooden bridge to the Tiger Leaping Rock, Max did this. The Rapids around it were insane, I was to much of a wimp to do this.

Once back at Tina’s (very hot and sweaty) we had noodles, I had egg noodles which were my favourite that we have had so far in China.

We returned to Lijiang mid afternoon, but didn’t get back to the hostel until about 8pm after waiting ages for a bus and then getting off at the wrong stop (due to map issues!)

That night the hostel host cooked us dinner which was so nice (it was noodles with vegetables and minced meat we this sugary cake thing on top which was actually so tasty although no idea what it is) . We sat outside and had some drinks before heading  out on to the high street right near the hostel which was buzzing with people and there was lots of bars and restaurants with live music.

We tried a music bar, it was fun but so loud that we couldn’t even speak to one an other and it was very expensive, so we left after one drink.

The following day we explored Lijiang ancient town which is a new old town (built recently to look new), it is very popular with Chinese tourists, we spent a relaxing and enjoyable afternoon wondering around in the blistering sunshine!