Tiger Leaping Gorge

15 minutes in and the view is already lovely
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We arrived at Qiatou around midday after a journey in a bus with the tiniest seats ever.  We proceeded to a well-known cafe for info about the trek and tucked into some microwaved muffins and coffee.

After buying our tickets, we set off after about half an hour along the route. The sun was blazing down, the road dusty and the incline steep. After half an hour I didn't feel too good, a bit nauseous and dizzy and wanted to throw up. Convinced it would pass I kept going. Unfortunately this was the hardest day of the trek, up the steep mountains along what's called the 28 bends, which is pretty tough. On this part we met again this guy with a donkey, he'd been following us and trying to get me on the thing. (no way, was bitten by a donkey once). Anyway on one of the bends the donkey passed us. There wasn't much room but we stood out of the way as much as possible. However the nasty thing tried to kick me as it passed and ended up getting Cathal in the shin. Cathal fell backwards, luckily towards the mountain not the other direction which was pretty much a sheer drop.

Cathal fell backwards, luckily towards the mountain not the other direction

The silty Yangzte meandering along. (Who paid attention in Geography class, then?)
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Much commotion ensued with me yelling at the owner to leave Cathal alone (he started to rub Cathal's leg like that was going to do any good if it was broken). After an ear-bashing from me, he stood back and I ascertained that Cathal's bones were intact. The guy and his donkey wisely kept descending. Then we made our way upwards, both of us being brave little soliders, for the last 2.5 hours of the trek and to a guesthouse to spend the night.

Chatting to the other trekkers there we realised that the donkey had claimed another victim altough he'd kicked her on the behind so no damage done. We procured some ice and tended to the huge lump on Cathal's shin. Once he had a beer inside him he was in good form and we had a lovely evening, sitting at the tables outdoors, looking at the stars framed by the jagged mountains. I skipped dinner and we retired to bed around 9.30 both exhausted.

Lovely clouds over Tiger Leaping Gorge
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The next day we were both in good form. Cathal's shin was a little bruised but otherwise fine. I donned our rucksack as Cathal had carried it the whole time the day before, and we set off. Around four and a half hours later we arrived at the end of the trek, having spent a lovely half hour having lunch beside a waterfall. We had several well deserved beers and watched the other trekkers arrive back sweaty and happy.

There are plans afoot to pave a road along the gorge so that bus-loads of tourists can visit which would be a real disaster. The gorge is one of the few relatively unspoilt areas we've seen in China and it would be a pity if it didn't stay that way. Having said which we couldn't see where the money we'd spent on our tickets went, since it was fairly hard to figure out which way the trail went due to the large amount of graffiti and arrows put there by guesthouses and the last part had to be completed by road as the higher trail was blocked by a dead goat and looked pretty dangerous.

Terraced fields along the way.
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We still enjoyed ourselves immensely, as the scenery is still so beautiful we were impressed despite our respective pains.

After a good night's rest we took a frequently overheating mini-bus back to Qiatou and then negiotiated another mini-bus to Zhongdian. We were then headed for a 14 hour sleeper bus journey to Kunming.