Shangri-La ......... I Think Not

Tiger Leaping Gorge
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Shangri-La??

Zhongdian is a town that locally is now just known as Shangri-La, the mythical place surrounded by heavenly snow capped peaks and lush mountains. This, undoubtedly is not Zhongdian! It's not bad for tourism though. The road in from the north coming from Darong was spectacular, but the town itself was like any other Chinese town, with little character to distinguish it. The 'old' part of town is now one shop after another selling rubbish to the Chinese tourists that make the trip. The Tibetan monks unusually were the hassle in town with their insistent begging. The shops do sell these robes though, I had never seen Tibetan monks act like this before. I tried my best to see a part of the old town that might be still intact, but without success. The outskirts were just a clatter of new buildings being built to cater to the growing tourist numbers. Needless to say, I didn't stop off for more than I needed to.

Tiger Leaping Gorge
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Tiger Leaping Gorge

What I was really looking forward to along this route was stopping off to trek the Tiger Leaping Gorge. I headed off the next morning on the two hour bus journey to the start of the gorge. It's not difficult to tell from the name where the legend of the gorge comes from. It was a while since I'd had a chance to stretch my legs in the mountains, so this two day trek was just the answer. Landscape photographers have a lot to answer for! The scenery really was something special, but I think a little different from what I expected. I wasn't hanging into the gorge with the shear drop that I was expecting. It was almost like a steep valley in places. It was just too high an expectation that made me feel like this, the walk really was fabulous with some great guesthouses tucked into the mountain to stay. Chinese tour buses can't take the high walking path on the mountain, so there was beautiful peace. Not that there weren't any other tourists, but just enough to feel a bit of life around the place.

Tiger Leaping Gorge
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All sorts of stories were told of the difficulties of summiting the stretch of '28 bends', but the walk didn't turn out too difficult. That was probably aided by the clouds that were hanging around. I had intended trekking back along the high trail, but the rain that started as I finished on the second day put an end to that idea. I ended up sharing a taxi back through the gorge (a road is blasted though a lower route), which was a different experience. Viewed from the bottom of the gorge by the river, it almost seemed more immense than when trekking from above. Happy with the way things worked out in the end (having actually got the view of the gorge from below), I got a bus and headed south for Lijiang.