Sight of the day: Yangtze River
Food of the day: Naxi sandwich
Emotional moment: Lifting my eyes up from my latte coffee to see a mountaintop soaring above me
We have at last escaped from the city and been immersed in one of the most stunning sights of rural China - the huge Yangtze River ferocious and coffee-coloured in its path through one of the deepest canyons in the world, Tiger Leaping Gorge. We took the high path, 3900m above the river, and did we know it! The climb up was literally breath-taking, and even in late October the heat was almost stifling. I pitied the poor souls trudging up those paths in mid-August and stuck firmly to Dad's advice 'you can do anything if you do it slowly enough'. Our lovely guide, Ali of Ali-Baba's bike hire, had planned a punishing 14km uphill for the first day and about 2km downhill for the second day - we had no idea why the 'Halfway House' accommodation was definitely not half way and with his miniscule English and our non-existent mandarin it was impossible to find out. We just knew it would be 'two hours, then two hours, then three hours' before we would be allowed the luxury of stopping for the night. This was scary as I was still suffering from what I had decided from wikipedia was giardia and had a moments panic wondering if I would make it. Thankfully there were a few drink and lunch stops along the way which turned out to be overnight inns for trekkers and we managed to convince Ali to let us stop after 5hrs instead of 7. The inns were delightful - old Chinese wooden carved buildings surrounding a central courtyard, maize cobs drying in the sun and lovely people waiting to pour our green tea and serve rice and vegetables to keep our energy up. They also had verandas and roof terraces, and the occasional 'loo with a view', so you could soak up the views of snow-capped Jade Mountain at every opportunity.
The views, the countryside, the villages, and not to mention the roar of the huge river down below was definitely worth the pain of getting there and as always we wished we had longer to enjoy it. The bus trip back was an experience not to be missed too! The low road through the gorge is only partly surfaced and at one point passes through a giant tumbling scree slope. We and our fellow backpackers were ordered off the bus to pick our way quickly between the stones constantly jumping down the mountainside while the bus driver waited for a clear moment. He had just started to drive through when he was shouted to stop as a small boulder had been spotted on its way down - enough to certainly damage the bus if not destabilise it on the slope. He eventually made it through to everyones jubilation (we didn't fancy the prospect of the driver and all our worldly goods plunging into the Yangtze).
This area of Yunnan is the home of a minority group, the Naxi, lovely friendly people always smiling and closer in looks and allegiance to Tibetans than Han Chinese (the majority of Chinese people are Han). We followed (unintentionally) in Michael Palins footsteps and visited several Naxi villages - very industrious farming communties, where each family can make a living from about half an acre of land. We loved the Naxi sandwich - a sort of warm soft pitta bread/pancake sandwich of beef, tomatoes and herbs - absolutely delicious after a trek in the mountains. Not to mention the yak yogurt.
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