Realizing my time in China was short, I decided to bus back to Guilian and then fly to Lijiang rather than making the journey west by land. Lijiang is a great town to visit, in addition it is the hopping off point to hike Tiger Leaping gorge. Rain was becoming an issue as it rained in Yangshou and intense rains had hit Lijiang. I had my fingers crossed as to whether or not I would be able to do the two day Hike into the gorge.
Ahhhh Lijiang the Venice of China.
The city is a tiny labyrinth of paths and bridges.
Like ants these women transported these bricks to a construction site. This is serious wo-manual labor.
Due to the intense rains the gorge was closed my first day. Reports that 2 tourists died in landslides forced me to take a horse back riding day trip.
Our guide took me to an apple orchard. For a dollar I could pick up to two kilos of apples.
I woke up at 6am to catch the first bus to the gorge. I met and Australian and an Israeli while in Lijiang and we all decided to try and do the hike together.
After a two hour bus ride through a windy road we were greeted by this sign and 3 police officers. The guys I was with tried to pretend like we didn’t understand but the police physically stopped us. The police informed us through a three way translation (Chinese to German, German to English) that several people had died in landslides and they would not let us pass. We unfortunately had to turn back.
We had to take this dinky thing back to Lijiang. Needless to say it was a sad day.
After we got back to Lijiang I came to grips with the fact that I would not be able to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge. I immediately went to a travel agent and booked a flight to Chengdu to see the Pandas and climb Emei Shan.
Ronaldo is still big in China! His image immortalized in the airport.