I am at a place now that I never thought I would come on this trip. Two days ago, our whole plans basically got messed up when I received a phone call that getting a permit for Tibet became very hard and it would take another month to settle it. We don't have the time, so the whole Tibet trip was suddenly off the table. We received our money back in Lijiang. This is a big bummer for us. To avoid depression we decided we wanted to do something really cool to make up for the gap that left the cancellation. We were looking at possibilities of going to Myanmar instead or to the north to the Xinjiang province. This is probably one of the least visited province by tourists, and going there is supposed to be like entering another country. Upon arrival here in Urumqi we noticed this. People look way different, all is in both Chinese and Arab, signs and stuff. It's way more like central Asia instead of the far east which comes to mind when thinking of China. It's quite weird being here, since we didn't plan it at all. Since my last post much happened...
The day after my last post (China trip part III) we set of for the imfamous Tiger Leaping Gorge. Although many travel agencies in Lijiang advertise for tours, we found some books at the Prague Cafe which had experiences of other people written down. It said that it's best (and cheapest) to just take the bus and go to a place called Qiaotou which marks the starting point for the hike. The hike can be down by two ways, the low and the high trail. The low trail is a paved road that leads just next to the Yangtze river, that flows between the two mountains. The high trail is higher up the mountain and has the better viewspots, but is also harder and a bit more dangerous than the low one. On that day we did just that. We took the bus at 8.30 am (we thought 7.30 at first so we were an hour early!) and headed for Qiaotou. Arriving there 3 hours later we got off just in front of a bar run by a woman named Margo. She gave us some information about the trail and because we didn't eat anything yet we asked her which the next point on the trail was to eat something. She told us this was only 2 hours later, so we went to a supermarked to by some simple stuff like cookies and crisps. We than started to walk. About 5 minutes, and basically just behind the corner, we came to a guesthouse run by Jane (so cleverly called Janes' guesthouse). Somewhere we read that Jane's often stoned, so we wondered if she was this time. Well, let's just say she might have been... It was strange to find it anyway since Margot told us there wouldn't be any place to eat. Jane was very nice but nobody was there at all, so from that point on we didn't like Margot. In the bus to Qiaotou we were joined by a bit annoying group of Americans, which made pour jokes and kept us from sleeping in that same bus. We found out later that they actually were walking with Margot herself (it didn't really surprise us) so probably booked a tour with her around the Gorge. Appart from all this disliking, the hike itself was absolutely amazing. It's hard to discribe the view (I posted some pictures by now so check them out!) if you haven't been there and witnessed it yourself. The trail started somewhat cheap and we found out that all the squash we played in Macau didn't really paid off as much as we wanted. We had a map with us which showed us that near the end of the first days hike, there would be a '28 bends' part that would lead us over a mountain and would top at around 2600 meter. At some point along the hike I thought we already arrived at the section, since we came across some bends and we had to climb already, but no, the hard part was yet to come. The bends reminded me a bit of climbing Mt. Kinabalu back in Malaysia, since it was as steap and also revealed my great *cough* physical condition I'm in. How happy I was when I could finally go downhill. The downhill part was also quite tricky but eventually after four hours we arrived at the Teahorse guesthouse which marked our stop for the first day. We were actually first appart from two Scottisch, but they weren't on our bus, so they don't count! We had a room for 1.50 each, and were able to wash our clothes there. That evening we sat around with the Scottisch and some French people. The next day we left last of everybody for the second part of the hike. For most people, this would be also be the last day, but we already decided we want to do an extra day and walk towards Daju, which is another 4 hours from the end of the Gorge.
The second day was much easier than the first one since there weren't any steap climbs. The trail was a good walk and the views just remained astonishing. For a mountain lover like me this was really fantastic. We came across a waterfall as well, which basically ran over the path and had to go 'through' it. (again, check the pictures!). In the end we had to climb down quite steaply to reach the point where the high and low trail come together again. This was at Tina's guesthouse. However we wanted to reach Sean's guesthouse to spend the night there. From Tina it was another 3 km to Sean's we found out. This was a easy part since it was a paved road and flat, so it was nice to walk. We reached Sean's at around 3 pm and sat down to decide what's next. It was still early and it isn't dark untill 8.30 pm so we played with the thought of just going all the way to Daju, spend the night there and take the morning bus back to Lijiang. We came across Margot again and ask about the possibility to do this. She said it was possible. We had to cross the river first to reach Daju, and Margot assured us we could catch the ferry and sleep at the other side. So we decided to chill out at Sean's, have a drink and lunch and start walking at 4 pm again. And so we did. We had the map and saw on it we had to follow a certain trail to reach the ferry. We walked for almost two hours when we came at a guesthouse where we drank something, before going further. The road was at first straight and than made a bend to the left. Just after the bend (according to the map) we had to take a smaller road off the main road which would lead us straight to the ferry. A road looking like this was there and I was convinced we had to take it. However on the main road red arrows were pointed a different direction towards the ferry. I was confused, but ofcourse we followed them at first, I guess the map would be wrong. I played with the tought that one funny Chinese put the arrows there. At the end of the road the arrows pointed to a guesthouse where a man who didn't speak English at all told us the ferry was closed and we should stay at his guesthouse. I immediately thought he put the arrows there so that people like us would end up at his place. I was also convinced that the ferry was still open since Margot assured us we could catch it easily. We were at the guys place at 6.30 pm and he said the ferry was closed at 6 pm. I didn't believe him at all and after he didn't give us information on how to get to the ferry and went furious, and basically told him to fuck off. I now thought that we did had to follow the map and had to take the road we saw earlier. At that point it made perfect sense to me. We went back down and Jamie couldn't do much but follow. When we entered the road, multiple people were warning us we shouldn't go that way, but stuborn as I was I did it anyway. Eventually I found out the path didn't lead us anywhere we decided to head back to the guesthouse to stay the night there and search for the ferry the next morning. I was still angry and the man at the other guesthouse, for misleading us with his arrows. We were dead tired when we came back and I soon found out the ferry actually did close at 6 pm. I basically came to me that Margot misinformed us and that the guy was only trying to help. I felt really guilty for what I did and Jamie wrote an apology in Chinese and we decided to go back the next morning, and give him the letter together with some Dutch clogs, we are giving out to people who are friendly and help us as a thank you. The next morning we set off at 9 am to find he wasn't there. A woman however accepted the letter and gave us something to drink. I guess it was his wife. After that we paid her for the drinks and she offered to show us the way to the ferry. She brought us to the good direction. For this I gave her some cash. We went further down the road, but the road became less and less clear. Eventually it became a very steap road down which ended up at the river bank near where the ferry would pick us up. The ferry brought us to the other side (seeing the river from this point was also amazing, it makes you feel really tiny) where had to climb up the cliff as steap as we had to climb down previously. I was very sweaty when reaching the top. There was a guesthouse there and we asked whether we could take the bus somewhere. To our surprise the lady told us there wasn't any bus going today! Great, now what. We decided to walk to the nearest village where another guesthouse was. Some other hikers where there already and they said we should talk to the owner and see if he could do anything. He said he had a minivan and would bring us back to Lijiang for 24 euros in total, so 12 each. This was quite a lot and he recommended us to wait if more people would show up to share the costs. We had to get back to Lijiang that day since we at that point still were unsure about when we would go to Tibet (if only we knew...). We already accepted we had to pay the money when to people showed up. One French and one American. I explained the situation to them and we agreed to share the costs. We actually managed to bargain down to 20 euros, so 5 each. None of us were really convinced that there truly wasn't any buses going to Lijiang that day, so we asked him if he could bring us to Daju to the bus station so we could look ourselves. So he did and there he quickly started talking to the people from the ticket office, and yes, the told us there was no bus going. This looking really suspicious but there was nothing we could do but accept the 20 euro and he brought us back. We arrived back in Lijiang at 3 pm. We went back to our first hostel to collect our backpacks (we only took a small bag each for the hike) and see if they still would have a room for us. They didn't so we found another one. It was good to have a shower there since we both smelled really bad after all that happened. I then called David (our contact in Lijiang for the Tibet trip) to find out when we could leave. He then said they had some problems and it could be delayed a few days...
That evening we slowly started to think about alternatives if the delay would actually be longer than the 10th of July, the last day we pinned down as a possibility to leave. We thought of going to Myanmar or the desert in the north. A well, first we had to know for sure we couldn't go, we still had high hopes at that point. The next we planned as a do-nothing day and we just had slept long and had breakfast and strolled around a bit. Getting a bit bored, I called David again to see how things are and if he had any tips on what to do in the neighbourhood. However, he told me about the extra month before. The rest I basically mentioned in the introduction. We got our deposit back and ran off to an internet cafe to see that we could do instead. We found our Myanmar would be difficult, but found a flight from Kunming to Urumqi that would cost us 150 euros. We now have saved some money from the Tibet trip so we could afford it. We went to a travel agency and booked a bus for the next day to Kunming. We also booked a flight for the day after to Urumqi the day after (the 9th of July). We were happy we did this, it was quite impulsive, but we needed it after the Tibet deception. That eveving we didn't do much. We went to some bars to watch Chinese dance (they dance really stupid, which was quite entertaining for us). At one point we were also forced to dance with them. It wasn't that much fun but they thought it was a great thing to happen that evening... ah well...
The next day we woke up early to catch the 8.30 am bus to Kunming. It took 9 hours in total to arrive, which we did around 5.30 pm the same day. We took a taxi to a hostel recommended by lonely planet and after dropping our backpacks we went off to a bookstore to buy some more books. I bought the third Harry Potter (by then I already finished the first one and was well into the second) and Jamie bought the Davinci Code. We then ate something at a pizzeria (very good pizza this time) and went back to hostel. We read something and went to sleep. The next morning (this morning actually) we woke up at around 8.30 to catch a taxi around 9 to the airport. We had the flight at 10.30 am. The flight took us in total 6 hours since it also made a stopover at Xian. We reached Urumqi by 5.30 pm and took a taxi straight to the train station. The station was filled with people. It was really chaotic. Right when it was our turn to purchase tickets to Kashgar (we wanted to go the next day as early as possible) they closed the counter! I couldn't believe it! We had to go back into another line. We had been waiting for a while already and no way I wanted to go all the way to the back of another line. One problem though, no-one spoke English what so ever. I was quite mad and Jamie went back to another line to secure our spot anyway. I tried to explain to the guards there that I was already standing in front of another line and I think eventually they understood what I ment, because I could go in front of another line. One Chinese that could speak a bit of English came to my aid and explained the guard that I wanted to purchase two tickets to Kashgar. However I found out all trains are full for the next two days. Disapointed I went back to Jamie and told her the bad news. We decided to check out how much a flight would be. At the China Southern Airlines companies office we found out the flight would only be 17 euros more then the train at 50 euros in total. We could also take one at 8.55 the next morning and we decided to do this instantly. And now I am here, in an hostel typing this story. We will leave for Kashgar tomorrow morning. I am quite tired now and will finish here...
thank you, bye bye!
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