Yunnan Province -- Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

Greetings from beautiful Yunnan Province! We've finally left the smog and big cities behind and have found a beautiful, cool, green, mountainous place in China. We can (literally) breathe better here. As I mentioned in the last post, we flew into Lijiang at night and so didn't get a taste of the area until the morning. Lijiang is the "stronghold" of the Naxi culture, a small ethnic group in this area with distinct dress, culture, writing, and architecture. In fact, Naxi is the only written language still in use in the world that uses hieroglyphics! Naxi buildings are made of stone and wood, and have graceful, curved roofs made of slate tiles. Old town Lijiang is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it was easy to see why. It's probably the most beautiful city we've ever seen -- trumping other amazing old cities like Antigua (Guatemala), Cuzco (Peru), and Santa Fe, NM. The small alleyways are completely paved with rock blocks, and wind around branches of a stream. Only foot traffic is allowed, and the alleys splay out in interesting directions, making it a delight to get lost in. There are hordes of Chinese tourists here, but that hardly detracts from the place. What a treat to spend a few days here.

One of the other reasons to visit this part of China is to trek Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world. From the towering peaks on each side, steep cliffs drop a staggering 3900 meters (12,500 feet) to the raging river at the bottom. The Grand Canyon is only about 5000 feet deep.... It really has to be seen to be believed. A tiger supposedly leapt across the river in the gorge back in the day, and that's how it got its name. The trek starts in a little village called Qiaotou and gradually makes its way up to about 3000 feet above the river, passing through scrub, forest, small villages, and terraced crops all clinging to the steep slope. Occasionally, we could catch glimpses downstream and see the edge of the Tibetan Plateau rising toward Llasa and the Himalayas. There were parts of the trail that were quite challenging (we'll remember the "24 Bends" for a long time), but by the end of the day we'd reached a village called Bendiwan, almost 20 kilometers down the trail. A local has tuned his home into a small guesthouse called the Halfway Lodge, and our cheap, nice room had a million dollar view. The cliffs across the way were over 5000 feet high and had huge waterfalls cascading down them. As we ate dinner, the almost-full moon rose between the jagged peaks. We lucked out with weather, since it had been very rainy for the last few days. Most of our hike the first day was beautiful and cool -- with one 20-minute hard downpour (thankfully) right after we finished the 24 Bends. During the night the clouds moved in and it rained hard for several hours. This helped us make the decision to take the trail from the village down to the road at the bottom of the canyon and catch a ride out, since these kind of rains frequently wash out the road a little further up. We ran the risk of getting stuck or having to hike all the way back out...

Now for a few bird sightings, since up until now the birding has been so poor. Lijiang itself proved to be pretty birdy. A few birds here included White Wagtail, Black-throated Tit, Oriental Magpie-Robin, Black-winged Cuckoo-shrike, Japanese White-eye, Little Grebe, Black-headed Sibia, to name a few. Tiger Leaping Gorge proved to be great for birds as well. Some I saw here included Grandala, Daurian Jackdaw, Blue Rock Thrush, Scaly Thrush, Sooty-headed Bulbul, Black Bulbul (both the black headed and white headed forms), Godlewski's Sparrow, Robin Accentor, Grey Bushchat, and Wedge-tailed Green Pigeon. The green pigeon was especially awesome. Sarah has proved to have both a better spotting eye than me and good attention to field marks, so she's helped me find quite a few of the species.

All for now! Thanks!
-Matt!