Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China

Over the next few days Martin slowly recovered from his tummy troubles and felt strong enough to go for a 2 day walk through Tiger Leaping Gorge. So to the usual loud departing words from Mama, "Lessa go. Lessa go" (meaning "Let's go - it's time to catch the bus") , we left by minivan to 'Tiger' (as she calls it). Legend says that a big tiger leapt across this huge gorge for some reason, hence the name! If you're crazy enough to want to see the legendary rock from where the legendary tiger leapt, you can get to see it for a charge, of course, by the locals. It seems that this tiger did a lot of leaping from a lot of different rocks!

We took off with Joel, Eda and Sandra on the trail. It was a good, fairly strenuous walk. At one point we hit some switchbacks - 31 to be exact! We took our time and they were a lot easier than I was expecting them to be. Still hard work though. Phew! Earlier on the trail, I started to get quite annoyed with a local horseman who followed us with his mule hoping that we'd get exhausted and want a ride. The horse had an annoying clanging bell around its neck; so much for peace and quiet! "This is China", I reminded myself. After not too long I waved the guy to go ahead of our group making it very clear that we didn't require a horse, thank you! He went ahead only to clang along in front of us while he persistently pestered a chinese couple ahead. Of course, they didn't want a horse either, but he would not be convinced - although we all tried to convince him. FINALLY, he gave up shouting expletives (I'm pretty sure!) at us and the other couple, and horse bell clanging all the way back down the trail! * Mush