“If you don't scale the mountain, you can't view the plain” - Chinese Proverb

Well that's what i kept telling myself throughout Yunnan Province anyway... This is the sort of country that Tim craves, snow capped mountains, clear mountain lakes and streams, fresh mountain air - yep, a lot of mountain which means a fair bit of UP! Neither of us were disappointed.

Yep that's a cormorant on his head!

So we started in Dali, which is about 2200m above sea level (about the same height as Mt Kosciusko and higher than either of us had ever been!) and where people may start experiencing altitude sickness.  We did a good 1/2 day tour organised by the guesthouse out to an old town on the big Dali lake to see Cormorant fishing, pretty cool to see them catch the fish and bring them back - they still try to swallow the fish even though they have cord around their necks to stop this. They look glossy, healthy and happy and get lots of little rewards for doing the fishing from their owners so my fears of bird abuse were allayed! Yes mum, they did bring back memories of Ping Ping. Tim and i even had cormorants sit on our hands and heads, special treatment i think as the domestic tourists didn't get this opportunity - highly possible that the fisherman just thought it was funny to see foreigners with birds sitting on their heads! One thing i didn't know - cormorants have the most beautiful green eyes. 

Our taxi driver also gave us a bit of a tour thru the old town on the way back, where we got to try the local milk/cheese delicacy - not bad - and see the big banyan tree full of egrets. We shared some tea with him when we got back to the guesthouse, nice guy and much more than just a taxi driver. Tried our first Tibetan food this night, yummy lamb stew.

The next day we decided at the last minute to head up Cang Shan Mtn which sits overlooking Dali. We planned not to do the 12km walk at the top of the mtn because we had to get back in time to make our bus to Lijiang and because i had started getting a pretty bad flu (groan) however on our way up we changed our minds, it just looked too good to miss! So we did ultra speed  walking and saw some pretty waterfalls, green pools and lots of pine trees. No wildlife apart from small birds, this is a pretty common theme in China, they REALLY like hunting and eating their animals. We made it back down in time for our bus thanks to a short trip in a motorised rickshaw! Note - rickshaws and bumpy cobblestones don't mix well!

Pretty streets of Lijiang old town

The trip to Lijiang was slow and bumpy thanks to lots of roadwork but we did make it, with the added benefit of a gorgeous sunset and a double rainbow on our way in! We only stayed the night in Lijiang (at a sweet little courtyard guesthouse in the old town) before heading onto Qiaotou to start the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek - Tim starting calling it the Leaping Tiger Hidden Gorge about here, sigh...  

Sunset from Naxi Guesthouse, Tiger Leaping Gorge

After arriving we walked up (and up and up and up) to the first guesthouse run by a local Naxi minority family, but managed to get ourselves lost along the way - despite what the guidebooks say, at least one of the pony handlers at the gorge are helpful and ARE pointing you in the right direction not just trying to lure you onto their pony! We also helped out a lost Brit backpacker. After Tim tried his Mandarin out on a local farmer we were back on track and arrived in time to see the sunset. 

Sunset/Moonrise view from Halfway Guesthouse

The next morning we got up to see the sunrise but unfortunately only clouds... We then headed up the famed 28 bends to the highest point on the track - yep, there is 28 bends and they are steep! The scenery is beautiful with mountains on either side of the gorge and a raging river far below. We saw lots of goats and their minders as well as a wild White Tailed deer in the pine trees - not common due to hunting so we feel lucky. A good walk but by this stage my nose was running like a tap and my hacking cough made me sound like an 80 year old smoker - still i soldiered on thanks to Tim carrying all our stuff - who needs pack ponies. After about 5 hours of walking we reached the Halfway Guesthouse and had a nice evening with some other backpackers, watching the moon pop up from behind the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from the guesthouse balcony - gorgeous.

The next morning, with me feeling like crap, we headed off on the last stretch. It was a bit miserable on the way down as rain storm hit and the wind made it very cold, our dry bags and pack liner passed the test and we definitely deserved our warm up coffee at the bottom. We also fit in a walk to the bottom of the gorge and then back up the mountain using a couple of ladders - this was awesome, though a looong way down and a loooong way up some steep paths. You realise just how much water is there when you are standing next to it, what looked like a brown ribbon from above is now a deep, crazy raging river.

We left Tiger Leaping Gorge that afternoon and headed for Shangri La - the furthest west and the highest town we were going to. We were lucky to be able to share a van with some domestic tourists and found a guesthouse pretty easily. The next day was a bit of recuperation, some grapefruit tea, sleeping in and clothes washing and an easy visit to the local Monastery - apparently one of the most important in China! We did have one bit of excitement here when the police just before the monastery ordered us off the local bus - turned out they just wanted us to pay and catch the "official bus" to get in but it was a bit disconcerting at first. Lots of Tibetans in Shangri La - who seem more outgoing and eager to chat to us - and the whole place had a bit of a "final frontier" feel to it. Chilly too, but nice after some of the humidity we've had.

Top of Shika Mtn, with views of the Himalayas!

The next day we went up Mt Shika which is very close to Shangri La with a Tibetan guide. It was 4459m and no, we didn't walk UP it (due to lack of time rather than any laziness, seriously!) we took the cable car, but we did walk down again. They actually sell oxygen bottles at the bottom, and while we found we were definitely breathless at the top we had no serious issues. Lots of the Chinese tourists were buying them though, especially the ladies, even though they weren't doing any actually walking, lol. Our guide was a friendly guy and it was interesting to talk to him about his thoughts on environmental preservation, the China-Tibet relationship and just general Tibetan life. The summit was covered in snow and we saw lots of wildflowers and birds on the way down. We also bumped into a group of young monks who invited us to join them for lunch at an alpine lake. They did their incense offerings etc and we shared a bit of picnic (lovely spot with snow on the edges of the lake and snow covered mountains in the background) - we're pretty sure they were eating pork sausages, naughty monks! They were very impressed that Tim and I had seen his holiness, the Dali Lama in Sydney and gave us some tiny little "prayer balls" to eat which are apparently good for your soul.

Local minority group ladies in
their MASSIVE hats

We headed back to Lijiang that afternoon and stayed in the same guesthouse. The next morning we wandered around the old town, old fashioned residences/shops, cobbled streets and pretty waterways. It was pretty touristified in areas but easy to get away from it down the less popular alleyways. Time to leave Yunnan province that afternoon, we flew from Lijiang to Chengdu to avoid backtracking to Kunming for the train. We feel like we really could have spent our whole China time in Yunnan, sooo much to see and so many possibilities of getting off the beaten track. Perhaps we'll come back!