Photo Hunt

I have finally gotten around to uploading a bunch of photos from my travels between Shanghai and Bangalore. Here are some highlights in random order.

Karoake in Shanghai

A taste of America in Hong Kong
Sign in Yunnan
Sign in Macau Lotus temple, Delhi

Me, sad Tibetan woman, Yak

Monastary, near Shangri-La

Ferryman's house, somewhere near Tiger Leaping Gorge

Yak tea with Tibetan monk, Shangri-La

Mountains near Shangri-La

Main Square, Shangri-La

New friends, Shangri-La

Random temple on bike trip, somewhere near Shangri-La

Field of flowers (poppies?), near Shangri-La

Much needed rest, near Shangri-La

Monastary view, near Shangri-La

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tso Moriri, Ladakh

View from teahouse, Lijiang

Riverfront cafe, Lijiang

Main square, Macau

Winding mountain roads, Ladakh

Well-decorated truck ("Fruit King"), Ladakh

View from airplane, Leh

Tso Kar, Ladakh

Runaway camel, Rajasthan

Finding some shade, Taj Mahal

Ruins, Jaipur

Fort, overlooking Jaipur

Sunset with Tibetan prayer flags, Ladakh

Shangri-La to Tiger Leaping Gorge

[Note: I am on the slowest internet connection in the world. More photos to follow soon]

I think I did not emphasize enough in my previous post how cool of a little town Shangri-La was. It's really small Tibetan village, with stone streets, little shops and restaurants and the occasional hostel, and two very cool monastaries - one on a little hill in town and one that we cycled to. There is also a big square where there is some sort of Tibetan dance party nightly. A little touristy, but still pretty cool. Some photos:

Monday morning I woke up in Shangri-La with no real plans, looked outside, saw that it was overcast but not raining, and decided to go do the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike. This is one of the most famous hikes in Yunnan Province, and runs through a gorge that is over a mile deep.

I left Shangri-La on the 10am bus for the little town of Qiaotou ("Chow-toe") where the hike starts. The bus was fairly nice - better than Ecuador, worse than Peru. I dozed off for a bit and woke up when the bus made a stop and then started again. Confused, I asked the guy next to me "Qiaotou?". He said something. Ｉasked again. He said something that seemed like yes. I yelled to the driver "Qiaotou?" He stopped. I hopped off, got my bag, and trudged back up the hill to Quiatou.

The Gorge hike is around 20 miles long. It starts around 1000 feet above the river at the west end of the Gorge. It then climbs up 3000 feet in the first 5 miles, then goes up and down and eventually descends back down to 1000 feet above the river over the last 15 miles. Top altitude is around 8500 feet. At the end of the hike, there is an optional 3 hour excursion down to the river.

Since the rainy season makes hiking tricky, my plan was to hike for as long as possible when it wasn't rainy too hard. I started around 1:00. As the weather rotated from light drizzle to steady rain but was never a downpour, I hiked until it started to get dark - about 6 hours. It was tough going, and quite slippery and wet, but a really cool hike. The mountains that surround the area are even higher than the gorge - their peaks are over 16,000 feet - and their tops poked through the clouds every so often like I was in the Lord of the Rings.

The weather scared away many travelers so I did not see very many people. But I also had a goofy wide-brimmed hat which I could tell made everyone I passed super jealous. I totally sunburned my newly exposed forehead, neck, and scalp while cycling outside Shangri-La. High-altitude sun and newly short hair do not go well together.

Most people I passed on the trail though had hired a guide with a horse. I hate horses even more than bikes so I did not. Still almost everyone I passed were also saoking wet and had mud-covered spots on their butts (like I did) from falling on one of the slick rocks. But I managed to find my way even though at times the trail was

not well marked:

crowded:

unclear:

probably not that safe:

and definitely wet:

But in the end, it was definitely worth it. The hike got progressively better, and it was awe-inspiring by the time I arrived Monday night at a little guest house that offered dinner and a place to crash for less than $4.

I woke up early and hiked the rest of the trail Tuesday morning, then trekked down to the bottom of the Gorge and climbed out on Tiger Leaping Stone in the middle of the river.

At the bottom of the river, I met a nice Chinese traveler from Guangdong province. As he was the only other person I saw on the 3 hour trip down to the river and back up, we chatted a bit and took a photo together. He took off first, I stayed a bit on the rock, then went up a few minutes later. As I was sweating and out of breath about half way back up, I ran into two guys who were headed down to the water. They mentioned that there had been a landslide in the road and that travel out of the gorge would be "challenging". That was an understatement - I will elaborate on the adventures that followed in the next post.

But the hike was exhausting, I was soaking wet for two days, but it was very cool, had great views, and was a great way to re-connect with nature after spending a month in the very urban lifestyle of Shanghai.

Shangri-La

It's been a whirlwind 48 hours since I wrote last so I will try to describe a few of the things that have happened.


First, Friday was my last day at Kijiji. Everyone gathered to take a photo (below) as I was leaving which was very cool.


Then I went out with the GSB crew to great Cantonese dim sum and then to karaoke with a bunch of Shu's friends. I knew it would be an interesting experience but it was crazier than I imagined. The place felt sort of like a nice casino, with big marble floors and high ceilings, chandeliers, great service, and fancy private karaoke rooms. Everyone was so in to singing it was crazy. I expected that, but it was more intense and more fun than I thought. Kind of like Lost in Translation, but with bigger, nicer rooms. Our GSB group sang Sweet Home Alabama, though I mostly banged on the tambourine to drown out my voice.

I left bright and early Saturday for Kunming, Yunnan. I have decided that Yunnan is equivalent to Colorado, and Kunming is Denver. There are mountains all around, a pretty unique culture that is not like California and not like the East Coast. I am probably not explaining this analogy very well, but the point is Kunming is a pretty cool city, especially for China. Very little pollution, a really nice downtown, some great pagodas and temples and a great lake. I spent a very pleasant 6 hours there, then hopped on a plane to Shangri-La.


Shangri-La is in the very Northwest corner of Yunnan/Colorado. Despite it's technical location in Yunnan, Shangri-La is a Tibetan town. All the people I have met have classified themselves as Tibetan, they dress and eat Tibetan food, and many of the local people are monks at one of the local Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries. [A quick note on Tibet, the people that we met here say that Westerners falsely associate the Tibetan culture with the Tibet SAR that is designated by the Chinese government. There are many Tibetan villages in the provinces that border that border Tibet SAR.]


I checked in to my hostel last night the same time as two Dutch travelers, so the three of us went out to check out the town and grab dinner. The town has a really cool monastery on the top of a little hill which was great. Then we went out and had a surprisingly good dinner of dried yak meat, pickled potatoes, and barley noodle balls.


Today we rented mountain bikes to explore the area. I will not write more about my dislike for the act of biking but I survived off road biking in the Himalayas on my first day at altitude (the town is at 3200 meters, surrounding area is higher) with only one bleeding knee.


But the best part of biking was that we got to see all sorts of off the beaten path things. We met a monk who took us into one of the monastery's kitchens and had yak tea with us (absolutely gross but amazing experience). We went through all sorts of gorgeous valleys with flowers and yaks and yak sheppards and Tibetan people going around the daily work. Everyone was super friendly and yelled "Hello" or "Nihao" to us. We went to the biggest monastery outside Tibet and hiked all around it, went through its dozens of cool temple areas, and trekked up through some of the hills and villages around the monastery. Finally we ended up in a huge lake bed and chilled in the fields.


That's all I can write for now. I will upload more pictures to this post later.