A loo with a view

From Lijang I got another bus to a small village called Qiatou, at one end of tiger leaping gorge. The goge is in the south west of China, not far from the border of Burma and Tibet and is apparently one of the longest and narrowest gorges in the world. It get its name from some legend about a tiger that jumped across at the narrowest part. It is one of the few places in China where there seems to be a recognised hiking trail, so I decided to spend a couple of days walking it. The first days walking was quite difficult as the path climbed quite steeply to around 3000m, and it was very hot. But it was worth the effort as the scenery was spectacular and it was great to be out in a more remote part of the country, away from all the smog of the cities. Walked to a small village about half way along the gorge where I decided to spend the night at a guest house. turned out to be one of the nicest places I have stayed in China, with very nice rooms, food and great views over the gorge. On the wall of the balcony there was a copy of a few pages from Michael Palins book about hte himalyas. turns out he had done the trek and stayed in the same guest house, which got mentioned as he thought it had the most scenic toilet in the world. So i went to investigate and I have to agree with him on this. The toilet faced the gorge and only had a waist high wall so you could look out over the gorge at the mountains on th otherside. You'll be pleased to hear I decided against taking a photo from here as with a lot of toilets in China, it was an open commulnal kind of thing, so I didn't think other people would appreciate it. But the room from my bedroom window was very similar, so I'll try and add in some photos soon.

On the second day i decided no spend an extra night at the halfway house and hired a guide to go up the mountains behind the guest house. This was another great days walking. Although we were in the cloud for some of the time, when it did briefly cleat the views were amazing. the only problem with the walk was that some of it was through quite dense forest and regular breaks were needed to pick off leaches, which wasn't very nice but I don't think they do a lot of harm.

The next day i walked the 2nd half of the gorge. It was an easier days walking as it was mostly downhill to the river, but was still very nice. Found another very nice place to stay in the village of Daju at the end of the gorge. Somehow breakfast, lunch and dinner with beer and a nights accomodation only cost about 4 pounds. So was a nice end to a good trip.