Tiger Leaping Gorge

According to legend, a tiger was fleeing from a Naxi hunter. The tiger paused. He had reached a rocky outcrop. Below him, the Yangtze River - referred to as Chang Jiang downstream but known as Jinsha Jiang in these parts - roared and foamed. The tiger turned and saw the snow-capped peak of Haba Shan glistening behind him to the north. To the south, the shadowy cliffs of Yulong Xue Shan rose vertically in front of him.

Without a backwards look, the tiger leapt across the rapids to the opposite bank. His pursuer baulked. With twenty-five metres of murderous Jinsha Jiang churning between him and his quarry, the hunter retired to his village, with nothing more than a story to tell. The stone from which the tiger leapt was called "Tiger Leaping Stone" and the gorge between the villages of Qiaotou and Walnut Garden acquired the same name.

According to my recollection, we were fleeing from the Lijiang to Zhongdian bus, or more specifically, from the old Chinese lady two seats in front of us retching into a plastic bag. We got off the bus at Qiaotou and paused. We had reached the start of our three day trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge. At the main gate to the Tiger Leaping Gorge Protected Area, a smartly-dressed official presented us with a single sheet of A4 paper, with a short notice in Chinese and English.

The English translation read in part: "From 1 December 2009 [today], the Tiger Leaping Gorge Scenic Spot is closed due to rehabilitation of the road. You are not permitted to enter. Should you choose to enter, you do so at your own peril."

"Xie xie ni," we thanked the official and pointing to a café not far ahead of us, said "Women qu chifan." We are going there for lunch. Without a backwards look, we leapt into the Tiger Leaping Gorge Protected Area and onto the High Trail. The High Trail is a goat-track - in the most literal sense - that passes through traditional Naxi villages, It is a world away from the "rehabilitation", a euphemistic reference to dynamiting, of the Low Road, but not without its own perils. 

Confucius says...

Man who spends RMB 10 on a haircut in the morning, will need to spend RMB 5 on a pair of scissors in the evening.

The Quest for the Elusive Naxi Sandwich

The Naxi people settled in the northwest corner of Yunnan province, on a plain nestled against the eastern foothills of the Himalayas, in the third century AD. Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries AD, the Naxi people evolved from livestock breeders to an agrarian based society. At some point, they started making sandwiches.

Not more than a month ago, we had been bitterly disappointed that Qingdao's reputation as the kebab capital of China was wholly undeserved. Warmed up vegetables in pita bread does not constitute a kebab.

It was therefore with some trepidation that Reecey purchased her Naxi sandwich at Sifang Square in Lijiang's Old Town. Old Town restaurants have a wholly deserved reputation for being overpriced and we were not surprised on that count. More disheartening for Reecey though, was the alarmingly yellow egg and frankfurter perched between two slices of stale, white bread.

"Naxi sandwich" said the young Han Chinese waitress. The Naxi women, all wearing steel grey aprons and blue felt caps as if they were about to drive a steam train, were too busy trying to sell maps to the hordes of Han Chinese tourists to cook up an authentic Naxi sandwich. We left the overpriced Naxi sandwich untouched, vowing to find the authentic version.

The next morning, after peddling for ten kilometres towards the cloud-covered peak of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, we found Bai She village, the ancestral heart of the Naxi culture. Once again, Reecey nervously ordered a Naxi sandwich. She was not disappointed. The Naxi sandwich was served on "bread" baked somewhere on the spectrum between pizza crust and pancake. It was topped with fried goat's cheese, two slices of tomato, fried egg and hashed-brown-style potato.

The cook, a middle-aged Naxi woman, nodded to us as we left. "Xie xie ni-a," we replied, hoping that she would never give up her restaurant job to sell maps in an Old Town Square.

New picture links

Picasa is telling me that we have too many pictures in one album. So we now have two albums, one for November and one for December. The two hyperlinks are below.

 

Our travels for November - Hangzhou, Shanghai, Qingdao, Beijing, Pingyao, Xi'an, Chengdu - are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/ChinaNov09.

 

Our travels for the last couple of days of November (in Chengdu) and December are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/fletchheinemann/ChinaDec09