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From Lijiang we took a 2 hour bus ride through the country-side to the base of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It's named after a legend that says a hunter was chasing a tiger and to get away, he lept across the river. It's quite a distance, so who knows ;)
The first day was a rigorous 5 hour climb, but the second was much more leisurely, and the third day even more so. We stayed in luxurious mountain hostels, so it was quite a nice trek all in all! It was amazing to be up in the mountains again, with the crisp, clean fresh air. Though I think this shocked our bodies which were used to the warmth and humidty of SE Asia as we were struck with horrifically chapped lips and dry skin!
All these captions have been provided by Billy, who so kindly sacrificed espn.com time to enter them and to add all the captions on picasa ;)
A yellow striped lizard along the trail.
I have no idea why that donkey keeps following me, or why the man wearing it is carrying my pack, or why I'm carrying Kersti's uber light pack, or why Kersti has no pack! (note from kersti... yes, we paid a mear $16 AUD for that luxury, worth every penny!! We didn't even barter we were so happy for the service. But in truth, the donkey was usually 1cm from our legs and not that nice, safe looking distance! At times I thought he was going to accidentally nudge us off the cliff with his nose.)
Kersti, mountain explorer extradroinare!
Pack back on, manhood restored.
We made it up the 28 bends!
The view back along the gorge.
Our room at the Tea Horse Guest House, my favourite place we have stayed all trip!
The sunrise from our room, as you can imagine we were in no rush to leave.
Tibet Butter tea, where they melt probably a whole stick of butter (or heap a bunch of lard) in the tea. It was disgusting, but perhaps Leslie (Kersti's mom) would've loved it, as she is known to eat butter straight! We were also intrigued by the hostel's use of Christmas cups!
For some reason Kersti didn't want to stay there very long...
The alien flower of the passionfruit tree.
Getting wet at the waterfall that crossed the trail. 
These goats didn't stop for anyone!
Heading downhill...!
Happily finished with all of the tough hiking.
The view of our second night's lodging, which of course coudn't rival with the night's before!
Relaxing with fellow hikers after the hike, somehow the night was a bit blurry...
Down at the bottom of hte gorge, at tiger leaping stone where the tiger supposedly jumped across the river while escaping a hunter.
This is right before I re-enacted the famous leap..
On second thought, maybe I'll just stay on this side.
The ladder straight up on the way back, but fortunately it was sturdily built out of coat hangers and dental floss...
Cannonball!
The mail is here! (Note from kersti... We encountered this on the road out of the gorge. We were in a van with the craziest of drivers who thought that it was best to drive on the wrong side of the road, which coincided with the CLIFF EDGE. I was so nervous I nearly fainted. The road (sometimes paved) was perched on the edge of a massive cliff. I often wished to just get out of the car and walk...
At one point during the drive, I had my eyes rivetted on the road when all of a sudden we heard a huge BOOM and I saw a cloud of smoke eject horizontally out of the mountainside in front of us. The driver thankfully immediately slowed to a stop and we quietly waited for a landslide to crush us with 1 billion tonnes of rock and bury us half alive. As you might guess, the landslide never came and after a minute the driver cautiously drove on. Only in China are they dynamiting the ridiculously steep hillsides while people are just walking and driving along the road!)
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