Our hosts at the Maple Leaf Inn pointed out that it might be expensive to hire a private driver to take us to the famed Tiger Leaping Gorge. Better to join a tour group and save a little money. Sounds good. The next morning the four of us were the last ones to join the bus so we took the bench seat in the back.The hiking guide/tour guide was a young fellow in his late twenties. Before the bus even pulled out of the parking lot, he was on the microphone talking to the bus full of soon-to-be hikers. Being all in Mandarin, I couldn’t understand a word he said, but I assume he was outlining what everyone could expect on the hike. Fifteen minutes later, he was still talking. I assumed he was giving some safety instructions and hiking tips. Half an hour into our bus ride, he was still chatting away. Now I figured, he was giving a little of the history of the gorge –and apparently it has a lot of history. We approached the one-hour mark and still he prattled on. By this point, I could hardly image what he was rambling on about. I could only conclude that he must be sharing how he used to get bullied in grade five and about his grandmother’s recently diagnosed goiter.
Total, it was a two-hour bus ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Anticipating that this might happen, Annika and Elise kept a running total of his time on mic. Tour Dude Man rocked the mic for 93 of the 120-minute bus ride. Ai-ya.
It was turning out to be the consummate Chinese tour group experience. What’s more, we made no less than three stops along the way. Surprisingly, none of the stops was a jade superstore. The first stop was at a roadside overlook where we were able to get some great pictures of the gorge. Okay, I get that. But the other two stops? At one, we were paraded through a not-very-old looking shack that was about half the size of my living room. En masse, we went in one door and out the other. Inside was a shelf that everyone seemed to be looking at. But for the life of me, I could not figure out what we were supposed to looking at. Honestly, the only thing I could see beside the thick layer of dust was a yellow construction helmet set off to one side.
Eventually, we made it to Tiger Leaping Gorge and it was worth all the hassle. Tiger Leaping Gorge is a contender for deepest gorge in the world depending on how you measure. We had some fantastic views as we looked down into the gorge before making the two-hour hike down to the river’s edge. The Yangtze Three Gorges river cruise portion of our trip had ended up on the editing room floor, so this made for a pretty nice consolation prize. And the icing on the cake: it is the mighty Yangtze River that cuts through Tiger Leaping Gorge. Just when I thought I was going to end my two years in China without laying eyes on the legendary Yangtze River, I now had one more item I could scratch off of my list.
The Yangtze has its origins here in the mountains of Yunnan, but don’t think this means that the Yangtze is a mere stream at this point. It is a raging, white-water river as it passed through Tiger Leaping Gorge. In fact, the rapids are so severe that this stretch of the Yangtze is not navigable. From here, the river has a long ways to go yet before it becomes the wide, meandering Yangtze that snakes its way through the heart of China.
At the river’s edge, a rickety wooden bridge leads out to a cluster of large rocks in the center of the river. An elderly woman was manning the bridge and collecting a toll from all those who wanted to cross. As we stood on the rocks, just feet away from the white rapids as they roared by, we could feel the mighty Yangtze vibrating in our chests.
We lingered by the river’s edge for about an hour until we saw our guide corralling our tour group together. We climbed out of the gorge by a different route than we had come down which required us to climb up various sections of a ladder that had a grand total of 168 rungs.
On the way back, the bus ride was much better. During our two-hour trip, our guide was only on the mic for 45 minutes.
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