Well the day and a half trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge was beautiful and rustic, and made it quite clear that the three of us are all pitifully out of shape. We took the hike slowly, trying very hard to ignore the annoyingly persistent presence of a sherpa-for-hire towing his horse behind us, no matter how many times we asked him to leave. We were with our guide, Li, who is mercifully making navigating transportation and minority languages a non-worry for me (side: Lijiang is home to many of the Naxi minority, whose written language is, I think, the last surviving hieroglyphic language still in use). Lunch was had in the courtyard of a charming guesthouse midway up the mountain, and we slept that night in a similar guesthouse an hour’s hike down from the top (for the steepest ascent we did break down and let one of the sherpas take our bags).
New Year’s Eve we spent back in Lijiang, but were all so dead from the hike and whatnot that none of us made it to midnight. These guesthouses we are staying in are lovely and picturesque, but have no heat, so we’ve been spending many evenings bundled up reading or watching movies.
Now we are in Dali, which has an old town much like Lijiang, except that the people here are Bai minority and the side trips are different. Today we are going to a mountain temple. I’m sorry my commentary has been sparse lately, I’m just trying to paint a picture of what we’ve been up to.
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Did you say "Hello Dali" when you arrived? Sorry, I could't resist. I think to dispatch the sherpa you probably have to pay them NOT to carry your stuff.
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