Tiger Leaping Gorge & Then Some
So we hiked a portion of Tiger Leaping Gorge. We arrived round noon, after taking the bus down from Shangri-La to Qiaotou and once again we were immediately surrounded by ‘taxi’ drivers wanting to ‘help’ us - whatever. And whereas I may have humored them a few weeks ago, now I try to get my bags on and start walking away. So what if it’s the wrong direction - it’s away from them.
We eventually found ourselves at the right spot, Margo’s Gorge Tiger Cafe. After some discussion, we decided to leave our main packs with her and hike into the gorge and see how far we got before deciding to stop.
Oh. It was a good hike and hot and we made it about 2-3 hours in when we finally reached the Naxi Family guest house.
I have to admit, hiking this gorge makes me wonder what hiking the Grand Canyon is like - since ya know, I lived in Phoenix, Az. for about 17 years and I still never made it to the Grand Canyon. Even though Leah and I drove all over the state several times.
A few hours after arriving at the first guest house, some of the people that we met at Mama’s Naxi guest house in Lijiang arrived and it was nice to see them for a brief moment. Most of the time that first day in the gorge, we sat close to the kitchen which is also where all of the locals were sitting - the few that were there. Sure it’s generally nice to meet other travelers, but the fact is… we’ve met tons of Europeans and some Americans on this trip, but we’re here to also meet and be immersed by the people who live here.
So luckily with Leah not looking Chinese coupled with her phrasebook level of conversational mandarin - I would dare say that we have been fortunate to have met and spoken with many Chinese people that others cannot. Simply because the language barrier is too much. When they start speaking to Leah in the airport - as they did while we waited for our flight from Guilin to Kunming - and a whole group of 5-6 random people start conversing with her in Mandarin - it’s impressive to see them open up.
This trip is a gazillion times better because she can bridge the gap in communication - along with the Chinese people’s own ability to speak broken English. One woman at the airport basically hadn’t spoken any English since she was in middle school - she has children our age and she was interested enough to come and sit by us while we waited for our flight, and started a conversation.
It’s these meetings, where people who technically don’t know English, are willing to try their hand at whatever they can pull from the backs of their minds just to talk with the two of us.
And it’s even caused me to start trying my own hand at making conversation in mandarin. It is much easier to speak my bad speak when I am not under the pressure of a sales transaction.
When asked what the best thing about this trip, or what the most memorable part was, I have trouble saying any ‘location’ or sight. Because hands-down, beyond the sights, and beyond the food, the best part of this trip has been meeting the good Chinese people that we have met.
Because in every city, we’ve wandered down streets and while it’s always an adventure, it becomes something more when someone stops us and starts telling us about whatever they feel like sharing, or when they simply want to help us get to where we are trying to go.
While many of us in America like the feeling of being anonymous in a crowd (people watching), that’s simply the constant here in China. So the interesting part isn’t being anonymous among a sea of people, but when you can pull someone out from billions and make a connection, if only for a few moments, before we are all moved in opposite directions. That is what I want to remember from this trip.
