Our day began with a 30 mile bus ride through the mountainous Yunnan province, as we traveled to the (in)famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. Unfortunately for us, a 30 mile bus ride on winding, narrow, and often crumbling Chinese back roads takes about 2 and a half hours.
The journey was well worth it however, and we spent our entire day exploring the gorge. Tiger Leaping Gorge, according to the various signs around the area, is the largest and deepest gorge on earth. I don't know if that is actually true, but the claim seemed pretty legitimate at the time. We spent most of the day on a five to six mile walk around the narrow stone pathway that winds along the side of the gorge. The views from the walkway were breathtaking and, at times, a bit scary.
Danger permeated the air even as we arrived at the gorge, being bombarded with various warning signs. It was pretty hard to take the warning signs seriously, however, as they suffered from hilarious misspellings and ridiculous grammatical errors. I don't want to ruin the surprise, so I'll let you click the image below and read some of the signs for yourself.
In all seriousness though - the gorge is apparently notorious for dangerous rock slides and, while we didn't experience any from our side of the canyon, we did see several rocks cascading down the opposite side of the gorge on a few different occasions. To further frighten us, there were Chinese soldiers and policemen wielding megaphones stationed all over the pathway, constantly warning us to stay away from the edge.
Even more interesting than the policeman and soldiers, while walking along the trail we walked past numerous construction workers drilling and blasting holes in the side of the gorge. It was fascinating to see how we could walk right past these open construction areas, something that would be strictly forbidden in the U.S. In fact, I even managed to snap a shot of an empty box of TNT!
Our guide Fred informed us that the Chinese government is thinking of building a hydro-electric power station in the gorge, and they are currently blasting the mountain to test it's strength. (This fact was further confirmed by an abandoned town we drove past, followed by a shiny new series of buildings and apartments higher up on the mountain) It's sad to think that such a beautiful sight may one day be submerged underwater or ruined by a massive power plant, but China has certainly done the exact same thing in the past (Three Gorges Dam, anyone?).
While I am definitely saddened by the thought of the gorgeous Tiger Leaping Gorge being ruined forever for the sake of Chinese development, I'm thankful that I was able to see it and experience it first hand before it is possibly destroyed for good. However, there is always hope that the Chinese government will decide not to build a dam or a power station there. I'll end this entry with a picture from the deepest portion of the gorge, where you can see the raging rapids and even a viewing platform from the other side of the canyon (that's for people too wimpy to make the 6 mile trek). If you were good at Where's Waldo - maybe you can spot the Leaping Tiger himself. You have took look closely though!
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