Yunnan LiJiang Tiger Leaping Gorge

It is day two on our tour. Did I mention that there are 30 people on this bus tour? We have a man with us from Beijing to see to our needs and we also have a local guide to tell us all of the good stories.
We stopped along the way at a pagoda and took this picture of the beautiful valley. Our local guide showed us a hemp field along the way. The locals use hemp for mourning clothes. On the way down the steps to this scenic spot he pulled off and handed me some flower buds from a nearby wild hemp plant. Amazing. Our destination is Stone Drum Village. There are 30,000 souls here. The French occupied this area in 1875 and brought Christianity with them. There are many here who still practice.

You are looking at a very old stage here in the middle of town. There are performers getting ready for a show behind the window in the front, under the stage. The door is to the right and we peeked in to see many smiling faces. The audience was sitting on steps across the street. One vendor was selling bittermelon wine. It looks like the melon was grown in old plastic Coke bottles. Yum! The village still retains its ancient buildings. It was nice to see. Here are tile rooftops.
This lovely lady is selling baskets, shoes, and hats that she has woven. I took a fancy to the basket on her back. Every woman in town carries one like this, although the newer ones are woven of plastic. She made this one and I bought it. If you look closely there is a pad for your back hanging on the wall above the basket. She wove this also. It is a summer pad. It is fluffy on the one side and fashioned into a web on the other. The web side keeps the basket from breaking the straw. In the winter a yak skin is worn on the back. I got lots and lots of looks as I carried my basket through the town. One woman who saw me asked me how much I would pay for hers. The guide thought I was nuts for wanting an old basket. It is awesome. This is Tom on a 500 year old bridge. It is a rope and wood bridge. He is smiling because he loves my new basket. We stopped to take pictures of the first bend in the Yangtze river. It looks calm but the water has cool little swirls on top. Our local guide said very few can swim across safely.

Lunch was at a local place. Our tables are in the back. There was a large group of Naxi people.

After lunch they all went outside and sang and then did several group dances. They sure know how to have a good time.

We arrived at the Tiger Leaping Gorge. This section of the Yangtze is called the Jinsha River. There are 34 rapids. It looked like an awesome place to white water raft until we got to the point where there is an enormous boulder in the middle and then two smaller boulders on either side a little down river (the guide called it a reverse rooster tail). We were told many had died on the river; it is much more dangerous than it looks.

Can you see the path that has been carved out of the rock on the right side of the river? That is where we walked. There were signs along the way that it was dangerous and if rocks fell we were to get close to the wall. They must know this from experience as part of the path was closed off and there were 3 or 4 tunnels we used instead. Another interesting sign warned of falling rocks, it just said "It is dangerous here, don't stop". It was a beautiful day and it was nice to be walking.

We climbed up to a viewing spot above the loud roaring of the rapids at this point. The rock formations were interesting; like giant slabs.

Back to LiJiang for dinner and a walk around the town. These are some of the lanterns that line the streets outside of the restaurants. We visited a local grocery store and looked at all of the packaged local food. That is always interesting.