We arrived at Lijiang and checked into crazy Mama’s Guesthouse in Old Town. Mama is a bit of a nutcase honestly but she means well. Old Village is beautiful, relaxing area, stoned bridges and roads, and just has a very old fashioned vibe to it. It’s actually listed in the World Heritage List. After many hours on a train and bus, we rested for tomorrows adventure on the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Woke up early to have some of Mama’s breakfast and get ready for a 2 hour bus ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Jemma, Clare, and Chris made the hike up Tiger Leaping Gorge mountain very entertaining. We played some ridicules games, talked, chilled on random spots, and of course tons of picture taking. The view the entire way was fantastic. Snow capped mountain tops, waterfalls, bright green trees surrounding the mountain, and bluest sky I’ve ever seen in China. We trekked I think for about 6 hours total and slept at a guesthouse halfway.
The guesthouse was one of the best parts about the journey. Met several people there and hung out for most of the night. Bai jiu is a killer alcoholic drink in China. It’s disgusting yet you drink it anyway. It was made and brewed on the mountain by some locals so it defiantly had a better taste to it then the last time I tried it. The most entertaining part of the night was thanks to Caleb. It was late and it was only Chris, Caleb, and I awake. Caleb decides we should join the owners and workers table of the guesthouse. Caleb knows a bit of Chinese so it was much easier for him to communicate with them. He was basically our translator for the night. Hanging out with the locals is the best way to experience a culture. This is what traveling is all about. Understanding the other side of the world. I now have a better understanding of the people in China. One thing that really stood out that was said by one of the owners of the guesthouse is that China isn’t looking to become a super power like the USA or the UK. China just wants to be known on the map and have a better reputation to just get high enough to be known but not pass up USA or the UK. Very good information and it was like this all night. Plenty of jokes and laughter going around. Everyone loved it.
LOL we were making random chinese numbers. I did the number 6
We continued our trek the next day. Legs were already killing me from the day before. We gathered up some more people to come with us to the end. Although we had to do another killer 6 hours of climbing up then down, it was well worth it. Intense workout these past 2 days. Many parts of the hike was just straight up for awhile. I learned that I suck at climbing but I suppose over time I’ll get better.
Not sure of the full story but a tiger leaped over from one mountain to the other over a river hence the name Tiger Leaping Gorge. This was toward the end of our trek and by this point I was dying. I did make it though and got to see where the tiger leaped over the river.
Beautiful views, awesome people, chatted with the locals, and again, Jemma, Clare, and Chris are just awesome travel buddies! I’m going to absoletly hate saying good bye to them. Jemma and Clare leave tomorrow night and heading toward HK and Chris is heading north for a little while before going to Laos. So were all splitting up soon 
. I’m going to miss this crowd.
I just budgeted how much I’ve spent lately cause I feel like I been somewhat over spending and so far it’s been $816USD since I started almost a month ago. My budget was $1000USD a month so it seems like I’m doing a pretty damn good with my money so far.
