Wow! I mean WOW!!!
This place is just off the scale.
Today, we were treated to a five hour trek along Sean's secret trails. The trek was nominally to visit a waterfall in the upper reaches of the gorge, but given the epic surroundings, it was always going to be more about the journey than the destination.
Si Phong had been laid low with food poisoning, so it was just me and Sheenie following Sean that morning. Being a man with some meat to him, Sheenie was the Jabba the Hut to Sean's Yoda. He therefore did a manly job in keeping pace up some steep and rugged mountain paths. The flipside of course is that Sheenie sweats for ten men (make that 20 if the men are asian) and it wasn't long before steam could be seen rising from his black polo. At one point I heard Sean muttering to himself in the local dialect "Man, if this white boy sweats anymore, the villagers will have salty drinking water".
Tiger Leaping Gorge was a great antidote to some of the equally stunning, but sanitised spots that we have been to recently. There wasn't a camera toting tourist in sight (well, apart from us) and the paths were rough, bordering on dangerous in places. We only met a few people that day, and they were all villagers tending their crops. Sean has a few ideas to improve the local facilities for trekers, but you could tell that he didn't wish to make things too easy, lest the coaches, tannoys and paved walkways appear and turn the gorge in to another theme park.
Unfortunately, the gorge as it is faces an uncertain future. According to Sean, plans are afoot to dam the gorge, which will have a profound effect on the local economy and of course the gorge itself.
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