Running the Tiger Leaping Gauntlet

We had another early start to the day.  I think we got up at about 6am or so, and we were going to get a van at 6:30 that had been arranged by Mama Naxi to get to the Gorge.  It would take about 2 hours to get to the North tip of the Gorge, so this would let us get a start by 8:30, 9am at the latest, which should give us plenty of time to get through before sundown.

Getting everyone out of bed was easier said than done, but it didn’t take too long to rouse the troops to get gathered up.  Mama Naxi was actually awake this time, which I was a bit worried about, since she had failed to do the same just the previous morning.  This time, though, there was money in it for her, so naturally she was up and at ‘em.  She was gloriously dressed in her PJs, and had no idea where her driver was.

Lijiang at Your Leisure

Surprisingly, even though the events of the previous night/morning had left me with a scant amount of sleep, I felt good and ready to go this morning.  Maybe it was that shower that was the first in almost a week? In any event, we got everyone up relatively early, and most of us kinda wended our ways for the day.

On the Road Again, Just Can't Wait to Get On the Road Again..

The bus ride from Shangri-la to Lijiang was kind of enlightening.  It was a bit strange, knowing we had passed all of this scenery once before, but having been asleep prior, so seeing it anew for the second time.

There weren’t a lot of memories from the ride itself, I tried to doze off through as much of it as possible, using Christine’s shoulder and the window beside me alternatively as headrests, and mostly failing. The first memory I have, distinct, after getting on the bus, is getting off it at a terrible rest stop.

As was usually the case, this meant ice cream for me.  For once, it mean ice cream for people other than me, too, and a good amount of stretching for everyone.

Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. III

Sorry, two weeks of shoddy internet activity plus sharing my computer with some friends while they worked on their finals prevented me from being able to keep tearing through this stuff.  Now, though, almost everyone I know in Shanghai has returned, more or less, to the United States, and I therefore have far too much time on my hands.

So, we woke up on Sunday.  I guess the shocking events of the previous night wiped me out, as I actually did manage to get enough sleep such that when I woke up, it was all systems go.

Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. II

 So there we were at the entrance of our first ever Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  I'm not really sure what kinds of preconceptions any of us had about it, and the culture of the area.  It's one of those topics, you know, the sort of thing everyone has heard of, but most people know nothing about, and are nevertheless attracted to it because of this discrepancy.  I tried to keep my mind clean of it all, and just accept whatever was inside.

Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. I

(Note: The next 48 hours of traveling, or so, works best as a contiguous unit, but is also around 14 or 15 pages of text in MS word. So, I’m chopping it up in three sections that will be posted in rapid section. It should be easy to figure out where to start)

So there we were, aboard what was for all of us our first ever overnight bus. I can safely say it is not what any of us were expecting. During my time in Japan, I had glimpsed a variety of long haul tour buses, and they came equipped with double decker chairs that would recline in an almost bed fashion, that looked relatively comfortable. They had toilets.

Midnight Express

So, Saturday morning we get up for our first full day together as a group of fourteen people. I’m pretty sure this whole entry is going to be dedicated to the clusterfuck of that day, so this isn’t going to progress the timeline too much, but it’s probably worth it.

Here was our itinerary for the day:

1) Eat

2) Get on a bus to go to a place called Jiuxiang

3) Come back, then get out stuff and go on a overnight bus to Shangri-la

And that was it.