Yunnan (雲南) Pt.2

Continuing on my journey in Yunnan, China. I visited the Black Dragon Pond at 6am and there was a lot of people doing their morning excercises. They were walking around, stretching, and screaming back and forth from different hilltops.

An old lady collecting firewood for cooking. In those regions the wives do all the job around the house, farm, and rear the kids. Criterion for a good husband depends on whether he smokes, drinks, and gambles…

Since we were going out to some pretty remote countries we spent a great deal of time in the van doing switchbacks along the mountains. I could not take my eyes off the scenery and flinch everytime we are overtaking another car during a blind corner.

The road en route to the Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡) with the Yangtze river flowing in the valley.

It was a 2hr hike to reach the bottom, the river was roaring on the other side. I love sketchy wooden bridges.

On the way back I ventured for the more direct path, a series of vertical ladders. I think I detected several loose bolts and just tried not to make any big impacts. Next time I think I will stick to the conventional path.


On these treacherous roads, cars are susceptible to tumbling rocks, waterfalls from rain, caving roads, and other cars.

At 4000m above sea level with Meili Snow Mountain in the back.

We watched some cultural performances, to me it was very diluted for the tourists and mostly to up-sell other items.

We visited the biggest Buddhist Temple in Shangrila, I wandered off on my own because I wasn’t interested in buying incense and bowing and got in so much trouble. :P

Truck load of monks. They live a fairly modern lifestyle outside of the temple. And they kicked my butt in pool (I am super noob though)!

Another snapshot from the mountain roads. We had an amazing driver but he liked to drive fast to avoid breathing black fume expelled by the truck in front.

This is our tour guide, he was such a laid back and funny fellow. We had just hiked to a plateau at 4300m and everyone was gasping to get more oxygen into our lungs.

There was only one road in and out of that region. When the bridge collapsed this truck attempted to cross a muddy path and got stuck. It took two heavy duty vehicles to drag him out.

In those regions the people still believed cameras would steal their souls, tough they are so friendly and interested to talk.

We hiked up to the glaciers (approx 3500m). It has a layer of dirt from all the construction and pollution, I guess in the winter it would look really nice with a fresh layer of snow. Though I would not want to be traveling on those roads in the winter.

A yak grazing near the road. Yaks are used as dowry in those regions. A yak for a wife!

I have this funny feeling I am paying 10x more than the locals, but they were so happy.

At the Stone Forest near Kumming, there were literally HUNDREDS of tour groups and this photo can give you an idea of the situation.

But the good thing is they all follow the same path, get in their little electric cars to go around the park. I only picked the small and narrow paths and this was the most dangerous of them all. I wonder who in the tourism board approved this path for the public?!


Amazing view from the top, watching all the people shoving each other on the other side.

Finally it was time to go home. Of course, only in China do you have a bicycle passing behind an idling Boeing 737…