Tiger Leaping Gorge

I rose early, to begin walking while the day was still new. It was easy, in the still quiet gray of early morning, to imagine that it was all mine. A world inside my head. The river far below, the gray clouds tipping to touch the soaring tips of the mountain peaks, the wheat in the rice paddies hurrying to ripen before the rain comes, and the time for planting rice. I passed several people, Naxi farmers or women traveling to market, but they seemed to fit in the vision, approaching, and passing silently away. All the more startling then, when one passing grandmother broke into a face wide smile and greeted me with a cheery 'Neehow'!, connection reestablished.


Booms rumbling. Not from the clouds above, but from the dynamite below, blasting a road through the cliff along the river's edge. Loose stone scattered on the path, evidence of the mountains instability, tumbling down a little more each day.


The old woman, grandson trailing, slowly laboring up the hill as I descended. Basket strapped to her back, no urgency about her patient footsteps, slowly climbing. Her smile was slow, eyes crinkling into tiny black dots, then her face broke open, to revel a round black hole, that I at least took to be a smile.


It's peaceful here. The crowds of Lijiang a distant memory. Here on the mountain top, winding along the gorge. The constant vista of towering peaks above and sheer drop to the river below ever emphasizing my smallness, temporariness. Though the river churns wildly below, and though the steep slope threatens in places to come down from above, the overwhelming sensation is of peacefulness. The refreshing simplicity of the hike, the challenge straightforward, the reward immediate and tangible, it is delicious, and I savor it. I miss these moments, in the woods, on the trail, for a few moments a self contained world.


So far I have learned that when normal life involves so much travel, I prefer a vacation that involves less. Not to say my desire to see or experience new places has in any way diminished. But that, in seeming the, in order to enjoy the experiencing as well as the memory, hectic-ness needs to be removed. This place, is what I have been looking for.