The Quick Facts
* Visited a market in a town near Jinchuan
* Had lunch in the old town of Jinchuan – Frank found a traditional noodle shop that serves fresh rice noodles in a chicken broth – yum!
* Continued our way north to the town of Qiaotao (or Hutiaoxia Town which the call it now for some reason) where we hiked for ~2.5 hours into the mountains to our guesthouse for the night
* Stayed at Naxi Family Guest House, which is north of Qiaotao and on the north/northeast
trail that leads through Tiger Leaping Gorge
The Good:
* The market was cool to see – it occurs every Thursday with vendors selling everything from shorts to honey to tobacco to livestock to super glue
* The fresh rice noodles in Jinchuan were really delicious
* The first part of our Tiger Leaping Gorge hike – some beautiful vistas and a precursor of what’s to come
* The market was cool to see – it occurs every Thursday with vendors selling everything from shorts to honey to tobacco to livestock to super glue
* The fresh rice noodles in Jinchuan were really delicious
* The first part of our Tiger Leaping Gorge hike – some beautiful vistas and a precursor of what’s to come
The Bad:
* Nothing
* Nothing
After another delicious breakfast at Laomadian Inn, we got in our van and headed north to a town near Jinchuan for their weekly market. Unlike other markets that have various stalls set up in a square or rectangle, this market extends up and down the main streets of the town for a few kilometers. This provided more of an open air feeling to the market, which was nice, but brought with it the need to contend with the few cars that would need to wind their way down the road.
Frank stopped along the way to speak with some of the vendors. Our favorites were these two guys selling fresh tobacco leaves…Frank convinced them to let us try a bit, pretty good! (Note the woman who photo-bombed me!)
We also really enjoyed talking to an old women selling fresh honey….seeing as how honey never spoils, Frank bought a 3kg jar of it!
And here are some pigs and piglets for sale…oink oink!
After the market we toured the old town of Jinchuan, which is largely unremarkable but does have a nice old town section:
From Jinchuan we made our way to Qiaotao, which is the town that contains the start of the trail along Tiger Leaping Gorge. All we needed to do was hike to our guesthouse for the night, which took about 2 hours and included a climb of about 400 meters. Along the climb, we ran into some local guys bringing horses back to town after they were used by other tourists:
Once we got the majority of the climbing out of the way, we came upon a beautiful lookout spot with great views of Tiger Leaping Gorge, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, as well as the trail we were about to walk along.
Before we got to our guesthouse, we came upon a traditional Naxi house.
The Naxi people are the most prevalent in the Tiger Leaping Gorge
area. The Naxi culture is unique in that it is predominantly matriarchal. The
Naxi people practice Buddhism or Taoism, and rely heavily on shamans (both male
and female) to interact with the spirit world. They are also quite friendly!
The Naxi people are the most prevalent in the Tiger Leaping Gorge
area. The Naxi culture is unique in that it is predominantly matriarchal. The
Naxi people practice Buddhism or Taoism, and rely heavily on shamans (both male
and female) to interact with the spirit world. They are also quite friendly!
Eventually, we got to our guesthouse which had a wonderful setting with the rugged peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background. It was early to bed to prepare for our ~12 hours of hiking the next day!
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