Tiger Leaping Gorge

This little girl took a liking to Jason and posed for pictures in his hat complete with compulsory snotty nose. She was a bit of a madam eventually helping herself to our food and generally making an amusing nuisance of herself. 

Whilst at the cafe, we met a couple who told us of a man who was grabbing money off tourists walking the gorge by blocking their way on the path.  They had had problems getting to where they wanted as he wouldn't let them pass for a big fee.... this started Jason rehearsing his "look here you silly man, you could get hurt if don't let me pass" routine.

The Yangzi.

There are lots of little villages in the gorge with locals living the subsistence life.

It started to rain on our walk down to the gorge so we made ourselves a shelter with these umbrellas.

During our walk the next day this man got into our bad books.  He waited for us to walk near him and then armed with a hoe pretend to mend the path and then asked us for money.  Remembering the story from the other couple we had a fiesty encounter with him that involved Jason threatening to throw him off the path and briefly confiscating his hoe to menace him with it.  He ran to this door for protection.  It was then that we remembered that there was a toll here and the guy was just doing his job and wasn't a thief.  We felt really silly and paid too much toll out of total embarrassment.

This is the mouth of the gorge where tradition has it that a tiger jumped from one side of the gorge to the other. It looks a really long way and the Yangzi looks very unforgiving.

Nice view.

The weather wasn't brilliant alot of the time and we never got a clear view of Jade Dragon Mountain.

Jason explored by himself one afternoon and got pretty well lost.

These kids weren't used to bearded foreigners with silly haircuts and were awe struck. After seeing their pictures on the digital camera some of them hid, some of them giggled uncontrollably, and some of them looked dumbstruck.

Jason thought it was the camera but we know its the new Jason look making everyone giggle!

These goats climbed up a 75 degree slate rockface to join Jason on a trail.