We fly southwest to the Lijiang in the Yunnan province. Lijiang is a beautiful old town. The United Nations has a designation for areas of special natural beauty or cultural significance, and many take tremendous pride in their UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This entire town has been designated as such. It is full of narrow, cobbled streets, many with small canals rushing down the sides. The buildings are all the original Naxi style houses, big wood-beamed structures with beautiful tile roofs with swooping corners. Many have large courtyards in their centers and open balconies on the second floor. To add to its abundant beauty, the town is encircled by snow-capped mountains.
We take a day trip out into the mountains for a strenuous hike. Where in the world are Ethan and Siena?
We have stumbled upon yet another of the world’s most spectacular places no one (well, few outside of China) have ever heard of. Despite its obscurity, this gorge is more than two and a half times as deep as the Grand Canyon, and the Yangtze River that runs through it is almost 2 times as long as the Mississippi. It is the deepest river gorge in the world. Legend has it that the gorge is so narrow that once, a tiger, trapped on one side of the ravine, jumped across to the far side, resting briefly on a large boulder in the middle of the river. Looking up at the absolute sheerness of the cliffs, we believe the story to be apocryphal (word of the day), but it gives the area its name: The Tiger Leaping Gorge. We hike down to the river and climb on to the legendary stepping stone. From here, we are in awe of the power of the rushing water, with churning rapids and high, standing waves. Our guide tells us her brother drowned here, trying to rescue some fool-hardy kayakers, and we readily believe any attempt to enter the water would be deadly. There have been plans to dam the river here, for a hydroelectric plant, but currently it has been scrapped, much to the relief of tourists and conservationists. 
The vast majority of Chinese in China are of the Han descent. This area, though, is primarily populated with the Naxi minority.
The faces here are much broader and eyes rounder than typical “Chinese”, and they look more like the people of Myanmar or Cambodia. The culture is traditionally a matriarchal society, and even the language has a strong female bias. For instance, words change meaning if a male or female ending is added. We learn that “stone”, with a female ending means “boulder”, whereas adding a male ending connotes “pebble”. We saw traditional Naxi dress everywhere and tasted the tradition foods. They make a fried bread here, about an inch thick and 8 inches in diameter, called babu. Babus can be savory—with flecks of green onion and smoked ham—or sweet, with a sprinkling of sugar. When fresh, they are delicious; however, left to sit briefly before eating, they become heavy and greasy. There is also a famous local soup, filled with chicken and smoked ham. This would have been lovely, if the chicken were the prime parts. As served to us, with only the neck and feet, it was less so. The broth was still quite tasty, though. Another new taste for us was the local specialty meat—yak! We all tried it, and liked it quite well. It was very tender, and wasn’t gamey tasting at all, although the spicy chili sauce hid most of the flavor, so we can’t be sure. The local brew is Dali Beer. We had several washing down the babus and putting out the fire from the yak dish. The beer is good, a bit lighter than Tsing-Tao. But the price is not to be believed. At restaurants, it was still about 8-12 RMB ($1.14 - $1.70), but at roadside stalls, we bought it for 3.5 RMB or 50 cents for a bit more than a pint! This is less than we are spending on bottled water. We can’t figure out how they can make it, ship it, keep it cold, and make a profit at that price. But, that’s what you ponder on the second bottle, after your thirst is slaked.
Zhai Jin! (Goodbye in Mandarin)
The Beatties
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