Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, forming one of the four thousand metre cliffs from the roaring Yangzee River to the top of Tiger-Leaping Gorge. It was a most spectacular fifty kilometre walk. This photograph is taken at dawn, and it fails to capture the shear scale of the place.
Two Swedish and two Singapore travellers that I haven't seen since. I made the walk alone, due to a different pace and enjoying the solitude in the environment.
A view along the walking track in Tiger-Leaping Gorge.
Tiger-Leaping Gorge
Tiger-Leaping Gorge
The little of the most spectacular view on earth, taken from the Halfway Guest House. This was a 180 degree view of the 4000 metre cliff-face.
Daju, the town on the plain at the end of the Gorge walk, after an enjoyable spin across a roaring Yangzee River in a most skillfully driven boat.
Daju
Ben and Sun in Lijiang. What is it about travelling and falling in love like a teenager?
Beyond Shangri La. This is the road north of Zongdian (Shangri La) towards Derong, rapidly ascending into Tibet. The road was blocked to foreigners until 1999, and travels upwards and over the Tibetan plateau taking five days to Chendu.
Straight from Star Wars and into Tibet in Derong. This is no foreigner, no English and no bus territory. I helped a Tibetan man with a book while I played with some great kids: "the sun is a star, a great big star, a red hot ball that can not fall"
There are no buses, but there is a postal truck. I spent a day in the back and a day in the front as we ascended to this road height of 4,650 metres and into Litang, the second highest town in the world.
Litang, the Tibetan town in the middle of absolutely nowhere and reputed to be the second highest in the world. Need oxygennn.... sometimes when Singapore depresses the hell out of me I cheer myself up at the thought I've travelled by bus, train and boat all the way from this town in Tibet to Singapore. It's a progression from riding push-bikes around my suburb as a kid.
Some local dudes outside a shop in Litang. Op-shop gods. The man sitting lowest is holding a jar of tea-leaves, a precious possession that is commonly carried and filled up from thermos flasks found almost everywhere. Another possession carried about is absolutely huge bongs, so that the local men can savour enormous niccotine hits.
Litang from the road ascending up and eastwards, the Lhasa Highway.
