Tiger Leaping Gorge

Cool name, huh? We had planned to make the 5km hike into the gorge to the midway point, but when two of us had stomach problems and felt tired, we decided to do the tourist thing and hire a car to the midway point and walk around. Unfortunately for us, we didn't realize there were two points cars could go--the Shangrila side and the Lijiang side. For the record, the Lijiang side stinks. We should have known it would when we saw the tour buses lined up at the entrance. They blasted out a path in the rock face on one side and blew out what looked like the entire rock face on the other side for a road. As such, the gorge was not quite so steep and narrow looking. I'm sure it would have looked nicer had they not done anything to it. In any case, if any of you go to Tiger Leaping Gorge in the future, do the hike, or at least get them to take you to Walnut Grove on the Shangrila. I hear that is still pretty.