Day 3 (22nd May)
Checkout early in the morning after our breakfast at the motel. Is chinese style buffet...but of course in their own way, porridge + peanut and some of their local food.

On our way to take bus to Shangri La, alot of people ask us to take mini-van. Finally we decide to take one of them as they offer a price of 240 RMB for driving us to Shangri La and willing to stop at Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hu Tiao Xia).

However when we reached the van, they jack up the price to 400RMB saying that we are not coming back so we will be wasting their trip back. Then some arguement arise as we have already double confirmed with them the price yet now they are jacking it up. On top of that we are not in time for the public transport there already ... so is like we abit no choice so an arguement starts between Xin Xin and the driver. See...a bit startled as we are not used to such situation although we expect these to happen on our way.

Then we got surrounded by drivers! OMG...luckily another driver sound better...and suggested he drives us to Tiger Leaping Gorge and then leave us at a mid way where most people just hop onto any passing bus to Shangri La. We agreed as he sound like a nicer guy than the original driver and true enough is cheaper.

On the way we stopped at this free scenic spot for toilet break and they says this stream is part of the Chang Jiang and considered one of the being part of it. How true I don't really know ^_^

Only Mancila went to toilet but after a long time I wonder why she wasn't back yet, I went back up (there were some stairs down) to find her. Only to find her with both knees covered with blood and bruises! Her shoeslance somehow hoot onto each others' shoes and she fell onto a rocky ground! OMG...luckily my friend gave me a travel kit before I left for the trip so we managed to clean and handle the wound properly.

Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hu Tiao Xia)
One of the world's four great gorges, situated in Zhong Dian, between Li Jiang and Shangri la thus most people will come here while travelling between this two place.

The gorge is formed by two snow mountain, Jade Dragon and Haba, facing each other with Chang Jiang River cuts the two mountains at their base. Water rushes through the base, when you are the bottom, you can hardly hear each other talking because of the sound made by rushing water.

The deepest base of the gorge to the peak of the snow mountain is 3900 meters and the narrowest water surface is only 20 meters. The gorge is 20 kilometers long, separated as Upper, Middle, and Lower Leap, with a waterfall of 213 meters and eighteen surprising cascades.

Why is it call Tiger Leaping? Once upon a time, a big stone fall into the river and it was said that a tiger leaped across the gorge using that stone...thus the name Tiger Leaping Gorge. But of course, this is just a legend, seeing the distance I don't think any tiger can leap across!

This is the legendary big stone...actually, is just a stone^^||| But the sound of the gushing water is really magnificent.

There is a saying among the local: It is a man only that he went to Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Thus many local who turned adult will come here and walk through from upper to lower part of the gorge, it will normall take 2 to 3 days at least.

Those who are interested to take this walk, becareful as you will pass by some route that some villagers will claim is theirs and you have to pay $$. Reasoning with them or talking about law is useless there, so just take note, how much is the fee I don't really know though.

It is quite a bit of stairs to go down and climb back up, on top of that we are at an altitude of about 3000 metres! Saw this food stall here so we decide to take a break, bought some food from the auntie and shared abit with her grandson.

The driver drives us to the town of Zhong Dian where we bought some tibits and wait by the road for any passing by bus or mini van to Shangri La. At first I was pretty worried whether we will get a transport or will we get chopped, but it appears that since the driver is already going on its way to Shangri La, any amount we offered he is earning so in the end we hop one a big van, enough for 7 person at only 100 RMB in total.

Mini van is different from bus is that it is only servicing us, so along the way if we want to stop it will stop. We passed by this garden of flowers and the driver stopped for us to take photos.

Somehow this little pony appear out of no where.

	Although this garden is in middle of no where, there are locals taking care of it, thus they are charging 1 RMB per person for taking photos in their garden.

See...wild pigs can be seen along the road! Shangri La Finally we reached Shangri La of Yun Nan. From Li Jiang to here is about 3.5 hours ride. The altitude here is higher than Li Jiang's, is about 3200-3500 metres. Our motel is in some small corner that we couldn't find it, need the person to come out to fetch us.

	This is my room, we purposely picked a room with glass panel at the top so that we can enjoy the starry night before we sleep. The whole motel have no other customer, thus is like we booked the whole motel! Yeah! Rather tired so we decide to dine in and request the person to make dinner for us.
When we are having dinner then we realise, the whole hotel is maintained by this young boy! Hahaha...he is about 17/18 only, yet he can cook better than any of us! Wanted to ask him to join us for dinner but too bad he is too shy.
Our "living room" ...haha, this is the common room for 2nd floor (we stayed at 3rd floor). But as there are no other guests, we just roam about the whole house. We even washed our clothes using their washing machine!

After dinner we went out to hunt for transport for tomorrow.

On the way we pass by the parade square and we see many people dancing tribal dance in circle.

So we join in too...haha. The most inner circle is the tribal woman teaching us how to dance. Outer circles are formed by tourist. Alot of people and is very fun. You just need to look at how others are dancing and follow them. After 3-4 different songs, you will catch the sequence in their dances. Sometimes I think high altitude sickness are imaginary...see...we danced and felt OK....many danced too but during the day time we see people asking the tour guide to walk slower...lack of breath and etc.

After that we continue our hunt for transport, this time we learnt our lesson and be more careful. Here we take it for granted that driver does not smoke and of course never drink before driving. There, it is not so, many drivers smoke, some might even drink, so a driver promote himself by saying he never drink nor smoke while driving! But then again, he is expensive so we booked his friend's mini van instead.

Back to our room to enjoy stars!