엘리자베스, 그레그 부부의 편지

[이경미]

Hey Everyone,   We just wanted to write a note to you all and let you know that we are alive and well.  We are currently in Southern China, in the Yunnan Province.  It is quite lovely here.  There is an old part of the town which is referred to as "Old Town"...imagine that.  Parts of it are authentically old (other parts are being built to look like the rest and are definitely not the same) and so charming.  Our guesthous has a little courtyard that is surrounded with old buildings that are topped with Chinese style tiled roofs.  It's lovely.  We get dinner each night where our table is spread with about 8 different dishes and free green tea.  You can eat to your heart's content for 10 yuan which is less than a dollar fifty. We just got back from a two day hike yesterday that was incredible. The English translation for the area is "Tiger Leaping Gorge".  It was so incredible! We hiked up to the top of the gorge which was absolutely breathtaking.  Apparently it's one of the deepest gorges in the world.  There are towering snowcapped mountains that reach 3900 meters above (no, we didn't hike to the top of those).  We spent the night in the gorge and we had a breathtaking view of the mountains.  The following day we got to schlep through several waterfalls on the trail.  We came down and decided to go all of the way to the bottom of the gorge...which we realized as we were going down was going to be a pretty steep trek back up, obviously.  But it was so worth it.  The rapids were so wild; some of the biggest and strongest we've ever seen.  You weren't supposed to, but we crouched down on the rocks close to it and managed to get our fingers wet in the Yangtze.  I actually got a good splash that hit my face, surprisingly.  The way up was quite insane.  We didn't want to go the lengthy way we came down so we opted for the "ladder" that was made by a local family, that we wer told was safe.  We paid the 10 yuan to a man that chased us up the trail as they require it for "maintenance".  When we reached the ladder there was a sign that said "Dangerous ladder" (and an arrow to the left), "Safe path" (and the arrow was to the right).  The vertical ladder was made of rickety metal and was held to the "wall" in many spots by branches and vines.  Nice.  Two girls who were smaller than myself and much smaller than Greg gave it a go and as one was climbing said "It's a bit dodgy." Greg and I thought of our history and opted for the "safe path", along with one of the girl's husband.  The safe path turned out to be a groove in the rock that this family had blasted out themselves with dynamite.  There were wire metal "railings" to hold onto which we both decided to not put too much weight on as we were not sure how secure there foundations were.  We were not convinced that the people who had created theses means of ascent/descent had the proper knowledge  to ensure safety.  We were quite relieved when we reached the top.  Although, we did truly enjoy the whole experience and the views were amazing.   We will put photos on the blog as soon as we can.  We know that the stories can be a bit long (on the blog) as they are also a personal record for ourselves, but you can always just enjoy the photos.    We miss you all and would love to hear how y'all are doing, so send us a note if you can.  A quick reminder of our itinerary is a couple more weeks in southern China, Laos, Tibet, Nepal, India, and hopefully Myanmar.  We are shooting hard to be home in February!   We love you,   Elizabeth and Greg