In the middle of the night on July 2nd we got to Kunming, China. We were in Kunming for 4 nights and then we took an eight hour bus ride to Lijiang. After that we took a two hour car ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge. The bus ride has hard because it was so so so hot and you can’t watch Netflix in China.

Shangri-La is this small town with an “Old Town” and “New Town”. Old town was burned down in 2013 and they rebuilt it. My parents came through China in 2005 when they were traveling. They met this guy named Eric in Lijiang and he told them that he was going to this town called Zhongdian and that they should come with him. Zhongdian was the original name of Shangri-La but the Chinease government changed it to increase tourism. When they were in Shangri-La they met Jason (the guy from Bali) in the bar he owned called The Raven. Then Jason invited them to go on a road trip to the nomad country.

Eric happened to be in China while we’re here. He now has a wife named Dasa and a kid named Soren who is now one of Decker’s new best “dudes”. He loves Star Wars, Legos, Star Wars Legos, and Nerf. All of Decker’s favorites. Every morning Decker says, “When is Soren coming, when is Soren coming, when is Soren coming?!” After the fire they rebuilt The Raven in new town. We’ve been going a lot.

On Saturday we went to The Raven and met with this guy named Tsebho. He is really good friends with Eric and Jason. He has a really cute kid named Alladin (All-A-deen) and a wife named Tutu. He is one of the four people that own The Raven including Jason and one of the three people that owns Hai Wei Trails including Jason. Hai Wei Trails is a guiding company. My parents talked about what trip we should do while Decker and Soren played foosball. In the end my parents chose to do this road trip in Northwest Yunnan. The good thing was that it was never to far away from Shangri-La.

Our first stop was the top of our first peak. To get to each place we had to go over a lot of mountains. The highest we got was 14,500 feet. On our first peak we had lunch and hung a some prayer flags. It great.

Our second stop was this amazing gorge outside this town named Mulu. It was the most amazing gorge ever. We walked along this trail that was carved into the cliff for five hours. In some parts there was a rockslide on the trail and it was super sketchy. It’s name is Sharagak gorge.

After awhile we decided to turn back because it was raining so hard and we were tired. Tsebho had gone ahead of us and so we turned back and then we stayed under a bridge and skipped rocks while we waited for him.

We had arrived at our campsite the day before and had started the hike when we woke up. We camped right next to the river on the end of the dirt road. We would have camped on one of the islands in the river but we were worried that it would rain too hard and that all of our stuff would get washed away and then we would drown if the water came up. So we slept on the end of the road. It was really fun but it was raining all night and it was hard setting everything up in the rain.

After the hike we drove to this tiny town called Nagara. We stayed in a home stay with some villagers. They were really nice. The village of Nagara is tiny. We walked around it in five minutes. The people cooked us dinner and breakfast and tea. Our bathroom was their vegetable garden and chicken coop. We paid them with money and fruit. In the morning we packed up and hopped in the truck. We made it about five feet when my mom said,“Do you hear that?”. Turned out we had a flat tire. So we lost about 30 or so minutes.

After that we drove to this really sweet different gorge. Eric calls it “Cat Leaping Gorge”. After that we drove to Tsebho’s wife’s sister’s husband’s family’s house in Dong Wang. It is literally a Tibetan mansion on a hill. It probably had 6 bedrooms. It was so big that nobody ever used it and they were always in their little annex with a kitchen.

The next day we drove to this other town called Benzilan. We could have stayed in a guesthouse but we wanted to camp. We drove 45 minutes out of town and stayed at a campsite next to a stream. Across the road Decker and I had an awesome base. Multiple times cows would come and Decker had to chase them away. It was awesome.

The next day we packed up and drove back to Shangri-La.