Himalaya
Day 76: Shigu to the Tiger Leaping Gorge
Limbering up on the terrace at The Halfway House, proud home of the 'Number One Toilet In Heaven And Earth'.

As the evening light slants across the gorge a terrific panorama unfolds. On the other side of the gorge the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains, easternmost bastions of the Himalaya, rise in a series of smooth columns, sinuous ravines and needle-sharp pinnacles, their dark grey sides streaked with waterfalls. What makes this place different from Annapurna, Everest, even the Karakoram, is that the tremendous height is so close. When I stop on a narrow ledge to look around me, I find myself having to plant my feet very securely, for it feels as if the soaring vertical walls across the gorge are exerting some magnetic force, determined to tear me from my flimsy ledge.
No-one speaks now, and as we plod onwards round the mountainside, silenced by the sheer scale of the place, there is only the reassuring sound of the horse bells, and the distant hiss of the river unthinkably far below.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Himalaya
- Chapter: Day 76: Shigu to the Tiger Leaping Gorge
- Country/sea: China
- Place: Quiaotou
- Book page no: 179
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