THE ORIGIN OF THE YANGZE (Dequin)

Ever find out where a river comes from? I remember once watching a David Attendborough series that showed the start of the Amazon - grassy permafrost at the side of a mountain, with goats running around and the sound of running water under the ice.

Our adventure today was similar - our travels taking us to the Dejin Glacier, the origin of the mighty Yangze river.

From my Year 8 geography, I had imagined glaciers as a kind of temporal continental surfboard - a massive ice-cube that could take you across the continent, provided you had about 100, 000 years of annual leave. The wake of such a surfboard was awesome - leaving geographical features such as the Yosamite Valley. By comparision - the appearance of this one was disappointing - looking more like pack-ice lying on the side of a mountain, the left-overs of the ski-season's fall.


After an hour out of Dejin by taxi, we climbed Marco-polo style onto our pack-horses (donkeys actually) and were lead up the hill by our guides. Riding a donkey lead by a guide is tame as horse-riding goes, but the envious gaze panting groups of Shanghai tourists on the way up who had declined the 70 Yuan donkey fee at the bottom assured me I'd made the correct decision. One of the panting tourists was foolish enough to ask how much a donkey ride was. The answer was snappy - 120 Yuan.




As we climbed we passed the foot of the glacier - a giantic ice-cave at the bottom from which the Yangze originates. However we were to climb for another hour to reach the end of our journey.

The view from the top viewing tower was awesome - at what we estimate to be about 4000m above sea level - and we paused for half an hour to enjoy the view and catch our collective breath. In this thin air even walking across our dorm room this morning gave me a headache.

Coming back down we opted for the cheaper option of walking. Two hours later we staggered back into base camp and shared a taxi-van back to Dejin.

Dinner was at our favourite, and our continued patronage spurred our host onto new feats of culinary innovation. We started with a soup of noodles and vegetables - served in an orange sauce. This was quickly followed by a braised eggplant dish, all topped off with a hotpot with beef, pork, tomato, tripe, lettuce and tofu floating in it.