Longqing Gorge, Yanqing County, China

Looking down across Yanqing County

Yesterday was an untypical, irregular and fantastic Beijing day. It rained. It rained all day! But with a positive weather forecast for today we prepared ourselves for an adventure to Longqing gorge. 

So this morning, we woke early to an amazing bright and fresh morning. The rain had fully cleared and the sky was bluer than how most people feel on a Monday. 

The tacky dragon escalator 

The air quality was outstanding and so we set off at 6.30am with our horrendous translated directions to find the gorge.

Five hours later, one cramped train ride, one KFC watery iced coffee, three regional buses and a substantial amount of arguing with taxi drivers that although, yes, we didn't know where we were going exactly, we knew we would get there by bus (Wo bu yao, xie xie -I don't want, thank you), we arrived.

At first we weren't sure we were in the right place, it looked deserted, empty and abandoned. This can't be, we're in CHINA! Where are the people? Perhaps they were hanging around at the Great Wall today? We weren't exactly early anymore either. We didn't ponder on it long, but took advantage just to meander slowly to the ticket office and up to the gorge.

Cruise along the gorge

The gorge hides behind the 70metre Longqing dam which is accessible via a large, tacky and quite funny escalator dragon thing. 

Crossing over the dam you can opt to take a boat cruise down the gorge (highly recommended!). By the time we made it to the boats, there had been some poor folk waiting in the hot sun for quite some time (due to lack of passenger numbers). However the boat left quite promptly after we boarded. 

The Longqing gorge can be considered the same if not more beautiful than the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River with substantially steeper mountainous cliffs and cleaner, deeper and greener water. 

Beautiful Longqing gorge

Another photo op! 

The boat cruised down through the S-bends and we got the opportunity to admire the amazing limestone cliffs and forested nature. It was spectacular and surprising unlike anything we have seen in China. 

The boat looped around and stopped at a dock so we adventurously followed some people off and after we took photos of the departing vessel we realised we were alone! 

Climbing the mountain! (Spot John)

Reaching the illusion pavilion

There were several attractions on the hill, and a sign about a Pavilion of Illusion. We didn't know when the next boat would be back so we had nothing to lose walking up to the pavilion! After a strenuous 900m climb up the cliff face we made it! The view was outstanding! It was around this time Kara's sun hat attracted some happy go lucky wasps and somehow our earlier prepared picnic lunch was accidently thrown on the ground. 

Deep, green and stunning! 

The downward climb wasn't memorable but the remainder of the boat trip back to the dam was just beautiful. We wandered around the dam and walked through a cliff tunnel and back up the tacky dragon escalator a second time. We didn't really want to leave, it was so beautiful. At the dam entrance is a colourful cable car heading up the hill side so we wanted to check out what was up there!

Of course we took the more active option and hiked up!.. and the view was just breathtaking!

The view from the immortal taoist temple

Our trip home unfortunately wasn't much shorter than it took to get there. This time one bus, one long walk and one train trip! It's really a bit of skill to consistently miss your bus and drag what should be a 2 hour max journey into 5 hours. Hahaha!

Turning through the S-bends

We loved Longqing gorge and hope that if you visit Beijing in the future you have some time to go!

Tot siens,

John and Kara

Looking down on Longqing gorge