Given the cool climes of Yunnan province we decided to extend our stay in this area... which also leads to an extended stay in China (we still won't see half of what we want to see!!! So much to do).
Entering Lijiang we were greeted by hordes and hordes of tourists... but after having some time to tour the town, it is easy to see why. Its a very quaint old town, characterized by cobblestone streets, lots of gushing canals, tons of little bridges, weeping willows and traditional Naxi architecture. They are known for a very strong style of stone, court-yard building, which survived some major earthquake about 20 yrs ago...
The Naxi are an ethnic minority in China, which up to recently were a completely matriarchal society. Lijiang is also getting close to Tibet, hence a very different cooking style than we had seen previously. Lot's of Yak meat in use and very greasy, heavy cooking... in fact, this was the first time we were actually tempted to go to one of the few western style restaurants for a change of food. We did go for some dried yak meat though, rather tasty, if not a bit salty!
But the town offered lots of opportunity to get away from the tourist throngs, which we did, and we spent many hours strolling along the back streets where real life was going on. We came across the town market, where much to our dismay we saw dogs for sale (as food, not pets), as well as the usual assortment of live fish of all kinds, eels, snakes, frogs etc... Its always fun watching the fish vendors chase after their fish as they leap out of the buckets!!
Lijiang also had some great opportunities outside of the town to explore. As the weather had improved (no more rain) we rented bikes one day and made off for a nearby village (about 18 KM). We cycled through farmland and a few dusty little villages with walled houses and canals. We have definitely seen a huge diversity of lifestyles on this trip between big gleaming cities, attractive tourist destinations, rural farmland and villages, and (to come later) some truly awful cities. The most memorable aspect of this ride was the mud bath we took on our back-road return route.... this was some serious offroad biking... it was so bad we actually had to dip our bikes (and ourselves) in one of the canals before returning the bikes before returning them, for fear that we'd lose our deposit!!
Several hours northwest of Lijiang... getting even closer to Tibet, is the town of Zhongdian, which was dubbed Shangri-La about 10 yrs ago. Apparently some people got together and decided that this was, in fact, the Shangr-La reffered to in James Hilton's Lost Horizon. As a result major preparations are underway to make this a major tourist attraction, in the mold of Dali and Zhongdian. For the moment however, it is a destination in the making... it was surreal, kind of like a movie set going up... literally every building in the old part of town was being renovated or rebuilt. It was actually amazing to watch them at work... everything is manual. You have these scrawny little guys lifting absolutely massive stones and wood pillars. But asid from that - it was really a beautiful place. We were at about 3200 m - so quite high and the air was so clear and colours sooo bright the blue and the white of the sky, against the emerald (or rather, jade) green of the mountains was surreal.
OK.. this is a long post... but the last thought is regarding the drive to and from Zhongdian. It was absolutely amazing. We drove through beautiful mountain scenery, along a high gorge and rushing river. The road was brand new, cut alongside some mountains. In fact, work was still underway on the road as well as on a huge damn. Again - the work is all manual, so you have hundreds of people clinging to the side of the mountain, off scaffoldings, building retention walls, chipping stone... truly amazing what they do, not through technology, but with sheer man power. Safety standards are virtually non-existant. We saw women and children hanging out along the construction sites, not a hard hat in sight. The best was a guy hanging off a rope from a few hundred feet up the mountain side, smoking!!
Also remarkable is the fact that we have yet to be anywhere in China that does not have construction going on. Hard to say if this is in preparation for 2008, or a result of the growing tourism and commercialization of the country... but in either case, it is really impressive.
Ok.. have bored you enough for now... next stop heading back eastward to Sichuan province, where the food promises to improve greatly!!
