First, where have I been? From Dali onto LiJiang. hmmm, well its great architechture but it looks like it was built 3 years ago not 300! Its the opposite of Pingyao -the 300 year old chinse city untouched since. Lijiang has 4 types of shops, but 200 of each. It is amazingly pretty, especially at night, and nice to walk around, for a day before you scream ...'where is the real china?'. Actually in the evenings restaurants line both sides of 1 of the rivers, and people have competitions singing and shouting against each other. The 2nd night i grabbed another traveller and took him there, but it was a bit quiet, so we grabbed our beers, joined a random table and sung our hearts out with the chorus of 'ai-da-mi' and 'liang zhe lao hu' (the only suitable things we knew in chinese) although we also did happy birthday in english..not sure why as we know it in chinese. I think it was the chinese guys' idea (cause they knew it) and as they were paying for unlimited jugs of beer....
the next morning, a hungover Adam awoke at 7am to get the 1st bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge to hike for 8-9 hours up and down a spectacular mountain and gorge with 20kgs of my stuff on my bag. the rain was supposed to make it dangerous, but it soon stopped and was safe (the golden rule is 'no walking whilst sightseeing and no sightseeing whilst walking' unless you want to walk off a cliff....). It was totally gobsmacking; massive snow-capped mountains, quiet, fresh-air and a gret hike (after the tough uphill 3 hours). pictures to follow! one of the best things i have done in china..ever.
after a night at the hostel (and a visit to the 'stone' where the 'tiger' 'leaped' across the gorge -note the ' ', since it was a pointless trip to the river to get wet and slip all over the place on the awful path) , the hostel which would make anything on its menu 'happy' since it grew its wn weed, i hiked another 2 hours up the big mountain and back for the sake of it, then bussed (2 hrs) over to baishuitai (lit. white water platform); where before it got dark i saw some limestone rocks with water on them. would have been more impressive had i not seen the same thing already in turkey a few years ago. the best thing was doing the visit and spending the night/dinner with a family (mum, dad, daughter) so i could practice my chinese and have lots of fun with the amazingly cute 11 year old. it reminded me of what is so kind about chinese people (they are all when they are not trying to sell you something!).
Then bussed up to Zhongdian (AKA Shangri-la); although stupidly offered to help push the van in front of us, and got my hiking boots wet (there was a landslide that blocked the river, so the river was flowing over the bridge blocking it with rocks, and an hour later a tractor recued all the stuck vehicles). Never mind; the ride (4 hrs) was beautiful (i wanted to hike it over 2 days but would have had to pay for a guide as the paths are hard to find) and i arrived in zhongdian to see the tibetan monastery and walk around the old town. hmm, since only about 3 buildings are actually old and the rest are being built to look old (lijiang style) it was disappointing. however the oldest building belonged to a guy who was imprisoned for 21 years becuase of/during the cultural revolution and he had some interesting stories (that i didnt really follow in chinese) but an english summary was useful!
Chris arrived (with Dan, a friend from USA) and the following morning we got yet another bus (6 hrs, even more beatiful views of mountains and countryside) up past 4,200m to Deqin (a town created for the invasion of tibet back in the 50s i guess) where we promptly left (yuck) on another 2 hour bus to a glacier nearby. This required a 2 hour hike up (oooh, altitude makes it a bit tough) , some amazing photos and then a look for the supposed guesthouse (during this trip i have lost more and more respect for the lazy lonely planeters). It didnt exist so we kindly asked the monk at the monastery if we could stay; we could! (i guess other LPers have ended up here too!) what a bizarre place to stay; just 1 local villager (i think they do 3 month stints each looking after the monastery) and 1 mad monk (slept on a rug outside our room cross-legged and was permanently rotating some weird drum thing). he helped us cook dinner (rice which he provided and roasted peanuts which we provided) on an open fire and gave us some strange bread.
The next morning, 10 yuan poorer, we reversed the journey all the way back to zhongdian (oh by the way, on the way downt he galcier we saw a mini-avalanche :) and then just imagined what we missed the previous night when we were woken with a huge 'crunching' noise at 3am -must have been massive) where i bussed (14 hrs) back to kunming and tomorrow morning i fly to Beijing. last night another bus broke down, but apparently the cargo on it was urgent (mushrooms for market) so we stopped and took the precious cargo onboard (via another place where we spent 1 hour weighing the mushrooms!!) and i guess it got to market this morning on time.
Second, well, wait a few minutes and you'll find out!
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