Hi All,
A short bumpy late evening flight and we arrived at Lijiang airport which is about 25km away from the old town. We collected our bags and walked out of the airport to find out pickup and waited and waited. No pickup. I was very annoyed as it had been confirmed by the previous hostel who were very reliable. We ended up having to catch the bus and then a taxi which dropped us at the old city rather than the hostel. Mama Naxi. It was late at night and the old city was a maze of streets and we really had no idea where to go. I kept on showing the hostel card to people we found and they pointed us along seemingly endless alleys but no hostel. Eventually we found a hostel and asked them where to go and they gave us directions along the lines of left, right, left, right ... Not what we wanted to hear. They had a room available which was quite cheap and turned out to be very neat and we decided to stay rather that continue along the maze.
Next day. I purchased a map and found mama naxi hostel. A girl who worked at the hostel said that she had been on a flight from Beijing and had not checked the emails. Weak excuse. There was no email. The hostel was messy and chaotic and the beds were saggy. Price had increased. There was no wifi as advertised. I said that I would check with my wife...with no intention of returning. The same courtesy that they provided the night before when failing to pick us up. The hostel we were staying at actually was very nice and we found information on hostel world showing a 94% approval rating. A fluke. We needed some luck. Turned out that with a bit of room shuffling we could stay through the Chinese new year period.
Spent a little time making travel arrangements booking our next hostels and bus trips.
The old town is a delight. It is a maze of cobbled streets with local produce, food and accomodation and inbetween are streams and stone bridges all surrounded by old buildings. The city is ablaze with red lanterns ready for the Chinese new year so it is quite a sight. Lots of Chinese tourists and a handful of western tourists. It is hard not to get lost! It is a real treasure. Perhaps the chinese venice.
We plan to walk Tiger leaping gorge after the Chinese new year so purchased some supplies before wandering he town for a while.
Next we headed out to the Black dragon pool which is a delightful lake with a snow capped mountain background. The chinese love it a lot! It was nice but unfortunately the old Chinese discrimination against western tourists popped up again and we had to pay to enter where most Chinese entered free.
It certainly was worth the money. Jade green waters and Pagodas. The park was almost tranquil apart from the distorted traditional music blasting from loud speakers. Later this was replaced by chaotic live tradional music from a local orchestra. It sounded more like experimental music and if we hadn't seen it we would have assumed it was a local school orchestra.
Was a nice walk back along a red lantern street with a small creek dividing the pleasant restuarants either side and a small girl having her photo taken at every bridge along the way. There a lot of many bridges.
It was a problem finding a meal that wasn't in a tourist restuarant. We walked out of a couple of restuarants before settling on a local one. It was a bit of a challenge ordering and the first page of the menu was filled with offal - awful. Still it was a nice meal. Well I liked it. Vanessa didn't like the pork dish. Chilli bacon fat, black beans, garlic, ginger and sping onions or the soup or the greasy baba, naxi bread. She didn't mind the rice and spinach dish.
Chinese new year today. Party at the hostel. May our host has arranged for a food spread. We have been to the supermarket and purchased some random wine and rice spirit. Hope it doesn't kill us!
A day recovery and then we will be off to Tiger leaping Gorge for a couple of days hike.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
