After 12 hours in a constantly stopping, rickety old hard sleeper carriage from Emei to Panzhihua, I met Norwegian Marianne and Dutch Pieter an the start of an 8 hour bumpy bus journey across the mountainous Sichuan-Yunnan border. They were also heading for Lijiang, and getting there we all managed to avoid being hit by any flying spit, which was coming from all directions, sloppily aimed by passengers towards the bins in the middle of the bus.
Since I've prattled on way too much below, I've put headings for each bit to allow easy skipping. I know if it was me reading it, I'd just look at the pictures anyway!
Lijiang
From sunrise onwards we all noticed the freshness of the air, and for my first time since arriving in China, the sky, clouds and sun were visible - all day long.
Lijiang is an ancient city, but much of it was destroyed in a 1996 earthquake. The next year it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the old city in the centre has been carefully rebuilt under strict planning permission (very rare in China), while nasty concrete and glass has been built up all around it.
The Old Town does look great, especially at night - full of traditional buildings lit up by red lanterns, criss-crossed by mini waterways full of goldfish swimming against the stream, and big flower shaped lit candles bought and floated by people.
But since the rebuilding, it's turned from the main centre for the Naxi people of the area, to a money spinner for incoming Han Chinese, and almost every single building is devoted to selling the same tourist tat you get everywhere else.
With Marianne still afflicted by a dodgy street dumpling she'd had in Chengdu, Peter and I hired bikes and headed north to explore the area towards Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, at 18359 feet high, it's about the same height as Europe's best effort of Mt Elbrus, and way higher than Mt Blanc. Of course it's small fry for China, which also claims Mt Everest, but I think Snow Mountain may be their highest peak outside Tibet. I tried to confirm this with a chatty Chinese man in a later bus, but think he thought I was getting political about the Tibet situation.
Unlike Everest, I was told that nobody's ever made it to the top Jade Dragon Snow Mountain's highest peak. Apparently in one attempt, all 17 climbers died trying, and it's now illegal to attempt the summit.
The best place we found while biking was Baisha village, about 12km out
of Lijiang, which seemed like a more genuine Naxi place, surrounded by
busy agricultural goings on - all done by hand or with the help of
animals (seems that the cattle used here are a luxury - most other
ploughing in Yunnan was manually), except for occasional trucks like
below.
Maize is definitely the main crop, with odd small fields of
other things like chillies.
This farmer had a different approach to controlling his stock - while moving them along, if a few were holding back, he'd reach for his catapult and fly a carefully aimed stone hard at a cow's backside. It seemed to work quite well!
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That's the Yangzi river, looking tiny bottom left, and above are some of the peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
Tiger Leaping Gorge
So Pieter and I arrived in Quiaotou, with enough stuff for three days,
and hit the uphill trail. Knowing which way to go sometimes took a bit
of help from workers in the nearby fields, but on the whole the path
was well worn. The first day was the hardest, as we climbed for most
of it up the side of mountains until late afternoon, when we were
looking far down steep cliffs to the Yangzi river a kilometre and a bit
straight below.
Near the highest point was the first of many rip-offs we'd heard
about - in the way of a natural set of rocks that jut out over the
cliffs was an old local woman, claiming via sign language that they
were her rocks, and that the entry charge was ten yuan. Realising that
our only options were to pay her or push her off the side of the cliff,
we paid up. But we drew the line when she demanded more cash for us to
take a photo of her.
In the first day there, I must have seen more animals and beasties than
during all my time in China so far (not including all the live animals
in food markets), we ran into all sorts of birds, butterflies, caterpillas...
...lizards...
...livestock including mini pigs...
...huge spiders...
...Stick insects, just like my first ever pet, 'Sticky' (RIP)...
...and one red and stripy snake, which I didn't quite manage to get a
snap of before it had started to slither away. It looked a bit too
scary for me to try and imitate Steve Irwin!
We stayed the first night at a guesthouse that had a loo with a view
Sadly Tiger Leaping Gorge may not stay much of a gorge
for very long - the Chinese government have started prep work on a huge
hydro scheme, which I suppose would involve a lot of damming and
flooding, as they've already done much further down the river.
Having finished the main route around noon on the second day, we found
a hostel and headed down towards the river itself, again - like
everyone else, Chinese and foriegners - having to pay an old lady who
claimed to be part of the family who built and maintained the path.
The only other person demanding cash had been a sweet little toddler on
the path, playing with his granny and a friend. The kids ran around
and joked with us for a while, not speaking a word of English, then the
boy started rubbing his fingers together and pleading 'Money...'
Having made it down to river level, climbing back up was a daunting
task, but first we clambered out over ladders onto huge boulders, and
sat in the middle of the angry rapids.
Everywhere we went had corn drying all over the place, but each time I
asked for corn on the cob (it was on the menu), they said they didn't
have any!
Dali
From the far end of Tiger Leaping Gorge, it took Pieter and me three
busses and almost nine hours to get to Dali. The third, totally packed
bus journey featured the girl in front of me waking up as we cornered
hard and bumped our way through the hills coming down to Dali, swapping
seats quickly with her neighbour, and vomiting out of the window. At
least she made it!
Marianne had already been in Dali for two nights, and had found a great
place to eat, where we spent a fair amount of time since it poured with
rain all the time we were there.
The small city ('Ancient Dali', not the much bigger 'New Dali' half an
hour along the road) has a reputation as a bit of a hippy backwater,
and along with plenty clean cut tourists were crusty old white dudes,
some staggering around looking dazed and confused.
It was also the first place in China where I've was offered drugs on
the street, usually by traditionally dressed women, who'd slyly
approach and whisper about what they had to sell.
I got a haircut there, no messing around with trimming, this time got
it done shorter than I think I've ever had it cut! No photos getting
uploaded of that!
A loo without a view - the Dali hostel was OK, but the concrete toilet block, complete with mice, could have been better.
Kunming
Stayed for two nights, and mainly wondered around the laid-back city's
streets and parks. Apparently many people were exiled here from the
big cities up north during Mao's stupid Cultural Revolution, but then
decided to stay, because they preferred being in Kunming.
Lots of things going on in Kunming's streets...
Playing Mahjong - also lots of people around playing Chinese chess and cards.
Shop clappers - on the busier shopping streets, people stand on stools
facing the shops and loudly clap their hands in time with the music
that's blaring out of their shops, occasionally shouting things out to
attract more shoppers.
Making food - there are tonnes of streetfood sellers with mini bbqs to
cook their meat-on-a-stick snacks, but this lady made a small bonfire
on the street itself to cook some sweet potatoes.
Catching up on news and views
Waiting around - you see lots of people all over China squatting like
this, rather than standing. I've tried it, but can only last a few
minutes so far!
Ready to fix a bike - lots of these mobile workshops all over Kunming,
fully equipped with inner tubes, wheels, tools etc. and they get quite
a lot of business.
Ready to polish shoes - these guys always seem to be in groups of three
or more for some reason. Even wearing trainers you still get asked if
you need them to be polished, and laughed at when you try to explain
why you don't!
Exercise equipment - for adults, not kids. Cleverly designed turning
and swinging things, plus bars and frames, to keep all the joints
active. Some exercises involve slow pelvic thrusting and don't look
like they belong on the street!
Babies / young toddlers always seem to be carried like this, legs dangling straight down.
Also lots of joking around, playfighting, puppy and kitten (and
everything else) selling, enthusiastic but totally ignored traffic and
pedestrian marshalling with flags and whistles, music making (often a
group of instrumentalists with several warbling singers in mini-parks,
but just for fun, not busking), and unfortunately quite a lot of
begging - much of it by really badly disfigured people.
So I spent a while in Yunnan, but was sorry to leave on the overnight
train to Guilin - there was still tonnes more to do and see in Yunnan.
And finally, anyone for a Lovely Puff?...
... or an egg?!...
