Lijiang is in the Yunnan province which unbeknown to me before I got here is one of the most stunning provinces in the whole of China and people from all around the world come to china simply to visit this province。 Nothing like doing your research huh! Its main inhabitants are mostly various ethnic groups including the Naxi who were an nomadic ethnic group who eventually settled by the river in Ba Sha (see below)with the stunning Snow Mountain in the back drop.
I came here because I had a few days spare and wanted to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge which I will write about seperately. Lijiang itself is a cute little town and it has an 'ancient' part which is very oldy worldy. Lijiang comes to life at night and what made me laugh were signs telling foreigners to basically keep the noise down and respect this ancient old city. Forget the fact that sign was outside a karaoke bar blaring some horrendous trashy music! In fact there were numerous bars along a small stream that runs throught the town - both sides! After a while it got a bit much but luckily there were some other quiter quarters which were much more interesting. Lijiang is very very touristy and most of the shops sold the usual stuff for tourists but what was different here is that you could see a naxi/tibetan influence
I stayed in a hostel called Mama Naxi and what was good about it was that Mama cooked a variety of dishes for us at 6pm on the dot. When I say on the dot I mean that quite literally as all the waitresses shouted at us to 'eat quickly (read kickly) eat quickly' as they served up. A few in my party were a little late coming down from the dorms which was no bother as the staff would just chase them down by banging on their doors. It was actually quite comical.
Whilst in Lijiang we cycled to a little place called Ba Sha where we were greated not long after arriving by this little old toothless Naxi granny who took us to her house and provided tea and nibbles (for a small price of course) and then low and behold she pulled out a bag of traditional Naxi outfits which some in my group dressed up in. Again for a small fee we could take pictures and much like the 'eat kickly' gang she kept shouting 'photo photo' in her high pitched voice. She was so very sweet and the whole episode was quite hilarious but it was nice to see inside a local home. Some in the group then wanted to see this Dr Ho chap whom I understand is quite a famous herbal doctor(well Michael Palin went to see him anyway). I wasnt particularly interested and hung out outside checking out all the tie dye stuff (no I didnt buy any as most travellers invariably do!). When the others finished with Dr Ho after telling him about their ailments I am sure that they all came back with the same looking medicine?
After we went to check out some croddy old Frescos for which Ba Sha is supposed to be famous - I wouldnt bother next time.
