Lijiang

Lijiang Old Town

Lijiang is a small maze of cobblestone streets about 175 km north of Dali, and it has about 4 million tourists a year.  Its apparently the UNESCO world heritage protection list, although when the Yunnan government wanted to build a big amusement park just north of town UNESCO threatened de-listing.  Its true - there were many tourists - even some fellow-foreigners - and much of the town was the same 10 shops over and over again, but there was a certain quaint charm about the winding old stone streets and rickety-looking buildings that still made for a pleasant stay.

Two waterwheels at the north of the Old Town

Lijiang from above

On my first day in the area though, I headed off by bus to see the Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world, with the mountain peaks about 3900 m above the waters of the Jinsha River.  The whole gorge measures 16 km long, and I was excited to hike about 4 km of it at the beginning, just to have some amazing views and to say I'd trekked in the gorge, before turning around and heading back to catch the last bus back to Lijiang.  I met a British boy on the bus from Lijiang to the gorge in the morning, Scott, which turned out to be the saving grace of the day, since we never managed to find the hiking trail!  When we got off the bus, we were 'taken straight to the trail' by a local trying to scam us into riding some horses...and then we walked on the road towards the trailhead on the map...and walked...and snagged a ride with another mini-bus, who took us to the point on the map where the trail branched off, and then promptly told us the trailhead was 2 km behind us!  We walked back, at least next to the Gorge on the road by this point...asked a couple people, and was told the trail branched up just past that car...and there were no signs.  We walked up the road for about an hour, and finally gave up when the trail gave no sign of actually going along the Gorge in the right direction.  We ended up returning to Lijiang together, despite Scott's original intention to sleep in a guesthouse along the trail, and had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant back in Lijiang.  I did manage to still see the Gorge, it was stunning, and I met a really nice guy who I talked to a lot, so it was altogether not a terrible day anyway!

Me in Tiger Leaping Gorge

Ancient pools in Lijiang town - the top is for drinking, middle for washing vegetables, and bottom for washing clothes

My second day in Lijiang I spent wandering the town, saw the Black Dragon Pool Park which is the spring for the town's ubiquitous canals, and spent a lovely hour inside the most well-done museum I've been in so far in China - a tiny free one about the locally dominant minority group, the Naxi.  There were many rooms showing their costumes, their pictographic language (the last still used in the world), their religious ceremonies (very nature-centered), and their methods of subsistence.  I also got some of my Christmas shopping done!  That evening after an enjoyable dinner I caught the night sleeper train back to Kunming, the provincial capital.

Black Dragon Pool Park

Naxi traditional clothing