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Published: July 22nd 2005
Our guesthouse in Lijiang
This was definitively the nicest room with a view we had had so farSo we were travelling by bus once again and despite of the newest bus station in Zhongdian the bus was still built for the old Chinese size, which means that for most of them and particularly for Peter there was no room for the legs. Luckily the bus wasn’t full and he could therefore sit diagonally which was just a bit more comfortable. From Zhongdian we were constantly driving downhill and were slowly starting to feel hot. Peter grumbled that he had too many warm clothes with him (Stephan had urged him to not knowing how cold it would become in Tibet), what now made his suitcase far too heavy. With the lesser altitude, the landscape changed once again, it became greener still and more densely forested, the first palm trees and banana plants turned up. We kept following the course of rivers, which certainly contributed to the surrounding’ green aspect. On the last part of the trip the Yangtse river was our constant company, as the last of the big rivers to have it source in the Himalayas. This river confirmed what we had read about heavy downpours and severe flooding in southern China, its waters had reached such a
Lijiang by night
In the evening the old city of Lijiang is nicely illuminated high level that the first row of trees on the banks were already standing in the water, but luckily the bridges were not flooded, so the road to Lijiang was still open. It was raining several times during our bus drive, and the instable weather conditions were the reason why we had skipped our visit to the renowned Tiger Leaping Gorge situated quite in the middle between Zhongdian and Lijiang, although it had been on our original schedule. After driving upwards again for about one hour we reached Lijiangwithout problems. The city of
Lijiang, at an altitude of 2000m, is dramatically situated below the snow peak of Mount Yukong Shan (Jade Dragon 5596m). Despite its status as the Naxi capital and the vigorous promotion of the local culture, the predominant influence is clearly Chinese. The exceptions are the old narrow cobbled streets of the traditional market, which are an obvious attraction for tourists. During the winter of 1996 the city was badly damaged by a severe earthquake, but the subsequent rebuilding has conformed to traditional Naxi architecture, and the city and its environs are now listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. We were exactly keen on this traditional architecture
Restaurants across the canal
Along the small canals restaurants and bars abound and were rather shocked when we entered the bus station of the city, which appeared quite big and very modern and Chinese to us. Where were they hiding the charming cobbled streets! Upon our arrival we were already awaited by hordes of hawkers who offered us cheap rooms in the vicinity of the bus station, or transport to the old city (so it does exist). We refused it all, we had got a recommendation, Klaudia stay behind with the luggage, Peter and Stephan set off to explore Lijiang on foot. When they stayed away for more than two hours, Klaudia got a bit worried, fortunately she had a fascinating book with her and did not get bored. When they finally arrived by taxi, Klaudia was really curious to see the place they had found. On the way there they told her how they had entered the old city in an unusual way, by first climbing the
Lion Hill, then descending it again because the old part of Lijiang is situated at the foot of the Lion Hill. Klaudia was not sure what to expect and was rather suspicious knowing her husband and father-in-law, although they assured her having found the
Nice looking but a dreadful singer
Young waitresses will try to attract Chinese tourists into the restaurants with their traditional dresses and their singing skills most charming guesthouse in Lijiang. Her suspicion grew when the taxi kept driving up the Lion Hill, Stephan had to give the driver instructions, he had obviously newer heard of the place. They sped past the Radio Mast, then the taxi had to at the highest point of the hill, because they was no rod anymore. But where was the guesthouse, if this was the top of the Lion Hill? Well, they had to climb down part of the hill on cobbled roads with their heavy luggage, in order to climb another peak of Lion Hill via step and irregular stairs. When they finally arrived, sweating and panting, they were actually shown the most charming triple room in the Gao Xiong Gu Guest House (sorry folks no address, the business card is in Chinese except the name) for only 110 Yuan. The triple room were actually two interconnecting rooms with a beautifully carved door and shutters. But he best thing by far was the view, on the city roofs below, the forest nearby and Mount Yukong Shan in the background, which we unfortunately did not see well due to the bad weather.
As it was dinner-time, we climbed down
Wan Gou Lou Pagoda on Lion Hill
From the top of the pagoda one can get an impressive view over the old city of Lijiang (fitness programme again) to see what was going on in the old city. Already at the beginning the houses were brightly illuminated, the numerous curio shops they contained still eager for customers. The old house are mainly made of wood, the centre is criss-crossed by small canals into which goldfish can be “liberated”, the houses are linked to the streets by wooden planks bridging the canals, and there are small bridges everywhere. There is one street where most of the restaurants are situated, all of them decorated with different types of red lampions and each restaurant has her (or exceptionally his) hawker all of them dressed in colourful fantasy costumes. Some of the hawkers tried to attract possible clients by singing some Chinese song (we suppose so) in high-pitched voice, which did not at all appeal to us. Finally we had found a restaurant, the food was OK but rather expensive and we had lot of fun observing one Chinese man seated on the other side of the canal. His only job was to fish swimming candles out of the water which got stuck at a bump and set them back into the water afterwards. It must have been a
Roof detail
Typical Chinese roof construction very boring task, he rather seemed to be dreaming away his time, because several time we had to draw his attention to the candle that was stuck. Not long after our arrival it started raining cats and dogs, and for a long period furthermore. None of us had an umbrella, so we waited until the downpour wasn’t that strong any more, but had to take shelter in a shop after a few meters as it was raining hard again. We waited for an appropriate point of time and hurried back to the guesthouse, but it was quite far and we did not arrive with dry clothes.
Next morning we hunted for breakfast in a cheaper place than last night, which was not so easy since in the part of town where we stayed, mostly inns were to be found. There we could have stayed at an even lower price but they did not serve food, and our guesthouse neither. When we peeped into one of the courtyards, we saw somebody eating there and decided to give the place a try. Communication was not very easy, in the end Stephan resigned to draw the food we would have liked (an
Overview of the MuFu Palace
From the Lion Hill one can enter the MuFu Palace from the rear side omelette), when suddenly somebody came to our rescue. He addressed us in immaculate German (Klaudia the German teacher was quite flabbergasted) having heard us talk German to each other. It turned out that he worked at a publishing house for foreign languages in Beijing and had lived close to Frankfurt for several years, what an incredible coincidence. He was on vacation with his family and we had a lovely talk with him. Sometimes the world is so small!
After breakfast we ascended the Lion Hill (not very far, though, we were already quite high) to the
Wan Gou Lou Pagoda, which we had seen from our guesthouse. China’s earliest deities were mythical creatures which controlled nature. Two formalized religions appeared a century or so before the Christian era, Buddhism and at the same time the legendary Chinese teacher Lao-tzu introduced Taoism in which brave and virtuous humans became gods with magic powers to help mankind. Taoism has gods for every possible need and occasion (how very practical, comparable to the Catholic saints). Most were deified for their great virtues or miraculous powers when on earth. In many temples two large statues stand on either side of the altar. They
Pavilion within a stone garden
The Chinese love to build small hills with strange locking rocks and having a nice pavilion on top of it just makes it even more attractive are the legendary guardians who can see and hear everything. In addition temples often have shelves filled with the 60 gods in charge of each year of the Chinese calendar. The worshippers makes offerings to the god of the year they were born in. All temples are built on the most favourable site according to Fung shui, a geomantic system followed by even the most sophisticated Chinese. Architecturally the roof is a dominant feature, it is usually of green or yellow rounded tiles and steeply raked. The ridgepole is decorated with porcelain figures of divinities and lucky symbols, such as dragons and carps. Eaves are usually richly adorned with colourful wooden carvings and clay friezes, lions often guard the entrance. Inside is a small courtyard with a large bowl where incense and paper offerings are burnt. Beyond is the main hall with an altar table, often with an intricately carved front, on which are the Five Ritual Vessels (an incense burner, candle stick and flower vases) and offerings of fruit and soft drinks. Behind is the altar with its images framed by red brocade embroidered with gold characters. Depending on the size and wealth of the temple, there are gongs,
Stephan is having a rest
and just guess who took the picture drums, side altars and adjoining rooms dedicated to different gods, chapels for prayers for the dead and displays of funeral plaques. There are also living quarters for the temple keepers. As you can see, we approached this pagoda well prepared. First we had to crossed an attractive small wood, cool and nice-smelling. The most favourable site according to Fung shui must be the ridge of a hill, a statement that was confirmed with other Chinese temples we went to see. From the outside, this temple came quite close to what we had read, especially the roof was fascinating. When we entered the pagoda, though, the appearance of a Chinese temple was no longer guaranteed, it had been stripped of all existing furniture and turned into one huge curio shop! We did not stay there very long, there was nothing to see for us. So we crossed the small wood again and stood at the entrance to another building complex, the
Mufu Palace.
Our guidebook completely neglected this site, Stephan had read about it somewhere on the web and we did not have a clue what wonderful architectural treasure would await us here! The Mus were a very powerful family
Peter on his way to the next building
In order not to get wet and not to be burned by the sun, all the buildings within the complex are connected by these nice corridors for 470 years at the same time as the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties in central China. This palace copies the Forbidden City of Beijing, was built by the lord of Lijiang in the early Ming dynasty, and was a gift from the emperor of Zhu Yuanzhang. He assisted the government in uniting the frontier fortresses around Lijiang in the early Ming dynasty, thus the king made him the ruler of Lijiang. We did not enter through the main entrance but from the hillside and thus the first building we hit upon was a temple, the San Qing temple. At the entrance, the visitor was greeted by old men dressed like Taoist monks (or as they are imagined by modern Chinese marketing managers), once again awaiting that a picture of them might be taken with the tourists. We were the only Westerners on the site (so far) and the Chinese eagerly accepted this offer, they are really good consumers, we have to admit. This time we seemed to have entered a real temple and could identify some of the interior decoration. One decorative item immediately caught our attention, completely made of jade in the most striking colours, it turned out
Upper part of the MuFu Palace
On the right side you can see corridors interconnecting the buildings to be a fortune telling machine! Onto a pedestal a structure was mounted which would be turned by hand and stop at a given place, a bit like a roulette table. Only that here there was no money to be won or lost, but your fortune was interpreted by one of the ‘monks’. Thank God we were not Chinese and were not tempted. From the temple we continually went downhill, passed a tea pavilion set on a bed of strange concrete rocks, and then had ascended to the main part of the buildings. They were set in a marvellous park crossed by small canals, in which a myriad of goldfish led a tranquil life. We entered many representative buildings, which clearly showed the family’s former high status, music pavilions and teahouses, where we were even offered some sips of good Chinese tea, finally we could also enter the Wu family’s private chambers. The style of this architecture reflects the majesty of the ruler and the beauty of nature, here we felt as if we were in a real palace and could see how luxurious life was for the powerful Mu family. What a nice morning we had there!
We
Musik Hall (YuYin building)
The building where the Mus enjoyed music and received visitors from other kingdoms left the Mufu palace through the famous stone arch and had a nice lunch just next to the place. We could hardly believe that we had seen such an interesting palace with so few visitors, but this was probably due to the fact that the whole complex had just been completely renovated/rebuilt a few years ago. After our delicious lunch, which we managed to order in spite of the menu exclusively in Chinese, we decided to stroll through the narrow lanes of the old city up to the market square, the actual centre. We encountered crowds of Chinese tourists and walking around wasn’t a pleasure either, since the shop assistants were really aggressive. After a while Stephan who hates nothing more than shopping, was so fed up that he fled and left Peter and Klaudia behind, a little bewildered. They did not worry much and decided to go for a good Italian espresso (Lavazza, mhhh) in a coffee shop that was full of old Lavazza posters. Delicious!
Next day we headed towards the famous
Black Dragon Pool in the north of the town, on our way there we passed the actual entrance to the old city, a nice water
San Qing temple
On the highest point of the whole complex the Mu family built their own temple wheel and an atrocious sculptured wall that served as a reminder that we were in a communist country (Stephan refused to take pictures of this ugly thing!) Later on we walked by new buildings which were meant to complement the old city. Unfortunately the Black Dragon Pool was not the highlight of the day, the entrance fee of 60 Yuans far too high for what was to be seen. The park was quite attractive, dotted with small colourful pavilions and the very famous stone bridge, we also found the black dragon (well, it was blue and not black), an ugly concrete structure in the form of a dragon containing a temple. We were happy when we were out in the fresh air again! Actually we were rather disappointed and quite angry on account of the high entrance fee (at the beginning of this year it was 20 Yuans, which we had considered appropriate). We did not stay for very long and soon went on the lookout for the Public Security Bureau to ask for an extension of our visas. We found it after quite a while (the local people were very helpful), but unfortunately our visas could not be extended
Guang Bi building
Guesthouse for the most important visitors, also used to hold banquets there, we should have another try in a bigger city. Our visas were not valid for much longer, hopefully it would work in Kunmimg! It left us with a bad feeling when we travelled to Dali, our next destination.
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Danny
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Wow, nice pictures! Especially the ones shot at night...