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Published: March 15th 2006
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Kunming at night
China's large cities are quite developed We went to see Ljilijana, Stevan's mom in China. She has been living in Beijing for the past few years. It was great to spend some time with her and see Yunnan province, which we did not visit during our first visit in May 2002. Our first visit was much easier than our second, mainly because we had Chinese-speaking friends in Hong Kong and Beijing who really helped us get around. Ljiljiana has picked us quite a bit of Chinese, but we still had problems communicating. Many Thais and Cambodians speak a bit of English, so it was easy to communicate in those countries. This is not the case in China, where even our efforts at hand gestures were ineffective, though they did seem to understand when I pantomimed a chicken and an airplane.
We traveled from Kunming to Lijiang, a UNESCO heritage site. The new part of the city was devastated by an earthquake 10 years ago, but the old buildings survived largely intact. It is a bit like Disney World, in that there are many kitschy overpriced shops and overpriced restaurants staffed by workers in Naxi costumes. It is fun to wander around the back alleys avoiding the
tour groups and pretending not to hear the nonstop spitting that is constantly present in China.
We went to Baisha one afternoon. This is a pretty small villege near Lijiang, which was the the capital of the Naxi empire back in the day. For such a small place, there are some odd characters in the village. An old lady in traditional Naxi costume approached us about going to her house for tea and photos. She carried a book of testimonials from many other travelers, so we figured, what the hell, she's probably not an ax murderer and went with her. In any cae, she was about a foot shorter than me, so I figured I could take her on if she was an ax murderer.
We sat in the courtyard of her house and drank tea and ate nuts. She dressed me up in Naxi clothes so we could take photos. As expected, a small contribution was requested for this experience. We admire her entrepreneurial spirit for coming up with this creative moneymaking endeavor, though we were a bit put off when she asked us for more money after we paid her. Judging by the size of the
Goldfish in the river
thousands of fish reside in Lijang's river that runs through old town TV in her little house, she seems to be doing pretty well for herself.
In Baisha, we also met the infamous Dr. Ho, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. Dr. Ho once appeared on "60 Minutes" and was also featured in Michael Palin's "Himalaya." Dr. Ho told Michael Palin that he had bad chi. Dr. Ho uses herbs primarily gathered from nearby Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Our visit to Dr. Ho's clinic consisted mainly of him showing us articles about himself and telling us about a leukemia patient from Wisconsin who was cured by his herbs. He had the documents from the Mayo Clinic confirming that the patient was indeed in remission and has been for the past 6 years. The tea was pretty tasty, though Stevan said he felt a bit weird afterwards.
We did an overnight trek at Tiger Leaping Gorge, which is one of the world's largest canyons and a stunningly beautiful place. Unfortunately, it will not exist much longer, as the Chinese are building a dam upriver that will flood the canyon and cover the Naxi and Bai villages that have existed here for hundreds of years.
The trek was harder than we
People and the river
Old town residents use the river on a daily basis thought and it was raining for part of the day. There were some beautiful views, though it was foggy at times. Some of the hardest trekking we have ever done is a section called "The Bends," which is a very steep series of about 28 switchbacks. The trail up to the bends is rather steep, and we were dismayed when we thought we were about hakfway through the bends and someone informed us that we hadn't even started the bends yet! Still, there was almost no one else out on the trail. It was nice to enjoy the silence and have such a beautiful place almost to ourselves.
We managed to avoid sliding into the donkey poo all over the trail and spent the night at a guesthouse up on the mountain. It was so quiet and we slept well, even though it was cold.
We also spent a couple days in Dali, which is a smaller version of Lijiang, though the climate was a bit warmer. We actually did not do a lot in Dali, just relaxing and wandering around the old city.
After Dali, we returned to Kunming, which was absolutely freezing. We were unable
to buy air tickets in Dali, because we were unable to confirm our Kunming-Vientiane flights because the Chinese will not allow you to buy an air ticket leaving from a different city. I called a travel agency in Kunming several times trying to arrange the flights and spent ages telling the agency folks how to spell our names correctly. In Kunming, poor Stevan had to wander all over the city in the freezing fog looking for an ATM that worked. Chinese ATMs do not allow you to withdraw more than 2,000 RMB in one day, and we needed 2,300 for air tickets to Vientiane. He finally had to break out the emergency credit card in order to get the remaining money that we needed. Th situation ended up working out in the end, but it was definitely an anxious evening.
It was great to see Ljiljana, but traveling in China can really wear you down. Therefore, we were happy to leave China for laidback Laos and its warmer climate.
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Anne
non-member comment
HAHA. well i'm chinese, and i haven't been back in like 4 years, but i DO understand what you mean about the public facilities! lol. it cracked me up.