Day 21: Lijiang

Asia » China » Yunnan » Lijiang
October 7th 2009

Published: October 8th 2009

Lijiang is a very unique place, compared to where weve been so far. Sure, theres lots of tourists, as lonely planet is quick to point out. BUT they are here for a reason - its a cool little town with a lot of character. More about Lijiang in a bit, first I have to tell you about bad luck on the way here...

We booked a flight from Chengdu to Lijiang, for the morning of the 6th. When we checked our backpacks at the airport, as we were walking away from the desk we realized that steph didn get a luggage tag. Maybe it was because we hadn had full nights sleep, but for whatever reason we kept walking without going back to check on the bag. Lo and behold, when we got to the airport in lijiang, only my bag showed up.

Steph seemed like she was in shock so I did most of the talking. Luckily there was someone at the lijiang airport that spoke just enough english for us to communicate the situation. No, we didn have a luggage tag. The bag is blue. It is a backpack, etc. etc. They called chengdu, but the phone was busy, and they wanted us to go to lijiang town and call them later, but we insisted on waiting until things were a little more sorted out. Eventually they got through, and told us that chengdu had the bag, which was good news. But they still didn know what flight it would arrive on, so the only thing we could do was was go to lijiang and call back later, preferrably with someone who spoke chinese.

The bus from the airport drops you off at the CAAC center in lijiang, which is inconveniently misplaced on the lonely planet map (weve been cursing lonely planet the whole trip... its a love hate relationship). We probably should have taken a taxi to Old Town, but instead we hopped on a bus and rode it around until we saw old buildings. After talking to people on the street we eventually hailed a cab and got to Old Town.

Old Town in lijiang is the "historic" area. No taxis are allowed inside, as most of the streets are too narrow anyway. Everything is cobblestone, old buildings, with water diverted through canals throughout the city. Quite beautiful, although every building is a touristy shop, with people flocking all the streets. Still though, it is very possible to find secluded areas, where locals still wash their laundry and vegetables in the streams.

When we first arrived at old town, we were trying to make it to Mama Naxis for the night. According to the lonely planet it is *THE* backpacker accomodation in lijiang. I had a theory that if we made it to Naxis, wed find someone that could speak good enough english to help us with the bag situation. But as we started to walk in from where the taxi dropped us, it was clear that the map in the lonely planet wouldn get us to MN easily. Lijiang is quite the maze for someone fresh in town. None of the streets are straight for very long, there are no street signs, and the town seems to be structured to divert you towards the rows of shops. Luckily, we found one landmark that was in the lonely planet: Lamus house of tibet. We were hungry so we stopped to eat.

It turns out Lamu is one of the friendliest people in Lijiang. Over lunch we told her about our predicament, and she volunteered to help us with the bags. She spoke OK english, so at one point she grabbed one of her employees to help translate, but she got all the information she needed and called the airport. They told us to call again at 5 pm, so we thanked her and set out to find nearby accomodation for the night. I found an ok place around the corner for 100 yuan (there are TONS of places in lijiang), and we explored (got lost) in old town looking for mama naxis before returning to Lamus again at 5 pm. Lamu called again, and Stephs bag had made it to Lijiang. Lamu also wrote me a letter explaining the situation, so that I could show it to the bus drivers to hopefully get a free ride to the airport. It worked like a charm, and I got to and from the airport for free, and got stephs bag. Thanks Lamu! The food there is great, too, for any travellers reading this.

That night, we were regretting my choice in accomodations. Our room did not have any glass on the windows, and it faced the main courtyard. For some reason, there were people talking loudly outside our room until midnight, and then again early in the morning. At one point in the night I shouted at them that we were trying to sleep, but it didn work. Maybe they thought I was just having nightmares. In any case, we left early the next morning in search of somewhere else to sleep the next night.

Mama Naxis was the original destination, but I had called there on the 6th and found out that it was a bit pricey at 180 yuan, probably because of the lonely planet hype. There are soooo many places in Lijiang that we decided wed try and find another place for under 150 yuan. We got a bit lost off of the beaten track, and checked a few spots. There are some nice places once you get away from the shops! We ended up at a place for 130 yuan a night, that has a computer + TV in the room, a western toilet, hot water, nice beds, nice view... we were pretty stoked. There are probably a lot more like it, as long as you don mind being the only foreigners.

That day (the 7th) we finally got our bearings. We found mama naxis (Im glad we didn stay there), a place to rent bikes, and an internet cafe. Lijiang really is a beautiful place, so we had fun just walking around. I had an awesome cheeseburger at Ns kitchen (i think thats the name), and steph had delicious food as well. I think shes been the most happy foodwise in Lijiang than anywhere else so far - theres a lot of options. I spent quite a few hours that night trying to upload pictures to flickr. It wasn working from our room, even after downloading a Flickr uploading tool, Chrome and Firefox. There is something screwy with our internet. So, we went to the internet cafe, and I found out that my memory card was corrupted. I was freaking out because it had pictures of the buddha, ice mountain, and a lot of other stuff. Steph was not so worried - they are just pictures. I knew she was right, but still I spent 2 hours and finally found a free program called PhotoRec that recovered most of them. This was after installing 5 other programs that either didn work, or asked for a $30 license fee before you could actually save the pictures. Very frustrating... almost makes we wish we didn even have cameras. But its sorted out now, and Im uploading pics right now.

Tomorrow we are probably headint to Tiger Leaping Gorge for a two day trek, weather permitting. Looks challenging but awesome. Well end up in Lijiang again afterwards - we both like it here so it will be good to relax again before moving on to Dali, then Kunming.

Today (the 8th) we are exploring more, just got back from black dragon pool, which feeds all the waterways in Lijiang. We were originally planning on renting bikes, but I think well wait until we get back from TLG. Just another lazy day, enjoying what Lijiang has to offer, and getting a few supplies for the trek tomorrow.

Bonus! I took the time to figure out how to embed flickr images in travelblog (it is super easy) so here are some pics from lijiang. Maybe if Im really bored sometime Ill put pics in previous posts, but don hold your breath. As always, see all our flickr pictures at .

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