Lijiang October 4 - 5

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Oct. 4-5 - Today we are exploring Lijiang ("beautiful river") near Tibet, because we were not allowed to travel to Tibet itself. This is a smaller city, about 130,000. There are several minorities here (Bai, Na'xi, Tibetan), so the culture and style of dress is a little different from what we've seen. Certainly many people dress in modern style, but some also wear traditional Na'xi clothes with a vest or cloak, coin-like head pieces, and bright colors. The women's cloak always has 7 knots tied in the back that symbolize that they are expected to work in the fields until seven stars appear in the sky. According to our male guide, the women do all the work while the men are lazy and drink tea.

The neatest thing about Lijiang is the central Old Town, which dates back to the 1300s and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has very narrow streets with tiny canals (2 feet wide) running beside the streets, or sometimes in the middle of them. That is why it is called the Venice of China. This is very beautiful but also very dangerous and would never be allowed in our litigious society. One night I watched in horror as three young women fell into these holes over the course of about ten minutes. Fortunately the canals are only about three feet deep, but the women were soaked and one seemed to sprain her ankle. (For the offending hole, see last photo. Canal pit is right in front of a crepeshop.) We are watching our steps very carefully!

The old town is a fun place for tourists to explore, so of course it is covered with vendors hawking all kinds of wares. We felt we got some good deals on pashmina scarves ($8.50). Who knows how "pashmina" they are, but if they look and feel great, who cares?

Our hotel, the Lijiang Impression Old Town Hotel is in the style of family living quarters with several courtyards enclosed by the room areas. Like all hotels we've stayed in to date, amenities are freely provided in the rooms: besides the usual shampoo, body wash, soap and towels, we have a scale, slippers, robes, combs, toothbrushes and toothpaste, razors, sewing kits, Q-tips (in case you missed the ear-picker), and cotton balls. On the down side, each room had open grillwork at the top of the window, so noise came in from the courtyard. Ear plugs were a big help. The Internet connection was very frustrating, so we spent a lot of time trying to get connected and reconnected just to check emails.

Our organized tours included a museum of the Na'xi people and their Dongba religion (polytheistic, worship of nature, necromancy), and then a walk through the Black Dragon Pool Park with pretty bridges and a view of Black Dragon Snow Mountain on clear days, of which this, unfortunately, was not one. We had several showers, and scenery was obscured by fog, but we did find some cheap souvenirs (cool embroidered purses) and some amusing ice cream novelties (green mung bean) which tasted surprisingly like yesterday's taro ice cream. Maybe there is really just one generic ice cream flavor here.

Then to a tea demo with black, puer, and fermented puer tea, which we were told cured everything from altitude sickness to high cholesterol. Then dinner at an old town restaurant. Fortunately we have local guide Andy and Michael to guide us through the maze of streets.

After breakfast on the 5th we went out to old town on our own. Found the Wan Gu pavilion, a viewing platform and temple at the top of the hill. Feeling the altitude of 7800 feet. We were able to go up to the top of the five- story temple for a view of the black tile roofs of old town and the mountains, still shrouded in clouds. Used a Happy Room that rated a -1 on our five point scale on the basis of odor, no toilets, no doors on the stalls and no sinks or running water. Bought two more scarves!
We rejoined the group to visit the Mu ("moo") family home village of Baisha. Mu was a chieftain who was appointed governor by Kubla Khan when he united China in 1253, and the family remained in power until the Ming Dynasty (1500s). Here we saw some murals in temples depicting the various religions in area Tao, Buddhism, local religions. Bought an embroidered pillow and saw the Mu embroidery school.
Then on to a little higher elevation at Yuhu ("Yoo-hoo!"), home of Joseph Rock, American botanist who came here in the 1920s on government order to explore the plants of the region but ended up falling in love with the place and the people and recorded a lot of their customs. Hilton's Shangri-la was inspired by his writings. Unfortunately, the rain was pretty heavy, and we had to keep looking down to avoid puddles and horse poop, so we didn't see views of the mountains. In the botanist's courtyard I did discover the rare umbrella-eating rose plant when my hood slipped so low that I couldn't see where I was going and walked right into it. It took a while and Wayne's help to extricate myself.
Dinner was marred by two heads, a fish head and a duck head that were left on their respective bodies in the Chinese style. No one wanted the heads looking at them, or vice versa, so the lazy susan got a lot of spinning.
Tonight we fly to Kunming, also in Yunnan province.

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