Lazy day in Lijiang

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Day 12

Lazy day in Lijiang

Today was spent lazing around the Old City of Lijiang after doing the final packing of the bike and getting Roger and Elaine's bikes out of storage ready for despatch to Kunming this afternoon. It was good to be on the streets early before the mass hoards of tourists are out in force. I bought a few small gifts for granddaughters in the many shops offering anything and everything at double the price of the country markets. We bumped into a retired couple from England who set off three months ago in St Petersburg and followed the silk road down through Kazakhstan until they arrived here. They are due to go down to Vietnam and Laos before returning home in another month. We have had umpteen cups of coffee and waffles etc biding our time before our dinner and 8.30pm flight. It was interesting to see the Bai minority people and other Chinese dancing in the squares to a ghetto blaster, getting their daily exercise. We have heard that Roger has just left the Hospital in Kunming but the interpreter Nicola did not know where he was going, so we are still in the dark.The flight to Kunming was quite quick and we were soon on the motorway into the city. We passed two large car transporter lorries with a second deck which had two cars wide and must have held about 15 cars. One was reversing back up the motorway since he had come up against a 2.5 metre height restriction - it could only happen in China. Kunming has massive flyovers going for miles on end, which must have taken years to build and puts spaghetti junction near Birmingham into another class. Just as we checked in the Kunming Jinjiang Hotel our bikes and bags arrived by truck from Lijiang so could not have been timed better.Tomorrow the city awaits.

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Photos

Street of Lijiang
Typical street

Stream in Lijiang
Colourful flowers

The well
This well was used by Kublai Khan's troops when they invaded In 1255