Blogs from Lijiang, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 3

Did somebody say "tourists"? It was a 3.5h bus ride from Old Dali to Lijiang, another city with a distinctive ancient, labyrinthine portion in the centre. But if Dali is laid-back, hippie and bohemian, then Lijiang is its noisy, restored, main-stream counterpart. Arriving close to the country's national day holidays certainly didn't help, as the maze-like narrow streets of Old Lijiang were packed from dawn to dusk. A Unesco World Heritage site, with the imposing Jade Dragon Snow Mountain as backdrop, Lijiang has been more than discovered by domestic tourists. Its restored streets and traditional buildings are filled with cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops, bars, guesthouses, banks, tour agencies, you name it. And this weekend, it almost seemed like all of China must have been in Lijiang! It's still a pretty place though, notwithstanding the crowd, which ... read more

I got to Lijiang in the early afternoon, which was just perfect as had almost the whole day to explore still! The Chinese guy who joined me on a bike on the way to Caicun the previous day told me if I liked Dali, I was going to like Lijiang even more. As promising as it sounded I wasn’t totally convinced but have to say that he was absolutely right! What a charming place – narrow cobblestoned streets, beautiful wooden finished buildings, bridges and canals all around, absolutely beautiful! Jade River splits into three streams here which flow along the streets of the old town and apparently some people go as far to call Lijiang ‘Chinese Venice’… There would have to be a few more canals to be called that I’d say, but there is something ... read more

After deciding to stay on the bus at Tiger Leaping Gorge we continued to drive through to Lijiang which added another two hours onto our day. We had visited Lijiang in 2005 so was familiar with the general layout of the city. It was however, like all Chinese cities we had previously visited, so much larger than we remembered. Lijiang has as it's backdrop the impressive slopes of Yulong Xue Shan, usually totally capped in ice and snow, but looking devoid of both when we arrived in the city. We had seen it's icy slopes on the opposite side of the mountain though on the bus trip earlier in the day. Lijiang's old town is the original capital of the Naxi people, a group of Tibetans who moved to this region of Yunnan in the thirteenth ... read more

Day11 Yulong Snowy Mountain is 5600m tall and sits at the opposite side of the Tiger Leaping Gorge to the Haba Snowy Mountain! Which is 5400m. It looms large on the landscape and is often capped with cloud as it was this morning. The stay in Daju was very pleasant with the new rooms now in operation. It is still a little basic with only two rooms having shower and toilet, plus one shower and one toilet out in the yard. Luckily by pure chance we had the room with the shower and toilet, the down side was we had to share and had middle of night invasions. Sitting out in the vines for meals was very pleasant and after noodles we were off at 8am across the plain to the foot of the mountain, first ... read more

Day 7Lijiang at Last Bad news all round today. I succumbed to Beijing Belly last night and had a very bad night. No breakfast but managed to ride all day on very little to eat, three biscuits in the morning and a bowl of rice at lunch. The road this morning was quite cool until late again, I think because of the altitude, which was about 2300m and rising. After morning coffee we turned up the old Lijiand Road, which was 10km of hairpin bends followed by more hairpin bends and 2km of further climbing on to a plain where potatoes were the main crop at 2,800m. However on the descent of a very rough road indeed Roger fell off on a very poorly surfaced bend and when the next rider arrived he was unconscious for ... read more