Lijiang to Shangri La

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July 16th 2010

Published: July 20th 2010

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scotty15

Grubby but happy

They've moved the long distant bus station in Kunming to the north west from the near the train station.I thought I was being clever booking a place to stay near the station so as to book ahead for the next leg,but unfortunately it took us 2 hours to find the right bus to get to the new one. After the train journey the night before we were exhausted but successful having purchased our 10 hour long bus tickets to Lijiang.
We stayed in the old Naxi town in Lijiang. Noticeably the air quality was cleaner at 2300m and more a risk of rain!,more on that later. The famous Tiger Leaping Gorge is only 3 hrs away and is one of the trips to do. We decided not to go from here but potentially Shangri La further north.
Lijiang has a hill called Lion Hill which borders the old and new towns. We took a walk up to see the Past Pavilion and get blessed by a Buddhist Monk, cost us of course! The thunder storms rolled in on the second night, a lot of water fell which rattled through the many hundreds of canals that snake through Lijiang. Its has pools

Leaving Baisha

that are for drinking, cleaning veg and washing clothes which still are used by the Naxi woman today.
Off to Baisha for the day on bikes! Well we passed the village by 10km and had to go into a police station to ask the way. Baisha was the old capital of the Naxi kingdom back in 1271-1368. Its supposed to be 7.5km north of Lijiang not 17.5km! It was worth the wait. We dinned in a local cafe and cycled through cobbled streets exploring farm buildings. We were burnt from the sun as we thought not to put suncream on as it was cloudy, but beware the sun at altitude, much stronger.
Next day we travelled 5 hrs by bus to Shangri La following the Yangzi River which by this time was very swollen. We passed the Tiger Gorge entrance before a steep climb up to the main plateau where Zhongdian(the old name for Shangri La) lies. It was some journey, the driver didn't take a break and had to avoid the odd car! Shangri La is the last stop before you travel to Tibet, since we're not going there this is second best. The town sits at 3400m altitude

End of lake Napa

which we felt straight away as we carried our bags to Kevins Trekker Inn slighty up a hill just outside the old town.
Electric blankets! yes we used them, it was 14C at night and during a couple of days of heavy persistant rain it was 16C during the day. The rain had made the decision for us not to attempt Tiger Leaping Gorge
as we had heard from some french that there were land slides blocking the road. So we toured locally for 2 days.
First day was spent at the Ganden Sumtselling Gompa ,a 300 yr old Tibetan Monastry with 600 monks 1 hour north of the town.
It was pretty run down and was having some repairs done when we were there. But nevertheless very beautiful inside, unfortunately no photos were allowed so only exterior on show. After this we explored the Guishan Gongyuan,another smaller Monastry in the old town.
On the second day I rented abike and headed off on a 30km circuit of the famous Blue moon Valley and Napa Lake. Lynn was not too well with the altitude and had a rest day, thoroughly deserved after all the travelling.
I followed my nose and

Yak and smoking man

got entwined in local village tracks and valleys, brilliant. The day was the best yet weather wise and brought out insects,butterflies and birds. After the rain the Yaks were practicing the "yak stroke". The children in the villages seemed very happy playing in the puddles whilst their parents were farming and working in the plains.

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