Yunnan

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The first towns we were in are all tourist traps. But they do not try to trap foreigners - they are all made for the Chinese tourists. there are millions of Chinese tourist everywhere. On buses they are easy to spot. the look cleaner, better dressed and there hair is just right. we call them TZFONIM and that is what they are. they are very MITLHAVIM, taking photos of everything, buying touristic junk and riding in organized tour buses. mainly they get in our way to relax but they do help us to get along because many of them speak English so they translate for us. we still did not need our English-Chinese phrase book to get along.

2 weeks into our trip and we still did not see blue sky even once. Worst of all was Lijiang where it did not stop raining. Our best refuge is going to eat something. But even the places that serve Western food are usually run by locals so you never really know what yo will get when you order something - especially in the deserts. Our biggest delight in Lijiang was on our last evening there when we happened to find a real English Pub run by a Brit! it was especially lucky because the place in not in any book and not in the main tourist area. we ate hamburgers and beef steaw(beef for the first time in China) drank Guinness and saw the English Cup final live on Sky sports! the rain and the atmosphere made us feel like we were in London.

next we went on a trek....wait for it in the next blog entry 😊

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Photos

on the road
to get to yunnan from the previuos blog entry we took: 1. walked down a hill 1/2 hr 2. bus 3. bus 4. taxi 5. taxi 6. plane 7. taxi 8. night train 9. bus ---- this is the train station. in a future blog we will write about trains...

Dali
the city is famous for the 3 pagodas. it costs 15USD to get in. you you think we payed? :)

Dali
we were very sportivic and road our bicycles for 20km!

Dali
we took a 3hr bicycle ride in the area ans saw the rice planting. the women worked extra hard when they saw us photographing.

Dali
in the town sqaure we saw these guys playing a chineese game

Dali
and this nice dude playing dominos. dominos and cards are very popular here

Dali
entrence to the main sqaure.

Lijiang
Lijiang is the home of the Naxi tribe. they still use a hilogriphic form of writing. the only one still used in the world.

Lijiang
Lijiang is an old city built of rock and tiled roofs. the new city was destoyed in 1996 by an earthqueck but the old town was saved becasue of the way they build the town.

Lijiang
the old town has small creek runing through it with meany resturants

honeymoon in Lijiang
to pass the time in the rain Hagit dressed up in a traditional Naxi wedding outfit

honeymoon in Lijiang
all the chineese tourists wanted to take here picture and with here. we thought of taking money for each photo to make tons of money for lunch

honeymoon in Lijiang
they all wanted us to pose and kiss. we started to laugh...

Lijiang
and we finish today with a Mao statue

Comments

[Lee Kay]

Invisible cities
I've never seen Lijiang like this. Not that I've seen it with my own eyes (http://www.ynet.co.il/home/0,7340,L-3963,00.html) but it's the same second hand (with a different first hand). Reminded me of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. One of those cities that is different for every visitor. Not only looks different, it _is_ different. If you haven't read the book- get it. It's as excellent a read as any for travelling in China.