The centre of the old town of Lijiang is a picturesque labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets, little canals, stone bridges, and quaint old buildings. But nobody seems to actually live there anymore. Every building is now a souvenir shop, a cafe, a restaurant, a hotel, or a travel agent. And even in mid-December, which is supposed to be low season, the narrow cobbled streets are packed with Chinese tour groups, with a few puzzled-looking westerners thrown in for good measure. On the main square, KFC and Pizza Hut are doing a roaring trade. Welcome to Disneyland Lijiang! In order to escape from all this, at least for a day, we took a minibus out to the small village of Baisha, which is about 6 km from Lijiang. To our relief, we seemed to be the only
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