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June 8th 2008

Published: June 8th 2008

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ChrisH

Stone Forest

Weird and wonderful rock formations, in places too weird and left us stranded on dangerous paths

Well I think it's fair to say that just over a week with Greer when I haven't seen her for three months isn't enough, but what with work holiday allowances we couldn't have anymore but we made the most of what we had.

We decided to stay in Yunnan province to avoid too much travel which would likely leave us too tired to enjoy the trip. And in any case, if you want to avoid big cities and pollution, Yunnan is the place to be.

Greer's arrival was obviously a great pleasure for me solely for her company. However she also bought me some supplies - dairy milk chocolate, mcvities hobnobs (sorry about brand placement but they gave much such pleasure after very little real chocolate for ages), new brake pads, and finally a pda (handheld computer which is smaller than my wallet). I'm hoping this last item can also give you pleasure, as I can now record all the details of the trip electronically but then collate only the best bits for the blog!

Sticking with my traditional style of blog for the moment though, he is a summary:

Saturday 24th May: Greer arrives Kunming
Sunday

Mountain Gorge River

On Jade Belt Mountain Walk

: Visit Stone Forest, catch evening bus to Dali.
Monday : Jade Belt Mountain walk
Tuesday : Erhai Lake trip
Wednesday : Bus to Lijiang . Explore old town
Thursday : more wandering in old town
Friday : Do sightseeing trip to Daju.
Saturday and Sunday : Tiger Leaping Gorge trek then bus back to Lijiang.
Monday : shopping and flight to Kunming
Tuesday 3rd June : Greer left and I flew to Beijing

I meet Greer at the airport after another hot morning in kunming where I had battled across town and decided we should get out of kunming as quickly as possible. As a result we changed our plans and arranged to leave kunming the following day.

That meant an early start the next day to visit the Stone Forest - had to set alarm for 6.30. Not pleasant after so long on the road! However we were rewarded with a good breakfast from hotel - coco pops(2 serves!!), bacon and Chinese stuff for Greer. Then off in private car to stone forest. Saw the aftermath of a big crash between 2 trucks. The trucks were still in middle of road but no one around to

Dali Valley and Erhai Lake

viewed from mountain path

do anything about them - not what I had wanted Greer to see on her 2nd day.

The Stone Forest is the remains of an ancient sea, now eroded by wind and water into strange formations. We started off surrounded by mostly Chinese tourists before puffying up a side path to the summit of a mini hill, to good views of the forest. After that we saw various other 'mystical' rock formations such as 'mother leading baby' and 'hole in rock with view of earth and sky'. Most of them were nothing special and we began to lose interest until we got hopelessly lost in maze-like network of paths between all these important sites. I got my compass out and was able to ascertain which direction to head in and we set off accordingly. This took us along an increasingly treacherous path involving several ridges and rain-washed slippery sections. Despite being able to see the paved path which was our expressway out of the park, the path twisted and turned with no guarantee of reaching safety so we retraced our steps. Now the Chinese tour groups came in useful as we followed the path which had the most number

Temple on jade belt mountain walk.

of high heels to the paved path.

We made it back to our driver who then took us straight to the bus station for our bus to Dali. Once in Dali Old Town, we checked into Lazy Lodge (where Matt & I had stayed + left our bikes) followed by dinner on the touristy 'foreigners street'.

The following day we went for a walk in the mountain range visible from the town which rose up over 2000m from the valley floor where the town stood. The line of mountains were an impressive and daunting sight, but made very accessible by a cable car.. The walk itself was flat along a well maintained path. It wound along the mountain side into gorges and around buttresses. A beautiful day with great views of the lake.

The following day we decided to bike to the lake and on the way passed by the three pagodas. Surprised by an expensive entry - 10 times what my guide book suggested, we did not go in. In any case we had had good views of them from the previous day's cable car.

When we finally made on board a boat to cross

Dali Old Town and Erhai Lake

from the cable car

the lake we were joined by a Chinese tour group which made the trip noisier but more entertaining. Temple was nice and the water crossing, combined with a scenery full of white washed buildings reminded me of Greece.

At this point something Greer had eaten decided to wreck havoc with her insides and made us question whether the following day's bus journey to Lijiang was such a good idea. Fortunately a good dose of Imodium blocked her up, but unfortunately did not have holiday-lasting powers.

We decided to try the bus the next day and were rewarded with great views as we passed through valleys and mountains. Not so good for when Matt and I get back on the bikes - this is the route we will probably follow.

Lijiang's old town is a rabbit warren of old cobbled streets - prettier than Dali because more higgly-piggly although still very touristy. We spent the afternoon having a walk around, shop and photo session. In the evening we looked for bar to have a drink in and eventually found a very busy street full of loud music bars-karaoke and/or dance. Not quite our scene and we ended up

Back streets

Greer hitting the back streets around Dali

early to bed.

However this turned out well as we were up early to see sunrise over the old town, still Greer had a struggle to wake me. Temple at top of hill was not open @ 6am when we arrived so we saw sunrise from nearby point without paying the 80Y entry fee. Then back to bed as it was too early for breakfast places to be open. I did diary. After breakfast and many returns to the hotel (G's illness not passed) we went for long walk to Black Dragon Pool Park - nice scenic park but not quite the pristine photogenic pools we had been expecting. Probably better for it as wasn't too manufactured + we didn't have to pay - no one on desk! Bit of shopping in the afternoon (t-shirt, rice bowls+chopsticks) but again punctuated by trips to hotel. Dinner and evening without even trying the main party street. I had pizza again and Greer was reduced to plain soup and boiled rice in a concerted effort against her stomach problems.

The following day Greer was still not feeling very well so I got more medicine - not Imodium but a Chinese herbal

Our pleasure boat

equipped with chinese tour group. Don't think we have ever been so photographed or videoed

equivalent. It was almost midday before we had finished breakfast - where we'd been joined by a guide and pretty much arranged his services for the day. Went on to the street to barter a price, where we were joined by what we thought was the competition - an ugly, grumpy looking woman. Our guide, Richard, said she was his wife, she claimed not to know him. We told her that we weren't interested in her tour and arranged to meet Richard in 15 minutes time.

When we made it to the meeting point she was there too.. A little confused we didn't really want this woman joining us as she was quite scary and we couldn't imagine relaxing with her around. She did ended up accompanying us, and fortunately she mellowed. However we still can't work out their business tactics, both going for the same clients and then both accompanying us when there were plenty more tourists out there.

The trip was a success though - we used it as a one way trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG) which we would hike the following days. On the way we stopped in Baisha, an old Naxi village,

Lake Erhai

Super-idilic, reminded me of greek islands

and a Yuhu village which had been inhabited by Joseph Rock, an Austrian botanist between the 1920's and 40's - one of the first foreigners to have explored this area of China. We passed through valleys and over mountain passes reaching 3100m of elevation and passing through some Tibetan style settlements where we chased some yak's for photos.

Got delivered to Daju and Richard and Li helped us get a guesthouse. This was handy as the first was terrible and second better, but still with the toilet from hell - the worst sort I have had to use and quite a shock for Greer: The bowl was a trough, with an ill-often used bucket for flushing purposes and with resident maggots!

Still, dinner was very nice and the owner super-friendly and spoke good english which was quite a surprise given how desolate the town was. We had been for a walk around and had barely seen a sole - Chinese or foreign, which was a surprise given this was meant to be one of the tourist highlights of Yunnan.

We had classic fried rice for breakfast and then set out to find old ferry to cross the

Lake Erhai

Greer admiring the view

River. We could see where the river was as it was in a gorge clearly visible cutting through the plain that Daju was on. However the ferry location, and path to it was a mystery to us. We had followed a village road and continued as it turned into a path through fields, but were now less certain of the way. We asked several locals who kept pointing us along the river. Our 'path' followed the top edge of the mini gorge and we soon decided it should be left to the goats before beating a retreat. We eventually found a marked track and this lead us to a very steep descent to an unlikely looking ferry.

After waiting for five minutes without any sign of action, some guys working on the upkeep of the path finished their lunch break and amongst the crew a driver appeared. The ferry was the product of some creative engineering - the engine, gears, steering wheel and drivers seat coming directly and without modification from a tractor - or rather two of them as there was two of them welded into the back of the ferry! There was some serious flow in the

Lijiang Old Town

river but after one false start we crossed successfully.

Now, after three hours 'on the road' we had arrived at the start of the trek as described by my guide book. It was going to be a long walk to our intended destination 'halfway house' guesthouse. It turns out this is about halfway if you only do half the walk...

The gorge can be walked along the road 'the low road' a few hundred meters above the river, or, for half of it, along a walking track known as 'the high path' which reaches an altitude of around 2600m, 1000m above the river but still dwarfed by the peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Range which make up one side of the gorge at 5600m.

We walked the low road for the first day, which despite sounding nice and easy was actually very scary - the road is no highway and many sections showed recent signs of damage from rockfalls and landslides. Not very reassuring when we were walking along it. We roadbashed for another three hours with great views of the gorge and river from sections of the road with near vertical drops above and

Lijiang Old Town

below and inadequate barriers to prevent cars or trucks from going over the edge.

Finally we made it to a guesthouse where the high path forked from the road and decided to call it a night.

After not being sure about high path in case it was more scary than the low, Greer wouldn't hear of doing it any other way and the next day we set off early with about 8 hours of walking in front of us. Strenuous 25km with about 700m of climbing. Great views - inparticular a huge waterfall which got Greer a bit scared. Apparently I stopped for too many photos in dangerous places.

By the end we were well ready for a rest and got annoyed as sight of the end town escaped us. However as soon as we came across buildings we got a lift with a mini-van-bus back to Lijiang. The driving was a little scary but we spoke to a nice honeymooning Chinese couple who invited us to a black goat dinner: a hot pot style dish into which we added our selection of vegetables - most of which I had never seen. The prize ingredient - the

Lijiang Old Town

On the party street - not that we partied!

black goat was nice but as usual in Chinese dishes, was complete with fatty skin. It was very nice to have a good conversation about China with the couple.

The following day, Greer's penultimate day, saw some more shopping in Lijiang before flying back to Kunming and back to our nice hotel, the day passed too quickly and soon we were checking out of the hotel. A mis-reading of flight times gave us another hour which we spent enjoying a Pimm's and lemonade at hotel bar before taxi to airport.

Another painful goodbye to Greer in an airport, but this time it is thankfully the last. Shortly after I was on another plane heading for Beijing. On board I was surprised to be handed a copy of China Daily - the Chinese english language newspaper, and then surprised again to find it an interesting read. It was able to take my mind off the strange notices on board : 'Life vest under your seat' - but not under mine and instead 'Seat cushion usable for floatation' were provided.

I won't start describing Beijing now - suffice to say the airport is aaammmmazing (i have a thing for

Lijiang Old Town

Less well tourist-trodden streets

airports and intend to fly BA back to UK solely to be arrive in Terminal 5) and that after seeing chaos throughout the rest of China, my faith in Beijing's ability to host a successful Olympics has been restored.

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