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Published: April 30th 2009
Yunnan Province is located in Southwest China, about as far southwest as you can go before you hit Tibet, India, or Laos. Being bordered by so many different countries has led Yunnan to gain (rightly so) the reputation of being very diverse. Statistics vary, but from what I've been told/read, about 40-50% of Yunnan's population belongs to ethnic minorities. Within Yunnan Province, our group (6 people, including myself) went to Kunming, Dali, and Lijiang.
Kunming, capitol of Yunnan, is known as the 'City of Eternal Spring' because of its year-round mild weather. Also, because China only has one timezone (Beijing time), the sun sets fairly late. With Kunming's tropical environment and vast variety of wild flowers and vegetation, I was strongly reminded of my days in Taiwan. Kunming is a beautiful city, and I regret that we didn't have more time to explore it. We arrived in Kunming after a 3 1/2 hour plane ride Saturday afternoon. We were met by our tour guide who brought us to see Kunming's Military Academy and Yunnan University. Yunnan University's campus is gorgeous, with wild flowers threatening to take over the campus in some areas! I wish ECNU was like YU! After sight-seeing,
we went to a very touristy dinner/show shindig, which was really bad. It was supposed to show off the culture of the Bai ethnicity, but it failed horribly. Somehow there was an auction involved throughout the show, as well as the actors lighting each others pants on fire!
Saturday night, we caught an overnight train to Dali. The sleeper trains in Yunnan are much nicer than other sleeper trains I've ridden (still a hard-sleeper). It was a double-decker, and each cabin had only four people, instead of six. Each cabin was also a little more isolated than before, with more surrounding walls. We arrived in Dali on Sunday morning and went straight to Ear Lake (because it's shaped like an ear) for a cruise. The cruise was a bit long; four hours. But we stopped off at two islands in the lake and got to sample a traditional 3-course tea ceremony. The first tea is bitter, the second is sweet, and the third is aftertaste. The third was my favorite, green tea with cinnamon and...ginger I think. After the lengthy cruise we made our way to a local tie-dying shop. It was very interesting to watch the women make
tie-dye products, which are then sold for a great deal of money. In the evening we walked around the old part of town, which had lots of stores to buy souvenirs, and also had a 'foreigners street'.
Monday morning got off to a rough start-my roommate and I both ate something that didn't agree with us. But, we toughed it out and went to the Shaping market. The Shaping market is a local market that only takes place on Mondays, and is where all the locals get their weekly purchases. After the market, we had a three hour ride to Lijiang county. In Lijiang, our hotel (considerably nicer than the previous one) was located right in Lijiang's 'Old Town'. Lijiang's Old Town is a very touristy area, but I'm told that it's always been a hub of activity, due to the horse-tea trading route that passed through it back in the day. The Black Dragon Pool was a short walk away, so we visited that, but my roommate was still feeling ill (I was much better) and so her and I went back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
On Tuesday we visited
Tiger Leaping Gorge (part of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain), which was another 3 hour busride away. I tried to sleep along the way, but the ride was just too bumpy (car suspensions aren't a popular thing in China). I also made the mistake of watching the driver drive...That kept me wide awake. Cruising along a two lane mountain road, with the driver passing slower drivers left and right was frightening. To distract myself, I watched the scenery. The scenery was incredible. When we finally got to the gorge, it was a (thankfully) flat, relatively short walk to the 'Tiger Leaping' part of the Gorge. The gorge is named as such because at its narrowest point there is a massive rock and it is said that a tiger could jump across. Also, the roar of the Yangtze River sounds like a tiger. So there you have it, Tiger Leaping Gorge. On the way back from the gorge, our progress along the mountain road was halted by a parade of military trucks. We counted 100 military cargo trucks drive by. Our driver mentioned that there is some kind of anniversary coming up in Tibet, and so that's where the trucks were headed...I
Park Overlooking Ear Lake
We climbed up there while we waited for the cruise to board. Quite the climb!won't say more, we all know that's a sticky subject.
Wednesday was an exciting day because we were going back to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, but this time to climb it! Ok...we cheated. There was no climbing involved. We drove a shorter distance on Wednesday (instead of 3 hours) to a different part of the mountain. We paid a lot of money to take a cable car to the tippy-top. The cable car went up to the (almost) highest peak at 4,500 meters high. That's...about 15,000 feet, for those of you not using meters. The tallest peak, at 5,000 + meters, has yet to be scaled. The difference in the air at that height is incredible. Nothing can prepare you for the feeling of thin air like that. There were plenty of oxygen tanks for sale (relatively cheap, too) for those who felt the need to make use of them. From the cable car drop-off point, there were stairs to climb another few hundred feet, but I got about halfway before I called it quits. I was perfectly happy with the view halfway to the top of the stairs. Moving slowly didn't save me from a headache, so I
headed back down to the drop-off point to relax. After some incredible photo ops, we rode the cable car back down the mountain and lethargically clambered into our van. After lunch, our 24 hours of traveling back to Shanghai began. We drove (our driver was a trooper!) four hours from Lijiang back to Dali. From Dali, we took an overnight train (again) back to Kunming. Because everyone's ipod no longer had a charge, we resorted to other sources of entertainment. The result was, of course, a rap battle. What's a rap battle, you ask? Good question. You insult another person with rhyming lyrics. This trip was full of new experiences for me!! The rap battle certainly kept us entertained until lights-out on the train...That brings me to this morning (Thursday), when we boarded a 3 hour flight back to Shanghai!!
Whew, I'm tired. And it's time to do some laundry. Any questions or comments, feel free to write me!
Oh, and I made a map of my trip. A (not really) new feature of travel blog! Nonetheless, it's coming in handy!!
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Chrissy
non-member comment
Meg! You're blog is awesome, I love the detail and fun quips that make it so personal - "because it's shaped like an ear", "cinnamon and ...ginger", "OK we cheated" - I can hear you saying these things in my head as I read. And some of the Chinese names are just hilarious: "Jade Dragon Snow Mountain" - I love how this is just a strew of nouns! One question: when traveling around is it common to hire local tour guides or just see the sights yourself? Keep up the good work!