Naxiville

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The rain followed us from Dali to Lijiang and it was another 2 days before it finally stopped. Unfortunately the arrival of good weather coincided with me acquiring the sorest throat I've had in my life (swallowing was extremely painful) as well as an uncontrollable fever (I drenched my bedclothes with sweat twice). A language misunderstanding at the pharmacy led to me starting a course of drugs for bowel infections and dysentery, whereas I'd thought I was receiving painkillers. These ailments meant I spent much of my time in Lijiang either in bed ill or convalescing.

Lijiang is the capital of the Naxi kingdom, a thousand year old realm that's home to a race descended from Tibetan nomads. However the make-up of the place was completely transformed in 1996 when an earthquake destroyed a third of the town. Rebuilding efforts were conducted with an eye on future tourism recouping the construction costs, and the majority of the town's Naxi inhabitants moved out, their houses in the Old Town converted into souvenir stores and some of the destroyed area rebuilt in Han style. Though the government has been vilified for doing this, there is still a charming atmosphere and the architecture is of interest to those who can't tell Naxi from Han.

The Old Town is a web of cobbled stone streets, many either split by or adjoining narrow waterways. Strings of red lanterns mark the entrances to bars and restaurants, many accessible only by negotiating wooden-plank bridges, and the roofs of almost every building have been uplit so at night it's impressive - as can be confirmed from our guesthouse restaurant, which has an excellent view. Naxi it might not be, but memorable it definitely is.

One street in the Old Town consists of 2 rows of bars facing each other across a bridge-studded waterway, with lanterns everywhere (even flower-shaped ones available for purchase to float down the stream), touts in Naxi costume attempting to entice punters into their establishments, and hordes of Chinese tourists. This is all to a soundtrack of thunderous Chinese pop, a musical genre related to my favourite Eurodisco and sharing with it thudding basslines, dance percussion, and cheesy synth riffs. Though much of it sounds home-grown, "Dragostea din tei" and "Can't get you out of my head" have both clearly proved attractive to Chinese pop producers.

In bars where the staff are either bored or trying to drum up custom (the latter of which is sometimes accomplished by them all standing outside clapping), they'll get on the dancefloor in formation and perform some energetic choreographed moves unlikely to be from Naxi tradition but highly entertaining nonetheless. In particular, seeing some of the girls whirling around with arms flailing and everyone doing 360s is amazing.

As for drinking, there's plenty of it going on and it seems to progress to a cross-street taunting contest - each side will sing some sort of apparent taunt or challenge (though we also heard "Happy birthday" and "Frere Jacques", neither of which are noted for their bellicose lyrics), then finish up with "Yaso, yaso, ya ya so", accompanied by much air-punching. It's all conducted in good humour, and the end result of all this alcohol consumption seems to be red faces and uncoordinated dancing rather than violence.

We've noticed that any rice that we order with meals never seems to be delivered, and when we subsequently remind the serving staff they then charge us twice for it. I'm not sure whether they would normally wait until the end of the meal before bringing it out, but we're now adopting a policy of ordering our food sans rice and then ordering it once the main dishes turn up.

Unfortunately we never saw the top of Yulong Xie Shan, the Jade Dragon Snow mountain that sits to the north-west of Lijiang. Even in the good weather, its peak was covered in cloud and we only saw the snow on its shoulders. However we were expecting higher mountains in the near future, hopefully with clearer weather as well.

Dull but possibly useful info
Getting there: Take a minibus from Dali to Lijiang (many through the day, picking up from various guesthouses - we took the 11AM), costing 40 yuan and taking about 3 hours. Ask if you can be dropped at the Old Town in Lijiang (where most of the accommodation is) - otherwise you'll be dropped at the bus station, and taxi-drivers might not be willing to take you to the Old Town because so much is pedestrianised.
Stayed at: MCA. Cost 80 yuan for a double including free Internet. Had the cheapest laundry in town. Would stay here again.
Notes: i. Had appallingly slow and random service at Sakura restaurant.
ii. Had a fun (and noisy) time in Neighbour of the Sun.
iii. Getting to Baoshan Stone City from here appears to be a major effort, involving long and uncomfortable bus rides, or an expensive taxi.

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Photos

Choreographed dance moves from the bar staff
Ma ya heeeeeeee, ma ya hooooooooooo, ma ya haaaaaaaaaa, ma ya ha-ha!

Woman in Naxi dress
Busting a move