Lijiang

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Day 16

As we weren't too impresed with our current dorm at mamma Naxi's (no lock on the shared shower & a pilot light just a little too close to the glass canister for comfort, not to mention a strict midnight curfew) we decided to move into a private en-suite room in the main building. In total it only cost us £1 more a night but was a great decision as we were so much happier there.

We spent the day at the Black Dragon pools, a beautiful Chinese park full of lakes, pagodas & temples set at the foot of a snow capped mountain. It was such a lovely place but we were a little annoyed that western tourist have to pay a 80 yuan enterance charge while chinese tourists can enter for free. We capped the trip off with a little trip to a small cafe run by an American man, for his famous Oreo Cheesecake - it was yummy!

We stayed in th hostel for the famous mamma Naxi dinner. Everybody from the hostel piles around the tables in the bar and courtyard, each person pays £1.50 and the staff just keep on bringing plate after plate of delicious Chinese food out. Nobody could finidh it all but mamma will still walk her rounds after the meal asking everyone 'you still hungry? mamma make you more...' We are now understanding why this lasy has such a reputation among travellers in China. Then we were early to bed for a pre-football tactical nap.

We snuck out the hostel at 12.30am just as mamma was closing up for the night and headed for the one venue in Lijiang that we knew was showing the champions league final, a Dutch bar we found just of the main sq. Had a nice night, getting to know Jack the owner and befriending one of the customers 5 week old Alsation-Husky puppy despite the match result. Gulitly had to wake mamma up at 5.30 am to get back in the hosteel, but at least there were about 8 of us there to share the blame.


Day 17

We had a relatively quiet day following the early morning football. Spent most of the afternoon meandering around Lijiang old & new quarters and went for along lazy lunch by a little stream with one of our friends Richard. We decided to try a Yak meat dish which is common in the high mountain ranges near Tibet and we're surprised that it was actually quite nice, like really tender Beef.

In the evening our Irish friends were back in Lijiang and we decided that as there was a bar down the road named 'the sexy tractor' we thought it would be rude not to pay it a visit. Everybody in the hostel soon got wind of the ides and soon the bar was packed. Unfortunately we could not find any sexy tractors there though. We were late home again, but depite mamma's best efforts to send us all to bed we still managed to sneak in more late night banter with Cillian & Kelly.

Day 18

The weather today was the first really rainy day we've seen so we had to postpone our trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge, as we've heard it can be dangerous in the wet. Unfortunatley there is not that much to do in Lijiang when it's raining so we spent most of the day reading books & catching up on emails etc. Found a lovely cafe that did a close impression of a good old British Sandwich and had an early night.

Day 19

As the rain was starting to get us down a little and we didn't want to stay in the same place for too long we decided to go to Shangri-la. As Joe hadn't thought to bring a jumper with him and Shangri-La was supposed to be freezing we made a quick shopping trip in the morning and got a real perception of the mark-up Chinese traders will try to put on goods. We saw one jumper which a lady, who could only speak Chinese, offered to us for 150 yuan (approx £15). As soon as we walked away we could hear in perfect English 'wait.. comeback, how much you wan to pay? 100?...60?...' We finally went to a store who's prices were a little more down to earth and got one for 50 yuan.

When we arrived in Shangri-La (which was very cold) we headed to a local place to eat and had the most amazing Yak Cheese dumplings and struggled to find a decent hostel to stay in.

When we finally walked around and found a place to stay it was time to jump out and meet some of the local travellers to get the low-down on Shangri-la. We decided to head to a popular bar and we sat down next to a Canadian couple who had just spent the last six days trekking around which sounded amazing (and included a trip to a yak cheese factory, Joe was becoming a fan). It was a little out of our timings but gave us some food for thought for the future. After we had a couple of drinks we decided to head back to bed which had an electric blanket that was a welcome comfort.

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