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Published: November 3rd 2006
Lijiang
Leaving in the morning means we see the best of Lijiang Old TownWell well,
Here we are in Lijiang, got in late on Friday night to get ushered into a sub-standard guesthouse (Nunny rating of 3) before venturing out into a maze of cobblestone alleyways lined with novelty shops and packed to the hilt with local tourists. The tour leaders with megaphones and little triangular flags were out in force again!! The tourists on the other hand certainly enjoyed a little dress up action (as in most parts we've visited so far) and opted for the "fox hat" (as in "wear the fox hat") a la Davy Crockett. They'd sport a mean looking rifle as well which didn't seem to phase the local security guards tooo much 😉
The streets are fantastic if you have a shopping addiction like Michelle, you can buy all the crap under the setting sun for three times the price of anywhere else. Beyond the burgeoning business of tourism though there is some quaint little pieces of culture and the occasional space to escape the hoardes. However often these hoardes offer the most amusement value and sitting in an obscure cafe and watching the world go by is quite priceless.
Hence we found a bite
Lijiang
Davey Crocket just kept popping up all over the shop to eat, for those of you playing at home Ricko did order the Sichuan chicken (not to be confused with Szechuan chicken apparently) which came out as a large soup with discoloured pieces of meat and a definate lack of sustenance. Hence he was forced to revert back to the tofu dish that Michelle had so wisely ordered, and was grateful for the spicy sauce that disguised the otherwise bland taste. "I will never eat chicken again in this country" was the statement of the night. Needless to say a strategically placed KFC was found the very next day complete with white, white meat. Ricko thus renegged.
Aimless wandering around the maze led to the discovery of the ancient Naxi ritual of line dancing - not too dissimilar to the 'gold' that can be found down the local RSL. Vowing to partake in this communal activity, we memorised the steps (kind of like the nutbush apparently) and stored them away for later.
We turned it in after gathering enough sense of direction to return to our guest house and its swamplike bathroom which no doubt bred malaria in its heyday, but these days just wafted through the room
Lijiang
Andrew loves shopping in Lijiang lulling you into an ass-phixiated sleep (again no pictures - sorry ladies).
We were up and at it at some ungodly hour, packed our stuff up and moved house to somewhere more befitting a lady (ie. Lady Michelle). Before organising a trip out to Lijiang Action Park - an expanse of space at the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow mountain that offered some gems such as rally driving, off road go-karting, rock climbing, archery and four-wheel drive tracks.
The scenery was breathtaking as we clambered aboard our not so breath-taking off road go kart which peaked at a maximum speed of about 40km/h. After being asked if I had a drivers licence we were let out onto the former airport strip to race little kids who seemed to have faster karts than us (and clearly no drivers license??) After getting beaten several times we took it onto the 'doughie' ring and realised that the steering was about as good as the acceleration (did I mention it had no brakes?) The thrill seeker in both of us decided that we should put it through its paces over the bumpiest section of track, slightly off the beaten path, and
Lijiang
Jade Peak Mountain - Lijiang's other tourist attraction steering away from the mainstream we were soon tracked down by the course security on his ATV (Quad bike) who waved us back onto the path before leading us across a paddock into some more exciting terrain. Despite a briefly bumpy but exhilarating ride we headed back to base to the dismay of the bloke who clearly wanted us to ride the beast for an hour.
We then fired some rubber balls from air powered guns at some plastic bottles - which was fun until we realised that you didn't win any teddy bears, so moved on to archery. Despite it being her first time (well at least thats what she told me) Michelle was a natural with the bow and arrow - no doubt harking back to her Celtic ancestry. Keen to go on the much revered Yobo Ball (note: Zorb) we were told that this was not available today. So instead we were ushered to the obstacle course.
The first involved a wire bridge across a lake of sorts that saw Michelle walking on water for undoubtably the first and last time - making it across with only a slight wobble near the end due to
Lijiang
Richard's doing his Dastedly Dudley impersonation some unknown seismic force. Ricko on the other hand with his superior weight advantage would no doubt be up to his knees in the icy cold water - but proceeded to make it about a 1/4 of the way across before touching the water and turning back (no heckling please). Next on the agenda was the bits of wood suspended by ropes which you had to cross without touching the ground (or breaking the ropes) again Andrew came unstuck due to superior weight breaking one of the ropes much to the amusement of heckling bystanders (lucky it was in Chinese and he couldn't understand - otherwise he would have gone NUTS!!! 😉.
We enquired about ballooning after another couple of obstacles and were told that tomorrow morning would be the ideal time as the wind was too high at the moment, so we headed back into Lijiang with that on the cards the next day (and how cheap?? $30 each - too good to be true it seemed).
Back in the old town we made a point of joining in the line dancing we had been practising religiously since our initial exposure and as the sun set we
Lijiang
Whackey Races all round danced in the streets with the local elderly Naxi women who had clearly had a lot more practise than us. Onwards to a performance by the Naxi Orchestra - the highlight of which was a woman playing the leaf! (oh and what diversity of pitch she could achieve).
A bit of people watching on Sifang Square, then it was dinner with our fledgling Lijiang Action Park representative Bethany. Expecting some exotic Yunnanese cuisine we were taken to her favourite restaurant - a pizza joint! After dinner and talk of life in Lijiang we took her back to work before venturing down warcry alley.
We have to thank D here for alerting us to this other example of high-culture that seems to be a favourite pastime within Lijiang, where bars line the street either side of a central canal and Chinese chant, heckle and sing to people in bars on the other side. Resulting in a carnival type atmosphere similar to the inter-house rivalry of those heady school days. Not understanding a word we plonked ourselves down in what seemed to be the most vocal of the bars and started mimicing the cries of the locals, much to their
Lijiang
We won! Number One!! amazement and eventual appreciation. Ya So, Ya So, Ya so so, we were to learn later meant 'come on, come on...' There were others that sounded very similar to 'Yo Mamma is...' and after an exorbitant Tsingtao, Michelle began to insert her own English versions, fondly recalled from her days as school bully. Needless to say it was a lot of fun.
A bit more exploration and we were back in our now comfortable bed ready for an early start in the morning.
Up before sunrise, we experience the pretty streets of Lijiang now devoid of people. Ahh bliss... before a traditional Naxi pancake for breakky (kind of disappointing) and we were off to the Action Park again for our hot air balloon ride!
Dressed inappropriately in tracksuits which offered little protection to the 2 degrees of warmth at that time of the morning we stood around watching a comical effort to start a fan which would inflate the hot air balloon. The infinite attempts to start the two stroke motor reminded me of the trusty family heirloom 'Victa' (lawnmower) back home. An hour later and the supercharged gas taps were on and we had the makings
Lijiang - action park
They just don't make rope like they used to. of a hot air balloon complete with about 6 park attendants hanging off the side to try to keep it on the ground. "Get in" they motioned in ancient chinese hand signals. And despite any initial hesitations at the safety of the equipment we were off...
With gas flaring startlingly close to Ricko's head (clearly designed with the vertically challenged in mind) we climbed to about 250m where we got some amazing views of the valley below and the support vehicle hurtling over paddocks in an effort to keep up with us. With the grace of a bird she landed in a random spot a few kms north of takeoff and we clambered out stoked to be alive (in both senses).
It was back into Lijiang old town where we tracked down some bus tickets to Tiger Leaping Gorge and then made a point of finding the more deserted streets of Old Town which were delightful. We visited traditional Naxi weaving houses, art galleries, paper 'mills', and the residence of Mr Mu - clearly an affluent old bastard. The evening was capped off by a trip up the hill above Lijiang called Lion Hill Park which was simply
Lijiang
The infamous water wheels that power the stream into a dragon's mouth. Seemingly this is a wonderous piece of science an awesome place to watch the sun set and quite freaky after dark as it contained a sparsely lit pine forest with a massive pagoda at the peak where you could see across the countless roofs of old town.
A nice way to finish up in Lijiang which I must admit grew on me after my first encounter with the hoardes...
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Ùnkie Chop
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Commie Nunny
I demand more photos of Commie Nunny..... that hat is a cracker and the smattering of them on display is not enough.... what i´m actually hoping is that the authorities at home see them and take appropriate action against your obvious western hating attitude