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Well, we hit the ground running. That's all I can say. After 2 weeks of travel, Alex figured we had logged some 50 hours on buses, trains and planes.
Our first stop was Kunming, the City of Eternal Spring. You know how in springtime, the weather is always a bit on the rainy side? Kunming was like that. After our 18 hour train ride from Guilin, which I thought was fantastic, we dumped our stuff at a hotel and hired a driver to take us up to a temple, just outside of Kunming. The temple is famous for its realistic, nearly life-sized carving of various monks, done in a caricature style way back in the day. Now, the majority of the carving are located inside the temple, which was roped off on the day we visited! But we did get to see some other statues, possibly replicas, housed in nearby building. Unfortunately, no photos allowed!
We spent one full day in Kunming, before hopping on a bus to the pseudo-magical Tibetan land of Shangri-la, otherwise known as Zhondian (in Mandarin).The town became famous when the Chinese government decided it was the setting of the James Hilton novel "Lost Horizon".
Having read the novel, I can assure you that Zhondian is NOT the setting of the novel, as the author clearly places his (fictional) novel in a (fictional) monastery in far west Tibet. Shangri-la is NOT western Tibet, though it is a Tibetan town.
Alex and I suspect that the publicity may be intended to deter people from visiting "real" Tibet. Like "oh, the permit to visit Tibet is so expensive, why not go to Shangri-la instead?" Thus, keeping the foreigners out of Tibet. Once again, may I add that novels are by their very nature, fictional? I found the town a bit on the boring side, but the unexpected cold weather may have had a bit to do with it.
After that, we bussed down to Lijiang to meet up with Leo, our Chinese friend and Alex's music buddy. Lijiang is crammed with tourists. Packed like sardines with Chinese tour groups. I love that the tour guides always have big flag and a microphone. Sometimes the people are all wearing the same shirt. I have decided that there is no better way to travel. When Alex and I go to Tibet, I will carry a flag and
make him wear a bright pink, ill-fitting shirt, just so he can't get lost
We took a 2 hour bus to a little town called Qaitou to begin what I call the highlight of the Yunnan trip. I should say the HIGHLIGHT! We hiked Tiger-Leaping Gorge. I don't think I could possibly fill one paragraph with enough superlatives to do the hike justice. I don't know the numbers but the hike looks like Alaska, only bigger.
The trail starts unassumingly on a paved road, in a valley on a side of a mountain that overlooks a river. The trail leads up and the road falls away after about half and hour. We passed through villages and goats and fields of corn. After about an hour and a half, the trail is nothing more than a footpath wide enough for two people or a donkey, hugging the mountainside and going upwards. We went on a hot day so after lunch both Alex and I had to change into cooler , less sweat-soaked clothes!
Guesthouses appear on the trail about every hour or maybe every 2 hours, the trail marked by the red arrows. The view was incredible, breathtaking.....I
will let pictures do it justice.
I saw the world's oldest woman on the hike. She was also a contender for the world's tiniest woman. She was about 100 feet ahead of us before I heard her hurling what I can only assume were vicious insults at her goats. Her goats were scattered both above and below the trail, so naturally, the world's oldest woman started slinging big rocks at them. Actually, before we saw her, I had assumed she was a (youngish )man, but as we passed her, I saw she was wearing a blue skirt and head wrap. And her face.....Her face looked like what Yoda might look like after an eternal sandstorm followed by 21 days in a tanning bed. I have approximately 32 more teeth in my mouth than that young lady does in hers. Of course, I was too scared of her to take a picture. I wish I had, in retrospect. She was amazing.
We spent the night in a cute guesthouse perched on the side of a mountain, overlooking the Gorge. Alex and Leo got up early to watch the sunset but I was way too tired to care. We hiked
back down to the road and then, hiked from the road to the gorge below. Truly an amazing hike, I only wish we had more time, because I could have spent days up there.
After Lijiang and the Gorge, we bussed to Dali, which (similar Lijiang) is famous for its ancient city and cobblestone streets. Dali was cool, but I think I was overwhelmed by the hike and anything after would only pale by comparison.
After Dali, we flew (I heart budget airlines!) to Xishuangbanna, in the south of Yunnan. On the plane we met an American Chinese girl, who had been studying in China. Wendy rounded out our group nicely and traveled with us through Jinhong, and Galanba. In Jinhong, we went the somewhat overrated Nature Reserve. The "wild "elephants are simply NOT. But there is a lovely trail from one end of the park to the other and an awesome swing over a river.
Strangely, in Jinhong, we ran into some friends that had just left Yangshuo for good, so we got to have one more night of hanging out together. The girls were staying in some bungalows , basically in someone's backyard. The bungalows
had porches, so we stayed for one night and had a blast.
In Galanba, we stayed one night in a massive botanical garden. The hotel itself was deserted, and staff was difficult to find. At night the four of us took a walk around the park in nearly complete darkness while, of course, talking about the movies that used to scare us as children. The result of the conversation was that we got lost. Alex set us right fairly quickly but I was still doing that half-run half-walk back to the room. I'm a wimp sometimes.
We also went to the "closed until further notice" Green Stone Rainforest and ran into our friends again .So we spent about half an hour hiking around and then the rain started. Lovely time to be in the South of China!
After that, we sadly said goodbye to everyone and flew back to Kunming to catch our train.
Ok, I kind of rushed that last part. Sorry! Alex can fill in the rest.
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