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Published: January 23rd 2012
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Well, having been so tardy in typing anything and over a month having passed since our last entry we thought we’d better post something….
Lijiang at dawn is stunning: a maze of apparently ancient wooden dwellings leaning inwards over cobbled streets and burbling inter-linking waterways. It is however only sleeping. By mid-morning every building has removed its fronting wooden shutters to reveal gaudy tourist fare that is periodically viewable through the multitude of, primarily Chinese, tourists. Navigation through the old city is a nightmare, most eateries are tourist orientated, the guest houses expensive if admittedly beautiful and traditional, and the crowds simply frustrating: we weren’t immediately enamoured. Nevertheless, once you have your bearings and have located some tourist-untouched corners it did begin to grow on us. Plus, we found a great guest house in the Garden Inn. This place is run by young friendly and helpful locals, has a mixed Chinese/western clientele and a cozy courtyard garden including, of all things, an outdoor pool table. Without realizing it days passed and Lijiang became our longest stop thus far. Highlights included Christmas day spent drinking and feasting with a bunch of Chinese from the far north east: our first experience of
crispy pig’s ears and other less readily identifiable “delicacies”. I regularly held court on the warped, dead, pool table and was informed by the staff that I was “very strong”, indeed never had a better player stayed at the hostel: how could I not fall in love with the place.
Next stop was further north for the purpose of hiking the 3900m-deep Tiger Leaping Gorge, an experience that the Lonely Planet says comes under the heading of “things that probably won’t kill you but could”. Ali, Captain Vertigo, was not relishing the prospect of tiny ledges and precipitous drops. In truth there were a couple of hairy stretches, but no face-pressed-to-the-wall stomach churners that we’d anticipated. Late December in mid-Yunnan province is pretty chilly but still sunny during the day and was perfect for walking. After a couple of hours we passed a local lady perched on a ledge selling water (we already had plenty), honey tea (we partook) and marijuana (oh yeah, at least you’d plummet with a smile on your face).The Half-Way guest house that is, not surprisingly, about half-way along the gorge is a wonderful place to stop for the night – check out the vista
from the alfresco loos - and the views along the trek itself didn’t disappoint either.
A further note on changes in China: whereas before we were a tactile sensation (countless people wanted to touch our bizarre blonde hairy bodies) now we are merely curios worthy only of the odd photo request (and then these requests are usually targeted at the one of us still with hair).
We had intended to head further north to Shangri La, a village surrounded by spectacular mountains that will surely suffer the same popularity fates as Dali and Lijiang in years to come, and then push on to Benzilan and Deqin near the Tibetan border, before heading back south via Shaxi. However, the snows are arriving and most places this far north have already closed down for winter so we plan to visit these towns on our return en-route to Sichuan next year.
So instead it was a rapid decent to Xishuangbanna province bordering Myanmar and Laos. Little of note to write about the places we stayed/visited: Jinghong, Menghai, Menghun, and Damenglong. The first two are small cities undergoing rapid expansion and building work abounds. The latter two are both sleepy market
towns that see few visitors save on market day when the tourists descend for photo opportunities of the minority tribes-people coming to sell their wares. The last three all have Buddhist temples with stupas, each, sadly, as pleasant but unremarkable as the next. Damenglong did have delicious road-side food vendors at night though and people were seriously intrigued to see foreigners hanging around outside of market days.
Our last stop in Yunnan province this visit was to be the rice terraces of Yuangyang that at this time of year are flooded and appear as tiers of molten gold at sunset (so we’re told). However, the journey north-eastwards is slow and convoluted, requiring multiple buses over several days and our visas were close to expiration so, again, we decided to make these one of our first stops on re-entry. Instead we advanced into Laos and to Luang Nam Tha. Initial impressions: Laos we like.
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