The lovely Lijang

Well, on the 9th March, after ‘Chunder Bus number 2’ – I won’t go into the details, but needles to say, they were unpleasant – and having decided to travel together, Lisa & David (the Dutch couple) & Brendon & I arrived in Lijang, just 3 hours after leaving Dali. The four of us had decided, along with a German couple, Carson & Iris (who had gone to Lijang ahead of us) to tramp Tiger Leaping Gorge together. We had decided that there was safety in numbers on any hike, and Iris’ fluency in Mandarin (she had just completed a Masters in it) was an enormous bonus. But first, before the gorge, we had a couple of days in the scenic Lijang. Much like Dali, this is a lovely old town ‘done-up’ with new buildings (in old style of course). The good news is that they kept the streets narrow in Lijang – and allowed no traffic through the old town.