Lijiang & Shuhe

Lijang is quite a lovely and lively place, its also supposedly one of the most romantic places in China (according to the chinese). Not surprisingly then its completely over run with tourists and there are tourist shops practically everywhere selling clothes, silver, dried yak meat etc etc. Its also a place where you can get easily lost in the cobbled streets and can occasionally find quiet spots where there is hardly anyone else around.
I didn't really like Lijang all that much, yes its very very picturesque but there were just too many people around, oh and there were one too many Karaoke bars!

I seem to be getting lucky in meeting chinese people who can speak quite good english and are happy for me to tag along (touch wood), in fact I met two people (a girl called Cheng Leung and a guy that I can't remember his name I'm afraid) who I spent a great day with at a town called Shuhe, which I much preferred to Lijang. Its just as picturesque but with far less tourists around (I was the only westerner there I think). They took really good care of me, buying me breakfast and lunch, making sure that I was ok and helping me to buy one or two souvenirs. In fact if I went there on my own I doubt very much that I would have been able to work out how to get there or back. I also caught a Chinese guy taking sneaky pictures of me, so I just walked up to him and asked him if I could have one of him! There was also some weird local who came up to me and started stroking my arm because he had not seen a westerner before! Cheng Leung did ask me if I wanted to go to Lugo Lake with her for a few days but I had to decline as I had agreed to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge with Gen, Richard and Alex.