Alright, so I left Shangri-la early in the morning for Lijiang. I arrived in Lijiang after about 4 hours and set off to find a hostel. This was the first place that I hadn't booked accomodation in advance - the town has 700 guesthouses and it's not the high season, I didn't think I'd have a problem. There were several places I had heard recommended by other travellers and I decided to just wander the Old Town until I found one of them. The first I found was Mama Naxi's and it had to be by some miracle because it's certainly not an easy place to find. Then I just wandered around the Old Town for the day.

It started to pour around 4:00 or so, so I ducked into a restaurant for a late lunch and to wait out the rain. I left when there was a gap in the rain but then I got lost trying to get back to the hostel. I blame the maps. There are maps of Old Town throughout it, but the compass is always changing and although the street you're on will be listed on the map, others might not. And Old Town is incredibly twisty and turny and it's very easy to get lost. So I ended up getting caught in another downpour, but a local woman who runs a wedding photography studio saw me and invited me in out of the rain. She didn't speak much english and I don't speak chinese, so we drank tea and looked through photography books until the rain stopped.

The next day I walked up along the river to Black Dragon Pool and the surrounding park. I wandered the park and ran into a german girl, Barinde, that I had met at the hostel the day before. We decided to hike up Elephant Hill together because we had heard that there are some great views from the top. Big mistake. The hill was all stairs and it seemed to go on forever. When we got to the top the view was nice but not worth the ordeal we had gone though, especially since clouds obstructed the tops of the surrounding mountains. We walked back down the hill with our legs trembling and went back to Old Town just as it started to rain (it seems to rain every day around the same time here). We ducked into a restaurant and enjoyed a nice, dry lunch then braved the rain to run back to the hostel (by this time I had mastered how to get back, but not how to get anywhere else). We waited for the rain to stop, then went out to browse the shops and drink pearl tea. We were invited into a tea shop for a tea ceremony where we were served tea that costs about $300 per brick - the most expensive tea by far that I've had here.

The following morning I was up early for Tiger Leaping Gorge. No, I didn't do the real 2-day trek - I wimped out and only did a 1-day trek along Middle Tiger Leaping Gorge and down to the river. But it was still fantastic despite the girl that held everyone up on the way down to the river because she refused to let go of her boyfriend's hand. I chose to climb the rickety ladders back up to the road and was picked up at Tina's Guest House for a ride back to Lijiang. Again there were practically no guard rails and we went speeding around corners with no concern for whether there was another car coming. I was once again convinced that I would die.

My last day in Lijiang I rented a bike with a couple other girls to bike around town. Then I went back to the hostel and joined the chef as he went to the local market to buy the ingredients for the night's dinner. He kept handing me little things to try - quail eggs, grapes, roasted chestnuts and such. It was a lot of fun just wandering the market with all the locals. Tonight I take my first sleeper bus - I'm not looking forward to it. But it's the most convenient way to get to Kunming, where I will spend a day waiting for the train that will take me to Guilin.