Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Lijiang was a nice, although an extremely tourist (95% Chinese tourists) infested place. We stayed in a hostel called Mama's Naxi, Naxi being the name of the largest minority group in Lijiang. 'Mama' was absolutely nuts and screamed in Mandarin at anyone and everyone, but she booked us tickets, organised cheap transport to bus stations and to Tiger Leaping Gorge, cooked good food and even gave us a leaving present (necklace and a banana!!).
We spent a day getting insanely lost in the old town. Now, we've become pretty skilled at finding our way around, knowing which way is north without a compass and generally being able to navigate a town/city within a day or two. Lijiang is a different story, none of the streets run parallel to eachother, none of them join where it would be logical for them to do so and lots of them just form huge circles....therefore getting lost was a given. The streets are narrow, cobbled, colourful and smelly. The shops you see are erupting with sparkly clothes, typical Yunnan outfits, tea or dried yak meat!! The dried yak meat shops are rancid, smelly and nauseating to ones nose, much like a stale, year old piece of uncooked meat you just found under the seat in your car, regardless of that they have perculiarly made it as a famous culinary delight in Lijiang. We didn't try it as Adds had a nasty bout of food poisioning which resulted in us both retching at the smell of it. We did, however, accidently try rice and congealed pigs blood on a stick.....it looked like black pudding, it most definately was not. We think this could have had a part in the food poisioning.
Lijiang can most certainly be described as a beautiful little town and you can see why tourists flock from afar to see it. There are red lanterns everywhere and big water wheels in the canals. Each street has rows and rows of weeping willows and pungent smelling cherry blossom and roses.
The Chinese tourists are hilarious, the women walk around in one of two combinations, stilettoes, leather mini skirts and sequinned jackets with shoulder pads or sparkly pashminas, matching long skirts and wide brimmed straw hats. The men rock out leather cowboy hats, checked shirts and leather jackets, with a cigarette hanging from their mouth. It's like being on a really cheesy film set.
One of our days we visited the university and got stared and laughed at, A LOT. We wanted to go to the Black Dragon Pool (a park with lakes, bridges all overlooked by a snow capped mountain) but it was quite expensive so we decided to walk round it instead, we managed to find a gap in the fence and sneaked in that way, yay. It was pretty, but wouldn't have been worth paying to enter.
Overall, we haven't got much to say about Lijiang, it was ok but all the good elements were bits we'd already found and admired in Dali and Kunming. The best part obviously was Tiger Leaping Gorge, so we're going to dedicate a separate blog to it.
Right now we're 4 hours into a 24 hour sleeper bus journey to the south of he province to a place called Jinghong in the Xishuangbanna region. It's really comfy and we've got good seats (beds). However, we're quickly loosing our patience with China. The bus driver, who has swapped shifts and is now sat at my feet smokes shed loads of cigarettes, the longest gap between two so far is 27 minutes and the shortest gap 56 seconds, we stink and so does the bus and unfortunately the windows don't open, trying to sleep is pretty impossible. Oh here we go, time for another, I want to kick him...hard! However, others that have previously taken this bus warned us of people weeing and throwing up in the small litter bins lining the isles, spitting on the floor and other stuff I don't even wish to mention. I'm nervous, very nervous!!
We have crammed so much into a 2.5 week stint in China that it makes our time in Cambodia and Vietnam embarrassing as we often got stuck in places for 10 days. Either way, we've done loads and after Jinghong we are extremely excited to get to Laos for some extreme heat, extreme partying and some good food. We're meeting up with Alex and Steph (Sams brother and girlfriend) in Vang Vieng which should be fun......by the way Happy Birthday Sammy if you read this, wish you were both still here, we miss you!
Bye for now xxxx
- comments
Dad Hey, back to the smells, I have been missing them recently. It's a strange thing about smells because they can often revisit you even though the source of the original smell is no longer in the vicinity - here are two examples - I occasionally get a whiff of the beautiful Blue Moon beer on which I spent quite a few dollars in San Fran, at such times I breathe in deeply. Less frequently I get a quick replay/resniff of the rat I dissected at Uni. China does sound very entertaining but I detect a lower score on the enthralling meter. As always, however, you manage to make it interesting for us homebound Westerners. I guess that long bus journeys and cigarette smoke will be low on the list of priorities when you get back (perhaps pig blood on a stick may also make that list). I imagine that uninterrupted sleep, hot showers and instantly recognisable food may be quite high on that list? As always, love your stories (I'll get a tin of Strepsils in for when you come home and begin to fill in the details). Glad that you're both ok (well apart from the odd digestive disaster). See you soon, love xXx
Momma M I just think that you are so brave eating all the digusting things that you have described so far...are you being adventurous or are you just plain hungry? Must get a few meals planned for when you arrive home.What is top of the list......bangers and mash? Well don't know about you but we are now on the countdown to your return. How do you feel about it .....mixed emotions I guess. Cannot wait to have my beautiful daughter back in the bosom of her family (even though it might be in London ) Continue to live the dream you two and do be careful with the river thingy in Laos. Love and miss you still.Big hugs x