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Our train to Lijiang left Kunming at 10pm to arrive at 7am the next day, and we had hard seats. We managed to sit altogether (by making one poor man swap seats with various ones of us three times in total) so we could chat and play cards throughout the journey. Then we tried to take advantage of having a group of seats all to ourselves by sprawling as much as possible, arranging our legs in a great thatch across each others' seats so we could stretch them and put our feet up. Unsurprisingly, none of this was very comfortable either. In the end, the highlight of the journey was Alex's vivid retelling of a recurring dream he's been having of a post-apocalyptic China in which he and Nold travel about and descend into madness together. In the dream, Nold spends all his time plotting how he'll save the world in a little notebook whilst Alex embraces a cannibalistic lifestyle and adopts a leg-less Pete (leg-less because Alex previously ate his legs) as a pet.
We were little better than zombies when we arrived in Lijiang - at least, I was - so we were less than impressed when our taxi driver dropped us off at the wrong end of the Old Town, condemning us to a good hour wandering backwards and forwards through a catacomb of cobbled streets, hauling our bags about after us and being rained on. Cat, Hannah and I were in a separate room to the others and, because the universe likes to torment us, our room was still occupied when we finally arrived. We wandered the streets in search of breakfast (we found some. Mine was gross) until Nold took pity and donated his own bed for me to nap in. I don't know what happened to the other girls at this point, because I didn't really care...
It was afternoon before we were all up and ready to start exploring Lijiang, which was extremely touristy. Every alleyway was bursting with souvenir shops and the main square was a tourist play-pen of photo-opportunities: hold an eagle, dress up in traditional robes, ride a pony... Despite all of this, Lijiang was still pretty, particularly when you started to climb out of the centre and into the hills. Here too, the most scenic areas and best viewing spots had been fenced off and required tickets for admission, but you could find a good enough view without forking out: on one side of the hill, a sea of sloping tiled roofs reaching out to mountains on the horizon; on the other, a standard grubby cityscape with cheap-looking skyscrapers and the like. Our group having been separated much earlier as we explored a food-market, there were only about five of us when we went to dinner that night. We found a restaurant serving dishes traditional to the local Naxi people, generally including lots of yak meat, all of which was really good. Previous travellers had obviously agreed with us, judging by the graffiti on the walls, although there was an unfortunate spelling mistake in one of these messages, which congratulated the restaurant on its "excellent Nazi hospitality". (I prefer to believe this was a mistake and not just a really poor attempt at humour.)
Next morning we would be hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge, so we all very responsibly went to bed at a very reasonable time(ish).
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