Yunnan - Day 2 : Lijiang (丽江) Part II

our driver then took us to Baisha Village (白沙村); the original settlement of the Nakhi people (纳西族) who originally came from Tibet.

Baisha Village was very quaint and peaceful. my camera was having a field-day snapping away at the dilapidated buildings and local people in their traditional clothing.
i'm not sure why they use blue colorings, but the Nakhi people wear wide-sleeved loose gowns accompanied by jackets and long trousers, tied with belts at the waist. large cotton turbans are worn around their heads, which are accompanied with big silver earrings. very cool.
being bang-slap in the middle of the chinese new year it was also cool to see locals busy pasting up their new decorations outside their doorways and lighting fireworks to ward off any evil spirits.

this elderly lady was in her field drying out what looked like seaweed. she was happy to have her picture taken. K chatted to her in chinese but as her dialect was so strong it was a mission to try to understand her.



i never understand chinese culture when it comes to rubbish.
wherever i travel in China i always see people dropping their rubbish, spitting, peeing, pooing on the street, or train, or bus...
even in this quaint village there was a little stream running through it. the water was very clear as it probably runs off the mountain, but again, i saw locals throwing their rubbish into it.
this lady was washing her vegetables but just up-stream in her view (she wasn't worried) was a lady scrubbing her car's foot mats...



i'm surprised i didn't get sick as i ate lunch here in a "shop" that had no running water... so guess where my veges were cleaned!!

just another cultural difference i guess...

Yunnan - Day 2 : Lijiang (丽江) Part I

first stop was breakfast at a little shop (with no windows...) in the "new" city.
although very primitive the food was very good and very cheap; 6 yuan each!!
dumplings (handmade on the spot) and Yunnan rice noodles washed down with some hot soya milk.



feeling warm and energized we then made our way towards the "jade dragon snow mountain" (玉龙雪山) a short drive from Lijiang city.
we hired a mini-van with driver for the day to take us around the various sights we had planned.
after confirming a price the day before of 150 yuan we were then told it would be double because of the chinese new year. apparently no driver wanted to drive on this day as it's a day traditionally to spend with family.
having travelled a bit now i know nothing runs smoothly in China. knowing that if we were to argue and try to get the agreed price we would be left standing with nowhere to go. having limited time i would rather pay and see the sights than see nothing.

so off we went.

nothing is free in China either so the first pay-out was to get to the mountain itself (190 yuan!)
i'm no mountaineer so we took the cable car (170 yuan) (along with half of china!) to the glacier which is near the peak of the mountain at 4506m! talk about thin air!
it's the highest part of earth i've ever been to and i could feel the altitude sickness kicking in. luckily we had bought some portable oxygen tanks at the base of the mountain (don't know about the quality of the O2 though... the tanks looked very 2nd-hand).
but the headaches and dizziness were well worth it. the view from up here were amazing!

next stop was "maoniuping" (牝牛坪) or yak meadow.
there was another cable car going up to another peak, but guessing the view would be similar we opted to spend some time walking around the beautiful crystal clear waters of the terraced river running through the valley.
apparently wild yaks come down here from the mountain to feed and do whatever yaks do.
the only yaks here though were tamed ones by local tribesmen.

Yunnan - Day 1 : Lijiang (丽江)

so as i mentioned in my last post i've just come back from a Lunar New Year trip into China.
this time i went to Yunnan province (云南), a place i've always wanted to visit since i first came to Hong Kong.
Yunnan province is pretty mountainous and borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. it's also famous for its ethnic diversity with 25 of China's 56 ethnic groups living here.
i was surprised to see families with more than 1 child here (as China has a one-child policy).
i later found out that if you are from a minority group you are allowed to have 2 children, this way it helps keep the ethnic group alive.

so anyway, our first stop was the 800-year old, old town (there is an "old" town and a "new" city) of Lijiang (丽江).
the whole old town is actually a UNESCO world heritage site and very picturesque with its old buildings, cobblestoned streets and ancient waterways and bridges.

i'm not good with words so i'll let my pictures try to do the talking.





oh yeah, forgot to mention but we took a domestic flight as it's much cheaper to cross the border into China than to take an international flight from Hong Kong, but the cabin crew got up as we were preparing to land and started singing and dancing! then to top it off they started doing those stretching exercises that are often shown on the in-flight entertainment (no in-flight entertainment or screens for that matter on air china...).
i thought everyone would just ignore them but then everyone started to do the exercises!! i was cracking up with laughter and probably looked the silliest as i wasn't doing the exercises!
had to take a shot: