Pure Land Lijiang

... more mundane goods and services necessary for daily living.

We learn that Lijiang is on what is known as the “Tea Horse route”, an ancient trade route between Tibet, China and India. As such, goods and services were it’s purpose and it would be natural for the townspeople to have the shop-front on the street and to live either above or behind the shop.

Another day we spend an hour or so sitting in a lovely garden overlooking ...

... of the canyon, framing the
nine-mile (15 km) trek as amazing scenes of rugged natural beauty
emerge around each of the many switchbacks. The two-day hike isn't
particularly difficult, but ...

... introduced the orchestra, some of the instruments and gave background information on the pieces performed (in Chinese and English). The oldest member is 88 and there are a few others in their 80s. I didn't get a lot of quality pictures of the orchestra so I am including a likn to a traveller's website who got some great shots of the members.
http://www.traveladventures .org/continents/asia/naxi-orchestra.sht ml

One of the things ...

... con una pendiente tan empinada que parecia que estabamos subiendo una escalinata eterna, solo que en vez de escalones teniamos pedruscos. Ademas la calor era insoportable. Empezamos a la una de la tarde y no llegamos hasta el hostal Tea-Horse hasta las 6.
Los otros cuatro, que iban mas adelante, decidieron continuar, con lo que cuando llegamos al punto de encuentro, Nicola y yo nos dimos ...

... s head to control the bleeding. Using Matt's cell phone, he called Nora's phone and told them to get help. It took nearly two hours to find Matt and Chris in the dark. A group of local farmers used a board and some rope to make a stretcher and carry Matt to higher ground. "They had a donkey waiting for him and they took him off the board and sat him up on the donkey," Nora says. At the time, no one knew Matt had a broken ...

... it was easier and safer to follow our fearless leader on her walk (which she hadn't done before) which was a hike down to the river then half way back up and further along to an area controlled by local people who had built the trail along with bridges, steps and ladders. It was 10 Yuan to enter the area and we discovered, another 10 Yuan to exit the area unless you wanted to go all the way back to ...

... to me, after we had been invited in to warm ourselves around the communal fire. There is no chimney in Yee houses, handy for smoking the hams and sausages strung up in the roof beams. "We are White Yee," the old lady explained. "We came here from Sichuan in the days before Chairman Mao to escape from slavers of the Black Yee tribe." Another old lady showed me the hand and arm tattoos she had, done as a child to deter the slavers. Two days before, I had been in ultra-modern ...

... zum Yangtse hinabsteigen (leicht abenteurlicher Trail) und dort den Felsen bewundern, auf dem ein Tiger ueber die Schlucht gesprungen ist (well, so die Legende und daher der Name der Schlucht). An der Upper Gorge 10km flussaufwaerts gibt es das gleiche, allerdings bei weitem nicht so beeindruckend, da der Yangtse breiter ist und hier die Chinesen hingekarrt werden. Alles in allem ein sehr schoener Trek (bedeutend schoener als die ...

... tourist ****. After fighting our way through to a travel agency, we managed to book a ticket, but didn't have enough cash to pay for it. The agent was a very nice guy that spoke pretty good English. He ended up walking us to the ATM when he couldn't explain to us how to get there AND BACK. He also pointed out a camera shop that could help us recover some of the photos that were lost from the faulty card. They wanted 300Y to ...

... symbols, beat the drum or played a sort of trumpet. I was not wanting to interrupt, but after half an hour, they looked like they were still barely through the cards, and M had been waiting for me at the village for over 2 hrs. It was a bit of a bummer, as I wanted a group photo. But I made my thank-yous, donated some money and headed out. The chanting continued on as I moved out of earshot. 5 minutes later, I was ...