International Youth Hostel Lijiang

... tourist market, girls dressed in Naxi costume selling typical souvenirs. And there are many tourists: the vast majority of them Chinese. First impressions are slightly disappointing.

But a ‘wrong’ turning results in an area away from the main hub. We find the same narrow streets, the same type of dwellings and shop fronts, the same costumes but not on parade! The area is slightly less polished but the main difference is that the shops are ...

... li>

... 3pm and stopped at Sean's Guesthouse where I met up with Chris who had taken a minibus directly to Sean's.
http://www.tigerleapinggorge .com/
I didn't like Tina's, as it is a huge modern building directly on the street. There was nothing local or romantic about this guesthouse. Sean's is a comfy place, each dorm bed has a teddy bear on its pillows. And, you cant' beat 20RMB and a happy hour from 4-8pm. ;-)

I left the next day ...

... amp; it was easy to take it the rest of the way as there were no more steep uphills today just fairly flat as we walked along the ridge of the mountains. Sometimes the path was terrifying as it narrowly hugged a cliff & the drop down was 1000 metres or more at times. No tripping allowed here at all !!!.




We stopped at Tea Horse Trade Guesthouse for afternoon tea & a rest & ...

... a performer during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics -- and Jackie Chan's martial arts prodigy Xu Dongmei. Director Ding's first film, "The Underdog Knight," was released in China in 2008. Jackie Chan's latest release, the gangster thriller "The Shinjuku Incident," opened in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia on Thursday. It will open in Japan on May 1, but won't get distribution in China, where censors barred it for its violent content.

... degradation. While criticisms have been on the rise externally, internally, China seems to have drummed up a great deal of nationalist fervour. But this was a different kind of fervour - not the red book waving loyalty of Mao's China but a quiet burning pride in the great leaps forward that the country has taken since Deng Xiaoping's economic liberalisation. During a trip to Yunnan province late last year, I was fortunate to meet Jiansong and Xueping, a typical ...

... between each heel and sock and I'm on again... We walked till early afternoon to stop for lunch as the American guy and the Dutch girl asked for taxi to go back to the starting point (there is a road down along the Yangzi as we walk on the top of the gorge) So, the five of us carried on... but the English guys just figure out they didn't have enough cash to stay another night and make it any further. So, a couple of hours more and we stopped for a last beer together before ...

... I blend in too well. The next day, my group met up with me again on their way to the Black Dragon Pool. I had decided not to go because of the outrageous price they were charging to get in the park. Just 2 years ago it was 30Y and now it was 60Y. The price of tourist attractions in China is going up at an astounding rate far higher than any inflation rate. But I decided I could use a walk and took them there. I was ready to leave them at the park and meet up with ...

... reflect on what I was seeing. In Ruili, using the internet cafe was ok, but you really felt on occasion that you were intruders in the enemies camp as you walked through the town, particularly at nightime. The town reflects much of modern China gone wrong. As the villagers have left their homes, and communities, as the town has expanded, they have moved into what all I can call, are garages. These 18ft long by 10ft wide accommodation units, with ...