Jiayi Hotel Lijiang

... though!

The role of women in China is interesting. In true Communist spirit these women cart out the rubble on their backs, hump the bricks and stone and wheelbarrow loads of cement. I doubt if any of the labourers get well paid but I do hope there is equal pay.

Spectacular mountain scenery, fertile plateau, blue skies, sunshine and wonderful walks would certainly make this an alternative candidate for Hilton's mythical paradise.

... Spirit in Xinjiang

... reading the "Forgotten Kingdom" by Peter Goullart. I got a 20RMB room with a single bed since the dorm rooms were all taken. In the evening, a group of students from Hong Kong International School arrived who were on a team building trip led by Asia Pacific Adventures. I talked to Emma, one of the intructors who had been on this trail before and she mentioned that the White Terraces, Baishui Tai, was nothing special. As I had planned ...

... br>we walked some of the way but the heat was intense and we had to turn back but we had a good 6 hour walk. the scenery was amazing and being so high up was a new experience for me.

Jane's guest house was a nice place to stay but Jane is a bit annoying. as our visas are running out, we decided to go the next morning to Dali, on the bus for 5 hours.

... and continued my wandering for the afternoon. Following Chun's advice from earlier, we stumbled upon a trail which led up to a temple on top of central hill. The temple afforded great views of old town, and was a pretty pleasant way to wile away some time. Lijiang seems just that, pleasant, if not overly thrilling. Anyway, an easy day was concluded with another of Mama's special dinners, some arrangements for the trek tommorow and ...

When you come across on the internet a list of the 'Top Ten Single Place of Interests in China', you think, this might be worth a look. Then you read, but something isn't quite right. Has this been translated from Chinese to English via a translator program? Or did a human endeavour to do this? My paraphrase of this text is: go to Lijiang; find a foreigner also taken by the landscape; take them. go to ...

... by woman, something of a sociological oddity always mentioned in university gender books along with the Kuna Indians of Panama) town into a Disneyland like atmosphere. The place is beautiful, but fake, nothing to do but shop for trinkets, not my style so we decided to skip it and move on to the Gorge. We continued on with a 3 hour bus ride over a mountain surrounded by beautiful farmland and the occasional snow capped mountain. I enjoy the dirty old buses ...

Lijing was really pretty but not much to offer expected shopping for souvenirs. Which I would have loved to have done but is a bit of a problem when everything you buy has to go in your backpack and then lugged around for the next year. Plus I and Lisa started to see a strange pattern as we walked around. Every street looked exactly the same not even every fourth shop was bloody the same. There was a fabric shop, jewelry shop, clothes shop and a shop selling perishes green stones in jewelry ...

... hopping over hedgerows we finally made it too the top of the hill, where we found nothing but a fancy Tibetan trig point....buggar! Saw the joke the was the world cup final with most of our hostel but Ben and I had a bus out at 7 so decided to just stay up. I walked around the old town during sun rise. Was totally magical without the hordes of tourists or someone trying to sell you something - totally got a feel for what this city must have been like back in the day.

... one restaurants workers often picking up the tune of another's until the entire canal is ringing with young Naxi voices. They really seem to enjoy themselves. Lijiang Old Town is enchanting at night, with paper flowers holding candles floating down the canals, big red Chinese lanterns colouring the streets and warm shopfronts welcoming travellers to sample tea or share a dessert. Later on I attended a Naxi cultural show at the Dongba Palaca. For 50 Yuan I scored a side ...