Zen Garden Hotel Lijiang

Tuesday 12th August Alison: It was night and drizzling by the time we arrived in Lijiang, a lovely village nestled in the mountains of northwest China on a plain 2,400 metres high. We collected our luggage, piled it all into a taxi and drove into town. We were staying in the Old Town which did not allow any traffic, so we waited at the corner for an old man who piled it all onto his tricycle and walked the 10 minutes or so to the Zen Garden hotel with the concierge. Our room was very small b...

After five days in dusty dirty Kathmandu one is more than ready to peace out. But after five days at the Hyatt Regency Kathmandu living the 5 star life by shamelessly mooching off of Fuj's sister and coworker we were clinging to the crisp white bed sheets, sparkling toilet bowls, plethora of toilet paper and basking in steam room and jacuzzi for probably 10x the recommended time. Tearing myself from the Hyatt was quite an effort. But this trip to Nepal has been amazing aside from this experie...

This entry takes on a somewhat more serious note and hopefully will not land me in CCP prison ;). Is commericalization today's form of preservation? Examples: the Dalai Lama, Planet Earth, Epcot Center, Indian Reservations, the Zoo, outdated politicians, and now, the Naxi (Nahi) minority located here in Lijiang in Yunnan Province, China. Lijiang is a delightful place. Old Town bustles with tourists all eager to spend, to see, taste, and especially to photograph. Its quaint cobblestoned street...

We had a really great night's sleep on some of the most comfortable beds we have experienced in most of our China, Mongolia and Tibet travels although, given our combined state of stress and exhaustion, we could have slept anywhere! After sitting looking at the fantastic views while we ate a delicious breakfast of coffee, fruit with muesli and yoghurt and banana and honey pancake we set off on our morning walk. We are part of a fortunate group of people who are lucky enough to have seen Tiger...

Day 5 - Chil-li-ang in Li-ji-ang You know all those commercials that show somebody jumping out of bed in the morning and throwing open their swing windows (they MUST be swing windows, no other kind will do) to the fresh morning air and bright morning sunshine? Then they strut around with this smile on their face and try to sell you some schlock product like dryer sheets or toothpaste or assault rifles? (Ok, maybe not assault rifles) Well, I still don't know about all those schlock products, b...

Day 6 - Service like nowhere else (sorry, the rest of the blogs are mostly just notes, but since I'll probably never get around to finishing themt, I'll go ahead and post them) Blogged in morning Rebecca did laundry by hand (don't worry, I did it the next time) Paid for room Asked about these amazingly wonderful fuzzy blankets laying on our bed in the room. Lady at the hotel said they were 300 quai, and she would go out and get 2 of them for us. They should be waiting in our room when we got ...

Day 7 - Thunderstorms and Pirate Swings Watched Lijiang TV for a bit in the hotel room. They only have like 3 channels. One seems to be 24 hour soaps (in old traditional sets and costumes), and one seems to be gameshows all the time. All of them had the audio dubbed really poorly, and they all had chinese subtitles (probably due to the language difference) Breakfast/lunch at the Prague café, we're sitting here listening to the best of Nat King Cole, such a great change of pace from the horrib...