The best lake in Lijiang is a little out of town, but worth the 20 minute ride. You can ride a horse, take a boat on the lake, go for a walk. I like visiting the villages around the lake, looking up to the Yi villages on the hillsides, and peering through the clouds to the Jade Snow Dragon mountain. Here are some pics from last week's trip. . .

Imagine a luxury train from Beijing to my place in Lijiang? According to some websites and even the Tangula agency, this will soon be a reality. Perhaps no one told them that the train line to Lijiang hasn't been built. And that the contractor to do the work has gone bankrupt and there's rumours some folk have headed to the US with loads of mone...

Possibly our earliest morning yet with having to wake up at 4:30am to catch our 7:30am flight to Lijiang. Instead of a snack on the flight we were handed a green box, with a picture of some flowers and bubbles, containing 4 tablets. To get a better idea as to what these tablets might be I flipped over the box and luckily the ingredients and inst...

While there was much publicity - negative- about the tour guide turned stabber, who in a rage took a tibetan knife and stabbed 20 or so people in Lijiang's old town last April. My friend said how she had some guests she was showing around, and one couple went off away from the tour group in the old town square, and they were stabbed by the guy, ...

It was like an unexpected party at my place. For two-going-on-three days there was a lot of noise, drinking, smoking and cross-cultural merriment. My landlord, in a way, was the chief instigator. In the end, there were folk from five or six different nationalities. And lots of things were smashed on my courtyard. So many things that for two days...