Lijiang, Mama and Dr. Ho
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2005
1
63
122
Trip End
Ongoing
Lijiang,
China
Friday, April 14, 2006
We now needed to call our accommodation for a pick-up. After a recommendation from Deion & Lynise (friends from our last trip to China), we had decided to stay at a place called "Mama's Naxi Guesthouse". We called from a little supermarket next to the bus station, but the person who answered the phone did not speak much English, so we gave the phone to one of the girls at the supermarket (who didn't speak any English) and we hoped that they could work it out between themselves
Baisha (Main Street)
! Glenn got back on the phone and managed to work out that they would pick us up in 10 minutes, and sure enough 10 minutes later there was a minibus driving us to Mama's.We arrived near Mama's on the edge of the old town and were greeted by one of her staff, wanting to grab all our bags and carry them herself! She walked us through the old town, through narrow little streets and eventually we came to a door, no name, no sign. We were at Mama's. We were shown a room which was perfect for us and decided to take it. Not long after we wondered why the place was so quiet, and where was Mama? Eventually another staff member arrived and told us in broken English that she was going to take us to Mama. A bit confused, we followed, and we were taken to another door, another guesthouse. We eventually figured out that this place was actually the original Mama's Guesthouse and the place we were staying in was Mama's No. 2 Guesthouse - the lady is so popular she had to open up another place!
Still no Mama, but we were well looked after by Papa though, first a cup of tea, then some fruit - then Mama arrived back from the market. "Ahhhh - hello, hello, hello - you hungry?, Mama bring food?!" Sure enough a couple of minutes later some thick bread, a couple of minutes later some more, then a couple of minutes later some bread with banana on it, then "Mama bring more food - you still hungry?!"
Dr. Ho Consulting Christie
. At this point one of Mama's other guests walked past and whispered to us: "You have to tell her that you are full or she will just keep on bringing out the food" - Ummm, Mama... I think we're full!This lady is an absolute dynamo. She is constantly running around organising things for everyone - accommodation, bus tickets, train tickets, washing and of course food. Being able to keep it all in her head. She is just amazing.
After finishing our food, Mama sent us into the old town to have a look around. As we were leaving she said "Come back to Mama at six o'clock pm, dinner is at six - six o'clock okay?!". Sure Mama, no worries!
We got into the main square of the old town and we were just amazed by the number of tourists just swarming around, Chinese tour groups in particular - we could hardly move! We knew that Lijiang was pretty touristy and we could see why - it really is a beautiful old town and it is very well preserved (thanks to UNESCO). We just had to figure out how we were going to cope for the next few days!
Back to Mama's for dinner along with all of the other guests, the food was great and it just kept on coming
Dr. Ho Consulting Glenn
. It was a good night and a great chance to catch up with some other travellers and talk about our plans for our upcoming trek of Tiger Leaping Gorge. After spending a day taking it easy and catching up on a few things, we got up early the following day to try and get some photos of the old town before the tour groups descended. By the time we got into the centre of the old town there were already quite a few people hanging around, but we managed to sneak a few photos in (despite the terribly bright light) and we hung around to watch the local Naxi women put on a dance for the tourists.
After filling up on breakfast at Mama's, we went into town to try and catch a bus to the nearby town of Baisha. We managed to get a bit lost but finally found the right bus and jumped on. After travelling for a little while, the bus stopped on the main road and the fare collector on the bus motioned that we would have to walk the rest of the way. Earlier that day we were told that the fare for the bus was 2 Yuan each, so we handed the fare collector 4 Yuan as we were getting off the bus. The fare collector opened up her window and it seemed she was saying that we needed to pay more. Trying to figure out just how much more took some time due to the language barrier, and the bus driver getting sick of the delay just drove off with his fare collecter hanging out the window
Dr. Ho's Prescription
!The walk into Baisha took about half an hour and the scenery was beautiful, we even had a clear view of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. After having some lunch in Baisha town, we tried to find what (who) we had come here for, Dr. Ho.
Dr. Ho is a famous Chinese herbalist. Made famous by a novelist and a few travel writers, and also by the claim that he has cured people of certain types of cancers.
We found Dr. Ho's home without too much trouble - there are newspaper articles about him plastered everywhere out the front. It wasn't too long before we were greeted by Dr. Ho's son (also Dr. Ho). He took us through their little makeshift museum which had more articles, describing to us why his father is so famous (being quite animated about it the whole time). After serving us some "healthy tea", we finally got to meet Dr. Ho himself. This man is 83 years old and has this amazing presence about him. He is very quiet and delicate (unlike his son). We both decided to have consultations from the doctor. Glenn was up first and after feeling his pulse and having him stick out his tongue Dr. Ho declared that Glenn was fit and healthy, no high blood pressure, no cholesterol, no diabeties - unlike all the French tourists he sees with high cholesterol - what a relief
Lijiang Old Town (1)
! Christie was up next and after having her pulse checked and sticking out her toungue Dr. Ho diagnosed her with bad circulation, but other than that she was also healthy. We bought some tea from the doctor, all made in front of us from plastic tubs of herbs in his consultation room, from books of hand written prescriptions in Chinese. It wasn't long before more people arrived to visit the good doctors, so we bid them farewell and left to see some more of Baisha.We walked back through the town to visit the Frescos of Dabaoji Palace. A couple of ancient murals, but not really all that exciting. We decided to head to our next stop, Shu He and managed to find a minibus to take us there.
Shu He is meant to be a quiter, more authentic version of Lijiang old town, so we thought we would give it a go. We knew that there was an entry fee to get into the town and we should have known that in itself meant tourist trap. Somehow Glenn managed to talk the guard out of making him paying any entrance fee at all (by convincing him that we would be staying in the town for the night). On entering the town we realised that it really is just a replica of Lijiang old town, with the same souvenier shops and the same restaurants. The most interesting and amusing thing we found about this town was the signs (see pictures attached to this story)
Lijiang Old Town (2)
.It wasn't long before we decided to leave Shu He, and jumped into another minibus going back to Lijiang (trying to avoid making eye contact with the guard on the way out!).
The following day Glenn decided it was time for a haircut. He'd had a pretty good sucess rate with the other haircuts he has had in Asia so he was feeling pretty relaxed about it all. Needless to say, 10 Yuan later (about $1.50AUD), he now has an authentic Chinese "little boys" haircut which he is hoping grows out before too long!
Tomorrow we take on Tiger!
