Lijiang

  Lijiang, China
Monday, July 28, 2008

Because of the extra night in Dali, our stay in Lijiang was cut down to one night.  It wasn't enough, but it was still worth it.  The bus ride there was spectacular, winding through mountains to head even higher up from Dali.  The bus driver made sure to point out a shell of a bus at the bottom of a cliff.  It had fallen off the road during some rain storm.  The Chinese tourists all pressed to the right side of the bus to take photos.

Lijiang Old City

Lijiang itself is probably the quietest, most laid back city I've been too in China.  Even the bus station seemed miraculously peaceful.  The air was clean, and I felt relaxed as soon as I got off the bus.  We stayed in the "old city", one of the two or three preserved cities left after five thousand years of Chinese culture.  It's a densely crowded neighborhood of little buildings, brick 'roads' that only allowed pedestrians and bikes, and small canals. 

I went out for a late lunch by myself and sat outside a nice little restaurant talking to the owner, sipping very good tea, and eating specialties from Lijiang (Lijiang baba a kind of pastry, and qingjiao huotui basically stir-fried ham with peppers).

Naxi Orchestra

At night, we went to see the Naxi Orchestra.   It's a group of mostly ancient musicians playing the even more ancient songs of both their local Naxi ethnic group and of the Tang Dynasty.  It was really amazing.  Much of the music was inspired from Taoism or parts of Chinese history.  Mostly, it was great to watch the older musicians enjoying it so much, guessing at how hard the road to get them there must have been with how much they have lived through. 

Lijiang was also having a torch festival that night, but apparantly the Naxi don't know how to party like the Bai people in Dali.  Jen pointed out how good that was since most of the old city was wood and could burn down.  The scattered torch here and there among the throngs of Chinese tourists shopping late into the night was a nice touch though.

I wondered around the quiet city at night for a while, stopping to have another cup of tea with that restaurant owner.  Our flight was only 7 hours away in the morning.