Day 5 - Chil-li-ang in Li-ji-ang
Trip Start
Aug 08, 2006
1
7
14
Trip End
Aug 23, 2006
Lijiang,
China
Thursday, August 17, 2006
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, but there is definitely something very special about waking up in the morning and throwing open a pair of traditional swing windows and seeing a bright and sunny town below you, inhaling the crisp mountainous morning air and hearing a thriving town alive and well with not even a whisper of motorized vehicles. We even heard a rooster crow and a couple of goats bleating I think. This was a great start to out first full day in Lijiang, and it was already enough to make us what to move here.
But... the wonderful hotel we were staying in didn't have any vacancy for tonight, which means we needed to find another place to stay. I suggested to Rebecca that we go 30 feet back down the hill the Zen Garden Inn and ask if they have any vacancy for tonight. She agreed... after breakfast. We didn't need to check out until 11am, so we'd go have a decent morning, then see about moving all our stuff.
So we navigated our way back through the maze of streets to The Well, where we had ice cream and apple strudel last night.
Wood carving detail outside our hotel room
Rebecca was hot to try their muesli, yogurt & fruit dish she saw on the menu last night. I was pretty sure I could find my way back, but Rebecca kept thinking we were lost, but after about 10 minutes of walking, I led us right up to the door with a smug smile on my face. We went up the narrow stairway which is right above the cash register to the 2nd floor to see what seating was like up there. Turns out it is very comfortable like the rest of the place. Nobody else was up there, so it looked like we were going to have a nice private breakfast together. I didn't know about the muesli dish... in most of the places I've been if it mentions muesli at all, it means its MOSTLY muesli, so I'd end up with a bowl full of grain with like a single slice of a banana on top or something. Plus they had omelet on the menu, which sounded great. So we ordered both of those and "homemade bread" which also sounded worth a try.Well, out food finally came after a relaxing wait, and I was completely wrong on both dishes. I hadn't quite realized at this point that they don't really have cheese as we know it here. It's all this handmade cheese-cloth yak cheese or something. So just a huge circle of fried egg folded in half with a couple of tofu-looking squares inside. It was not very appetizing, but I think my body needed the protein because it wasn't that hard to eat. Meanwhile, Rebecca's muesli dish was amazing! She kept being nice and sharing with me. It was a large cereal bowl with just a little bit of muesli in the bottom, then a HUGE pile of fruit sitting on top of it.
Rebecca in the Hotel entryway
Fresh bananas and mango and pineapple and apple and pears and who knows what else. Then this really lightly sweetened yogurt on top of it all. It was really really yummy. The homemade bread came a little later, 2 slices of bread so dry it could have just been excavated from an Egyptian tomb. The slices looked just like a western sandwich bread loaf, but they must have left it sitting out for days. Oh, and it came with "butter". But when they brought it, it had that unnatural yellow color that is definitely not butter. Rebecca calls me a "Butter Nazi" and I guess I have to admit it's true. I really like butter, and really hate all things that kinda act like butter, but aren't. They just don't taste the same. And I'll just go ballistic (not seriously, kinda for fun) if somebody calls a non-butter product "butter". It would be walking out of a Ferrari dealership, excited to get your new sports car and the salesman drives up in a Chevy Nova and says "Here is your Ferrari". And while a Chevy Nova IS a car, it's not the same thing as a Ferrari. So when somebody walks up and says "Here is your butter" and it's not butter, its hard for me to accept. So anyway, the bread and omelet were both awful, but the muesli dish was extraordinary.After breakfast, we found a bank that can cash travelers checks, which wasn't very hard at all. Rebecca was a little concerned at one point about the ease of that in Lijiang. But the place, for being so snatched out of history, is really quite modern and developed. We couldn't do it at just any bank, so it didn't work at the first place we tried, but they were happy to point us down the street to the place where it would work.
We got back to the Moon Inn, and packed up all of our stuff.
Cute little kid with dog in Lijiang alleyway
We checked out of our room and walked down the alley to the Zen Garden Inn, which I wanted in the first place. They had vacancy, and we asked to see a room. We were sorely disappointed. For a pretty high price tag, they showed us a room that was completely uninspired to say the least. Really just a tiny closet off of a nice courtyard. We asked to see the nicer rooms and they showed us this room with a Chinese ceremonial wedding bed. A) didn't really want that, B) the bed looked horribly uncomfortable, C) it was nearly twice as much as the beautiful room we had last night, and D) other than the bed, it really wasn't much more inspired than the basic room. So we decided to look elsewhere. But I needed to rest. So we asked if I could park my can in their lobby on the antique furniture and Rebecca would run out for the next half hour or so and find another place to stay. I pulled open my techno-gadgets and tried to catch up on my blogging here, and she went exploring. About 40 minutes later, she came back and said she'd found a place. Before we packed up and headed out, we explored this little hotel a little more. The whole place was beautifully made. It was an ancient Naxi house converted for hotel use as so many places were around here. They had a traditionally calligraphy set, and a terraced stone courtyard complete with Koi pond. And old wooden tables and chairs with seats worn smooth by hundreds of years of use. It was a beautiful sample of Naxi architecture and home building, but it wasn't worth the price to stay there.Turns out the place Rebecca found was only a hundred yards away, around a couple of corners and down another little alleyway.
Waiting for breakfast at The Well
And once I walked into the room, I immediately saw why Rebecca chose it. Everything was made out of beautiful natural woods, and while the first room had swing open windows overlooking the city on one wall, this one had windows on both sides of the room. One overlooking the hotel courtyard, and the other a sheer drop 2 stories to the river running below. The view on this one was more quaint than grandiose. But we also got a babbling brook instead of the constant chatter of people walking up and down the street.As wonderful as this new room was... there was a downside. When we walked into the bathroom, it had a defenitely stench of a nearby sewer. After a little while trying to figure this out, I realized that the toilet didn't really have any sitting water in it. It worked fine and flushed and everything, but there was just no water. And I rememebered somebody telling me once that was why toilets always had standing water in them, to create a vapor lock so you didn't have a direct smelling conduit straight into the sewer system. So I don't know if the toilet just wasn't installed correctly or they couldn't create a vapor lock for some reason, but it defenitely impacted your ability to stand in the bathroom for very long. So we simply kept the door shut and it didn't seep into the rest of the room and we were fine.
Even with the stinky bathroom, there was one other amazing thing about this room: The blanket sitting on the foot of the bed. While we were moving in and all, it was visually attractive, but it was just a fuzzy top-blanket like you see at a lot of places, though it looked a little thicker.
Naxi ceremonial dress
But once you sat down and felt the blanket, it was like... I don't know what it was like, but it was amazing. Probably the thickest, softest, more luxurious blanket I've ever felt. It was really nice, and Rebecca instantly fell in love with it. She immediately spun around and completely wrapped herself in it and smiled her gleeful smile. I suggestedt that she should ask the proprietor where she got the blanket, but I don't think she took me seriously.After we were all moved in and I pried Rebecca away from the amazing blanket, we wandered back out into Old Town. We eventually passed this little restaurant called "The Lijiang Book Cafe." I'd read about this one on the internet, it was essentially an attempt at a little book & coffee cafe like we'd see in the states. But once we got inside, it didn't really look that different than all the other places we'd been in. You see, almost all the cafes and restaurants here in town have shelves lined with books. I've seen Harry Potters and Michael Crichtons and Danielle Steeles and all of these in a multitude of languages. The vast majority of books were travel books by far. It's like all these world travelers over the years stop in Lijiang and unload all their travel books for some reason. Maybe it's the last leg of their journey, or maybe they decide to stay and never leave again (I know that's what we were thinking). Anyway, we wandered upstairs on a beautifly comfortable day. Sunny, clear skies, and about 85 degrees. Absolutely perfect weather. We sat by outselves on a little balcony above the street and chose out dishes.
Typical Lijiang street
There was some kind of vegetable "clay pot" dish, and we ordered a chinese "pork" dish and when I saw french fries on the menu, I just had to try it. Not that I'm the biggest fry fan in the world, it was more of a curiosity to see what would show up. While we were waiting, we noticed a young Naxi woman sitting in a window across the street painting and carving in the sunlight. It was a pretty neat sight.When our food finally came, the "Clay Pot" dish was pretty yuck. It was some really bland broth with a bunch of lettuce in it. There were some decent chunks of carrots and potatoes that I munched on. Luckily Rebecca is not a finicky eater. She'll try just about anything, and usually eat enough to call it a meal and be like "Meh, it wasn't so great." I guess I'm a lot more of a food snob. I know good food when I taste it, and I don't really see much point in eating food that isn't enjoyable. But I ate a litle of this stew-like dish, because the "pork" dish was laughable. Even Rebecca didn't even eat much of that one. Imagine the fattiest slabs of worthless bacon you've ever seen, now put those on a plate and dump a couple of inedible peppers on them... that's what we got. It pretty much just sat there the whole meal. I tried to put on in my mouth, but it came out pretty quick. When the fries showed up, they were undercooked and kinda limp. I think they would have been fine if they'd cooked them at a higher temp, I think they just didn't realize what they were supposed to be like afterwards. Because the color, temp and texture was very similar to a lot of chinese veggies dishes that I've seen before.
After our "lunch", we went wandering again.
Caligraphy set at Zen Garden Inn
We came across the best-preserved Buddist temple in Old Town. No photographs in the temples pretty much anywhere in China. I respected the rule, but it kinda makes me wonder how all those shot in National Geographics and Discovery Channels happen. Oh well. We got inside and there was a moderate-sized gold-leafed statue of Buddha. Then the monk came up and talked to Rebecca and started asking her if we wanted to burn incense. I'd read about this scam on the internet as well and asked "how much?" and he was like "if you use this incense, it's only 5 quai, but this other stuff is better and it's 10, and then there is this super stuff that's like 25 quai". Yeah, after that much salesmanship, I only felt slightly guilty for leaving without an offering.In further wanderings we came across the Lijiang public kindergarten. I joked with Rebecca about this being her next job. She didn't seem to think that was too bad of an idea.
We really wanted to find that tower up on the top of the hill that we saw from out window the first night in town. I pulled out the map we had of town and tried to find a route. The only route I could find went by the radio tower, so we started heading that way. During the hunt, we found outselves at this giant gated complex. We found out later that was "Mu's Residence". Apparently Mu was a big mover and shaker in Lijiang some time ago. Kind of like the local emperor. His residence here is supposed to be the closest thing to the forbidden city in this portion of the country. The grounds weren't really that big, but they were defenitely decorated in the typical style of Chinese royalty.
Rebecca at Zen Garden Inn
Of course it was closed at the time we found it. Not because of construction (what a surprise!) but because it was simply too late in the evening. It closed at about 4:30pm and I think it was closer to 5:00pm when we found it. So we continued on in our quest for the tower.We kept going up, up and up thinking that the higher up we got the closer we would be to the tower, and even if we weren't that close, we'd be able to see the way. We climbed up this particularly steep street and came to a plateau at the top surrounded by little houses where locals lived and a big concrete pad with what else? A basketball court. At this point, I was huffing and wheezing because A) I was still fighting lung congestion from my cold and B) it was a big-ass hill! So Rebecca and I sit down to take a break and drink some water. Then, while we're sitting here, we hear these slow, plodding footsteps coming up the hill. Then we see her, I so wanted to get a picture, but I didn't want to be disrespectful. This young Naxi girl was coming up the hill, she was probably in her 20's and she had a giant Naxi back-basket on her back and a HUGE pile of laundry in the basket. We're talking about 2 or 3, maybe 4 full loads of laundry on her back. And she just hiked up the hill we just ascended, and I bet she didn't stop to take any breaks like we did. We slowly made it up the last 4 steps with Rebecca and I just watching in disbelief. One she made it to the top, she stopped, took a deep breath and smiled that smile you get when you just accomplished something hard.
New hotel room #1
I couldn't contain myself, I just clapped and cheered for her. She and Rebecca had a brief little exchange in Chinese, I don't remember what was said, but it was something like "I made it!" Anyway, it was pretty amazing, and it made the two of us feel pretty weak, huffing and puffing from hauling nothing but our bodies up the hill. The Naxi women around here are BURLY!After our little break, we went up the next set of stairs, only about a flight of stairs. And up at the top, there were 3 little kids eating meat on a stick and playfully arguing with each other. They were kinda cute and Rebecca asked them to take their pictures, so they got all hammy and posed. Then she got the bright idea of asking them how to get to the tower. They all pointed different directions, then they yanked at our map and pulled it out and got sticky fingerprints all over it and tried to point in all different directions again. We quickly realized that it wasn't going to help so we thanked them and started off in the direction that seemed most logical. After a little bit, they came running off of us yelling that they'd figured it out and it was the other way, and they one of them pulled out their bamboo meat stick and started poking me in the arm, it was kinda crazy. We eventually got them calmed down a little and a parent figure started calling them or something. Then just a couple of seconds later, we saw a family of Germans coming towards us with bicycles. A father, mother and daughter picking up their bikes and hauling them over the multitude of stairs on the path we were on.
New hotel room #2
The 2nd craziness in 10 seconds. Lijiang Old Town is not a place for wheels, it's all feet here, which is why the Naxi women and their little backpacks have been the main beast of burden around here for the past thousand years. We chatted with this family and asked them if they were coming from the tower, they said they were trying to find it too and somebody had directed them up this way. So we all turned around and headed the other direction and walked together for awhile and eventually found an ancient local man walking along with a big straw hat. Rebecca asked him for directions and he said that the people on the bikes could continue along the current path and eventually find a street that goes up and over the hill, but those of us on foot could take a footpath straight up the hill to our left and be a lot closer. So Rebecca passed on the the message to our new german friends and we took off the hill, and left them to find the mythical road over the hill.We climbed up to another street, walked to the end, then walked around a walled house complex and then we saw a big street that we'd somehow missed (because it was back the way we came from) and there was a little ticket booth there. Halleluhia! We found it!
So we bought 2 tickets, and got instructions on how to get there. Apparently we needed to walk around the hill and we'd reach the top. OK, no problem, there was only one path really, so we stuck to the path. Beautiful trees and green on all sides. We eventually came across some nice little picnic areas and then reached the gate to the tower.
Rebecca hugs post in room
This beautiful tower that looks like it's some ancient landmark or something we find out was built in 1998 (maybe 1989, I can't remember). So this was a new thing added to be a cultural exclaimation point sitting on the top of the hill. And it does a very good job of being exactly that. So we walked around to the _front_ because apparently we'd come in the back way. Then we climbed up to the top of the tower. We found that each floor showcased something else. One was calligraphy, one was textiles (including a cool blanket made from some unknown cat creature) and one was paintings and stuff. The top floor was mostly for viewing the surrounding area, but there was a book merchant up there that had a bunch of books. After looking around for awhile, Rebecca was drawn to the books and she ended up getting a book on the local Dongba writing system. It is apparently the oldest living pictographic writing system in the world. It's all over the Lijiang area, and being a linguistics major, I thought it would be a perfect thing for her to add to her book collection. She agreed and picked up a book that not only had english and chinese translations, but it had pronuncians in the international phonetic system. Which means she knows exactly how to pronounce the character too. It was pretty cool.Once we were done with the tower, we decided to walk down the "front way." It was a very different path from the back way, clearly marked, nice views the whole way and lots more people. We saw the upper side of Mu's residence, which was kinda cool.
Kirby imitates Rebecca
We saw some sunset views over Old Town and a nice little path down the hill. We walked down the path and right into the vendor stalls at the top of the hill. So we realized that we didn't exactly go up the suggested way to get to the tower, but we were both happy that it turned out the way it did, because we got a good proper adventure and saw a portion of the city and the tower hill that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. This is the reason we don't really like organized tourism groups either. You always seem to see things through the same lens and you always have a limited amount of time, so you kinda gotta buzz through things quick-quick-quick.On the way down the hill, Rebecca spied a nice bag hanging on a hook in a little shop. When she went in to look at it, she fell in love with it. Then she found that the price was really nice, she showed me all it's nice features, barely containing her excitement. So I encouraged her to get it. She ended up decided to get two. The lady in the shop said all the bags were made by her brother who lives in the nearby area, kinda by the next town over called Dali. All the bags were handmade and hand decorated. So while she was over discussing the bags with the shopkeeper, I went looking around the rest of the shop and found a really interesting little satchel what was also very cheap. 2 seperate pouches with nice zippers on them, and a nice long adjustable strap to go over the shoulders. I'd been looking for a wallet so I could stop carrying around this wad of cash in my pocket all the time.
Floor of courtyard at hotel
It kinda got the the way of bartering sometimes. Rebecca would turn to my during negotiations and say "do you have a _5_??" meaning I needed to pull out exactly a 5, nothing more. And I'd reach into my pocket and pull out a wad of 50's, 100's and 20's. Yeah, that didn't work so well. So I needed something to organize my money in. These little bags were neat, comfortable, and cheap, so I added 2 of my little bags to Rebeccas big purchase and we negotiated the price for everything down to a really reasonable level. I quickly unpacked my bag and slung it around my shoulder and tranfered all my pocket-wad into the bag. From then on, Rebecca and I never really quite figured out what the call it. It was frequently called my "purse", and Becca would call it a "man bag" sometimes, and I keep trying to think of it as a "satchel" kinda like the leather bag that Indiana Jones wore, but it was just a little too small for that. So it was usually just a "purse". But I tell ya, it was a handle little thing to have. Great for seperating different types of money, tickets, holding the camera sometimes, and it was big enough to hold water bottles sometimes. It was a handle little purchase.After the bag purchases, we walked through the main square right at dusk and caught the lighting of a big bonfire and a demonstration of the local Naxi women dancing together. Apparently it's a nightly ritual around here. It was pretty cool. It's not very complicated dancing, just a bunch of women in a big circle kinda walking around to the rythmn of the music, but it was still neat to see since they were all in local dress and some of them was positively ancient, but still nimble and moving around just fine.
We made it back to out room to rest for a little while.
Another cute little kid
I still wasn't so well and didn't want to try my stomach on Chinese food, so after a brief discussion, Rebecca suggested getting a super-sweet pizza at Packer's Cafe again. It was something solid and a little savory, so I agreed and we headed out the door. Once we got to the cafe and ordered the pizza I told Rebecca to ask them where to get good jaozi (pronounced "jow-tzhuh") In the states, we call them potstickers I think. They sounded good, but we couldn't find them anywhere. So she asked the kids at Packers Cafe and they said they you coudn't get them in Old Town, you had to go a long ways away in New Town to get them. So we pretty much accepted our fate and then said "ok". Then a little discussion and one of them said to us "We've got 10 here now, would you like them?" It turns out one of them went out to get some that evening and picked up 10, and they were going to eat them with their dinner. We didn't want to take their dinner so we said "no". But then this whole conversation ensued and Rebecca asked me "Do we want them tomorrow?" and they were offering to drive out and get some tomorrow evening we arranged to come back at 6:30 and they would fix them up for us. Then asked us how many and we said 30, because they were kinda small and it was all arranged. After that, I got some super-sweet pizza again, and Rebecca got this super-spicy-hot tofu dish. She was muching away saying "this is a little spicier than I'm used to" and I tried a bite and it just about kicked my ass, so I had to take a picture to say "This is one of the reasons I love this girl, she eats kick-my-ass tofu and says it's a little spicy."Back to the hotel for the night, a nice long, relaxing day in this beautiful little town. I'd totally come back and live here for awhile, the place is pretty amazing.
