Lijiang, China
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2008
1
14
18
Trip End
Jul 06, 2008
Lijiang,
Yunnan,
China
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
My bus left at 9.50am from MCA. The bus was only a 20 seater, completely full of Chinese people apart from me. It was a bit of a squeeze for me as the bus was obviously built for smaller people, but I managed to get comfortable by sitting sideways. It took 3.5 hours to drive the 150km to Lijiang and was actually quite a pleasant journey apart from a 20 minute stint where my iPod was drowned out by some Chinese folk music that was being blasted out of the radio. As I got outside the bus station in Lijiang a woman pulled up and asked me where I was going. I told her MCA, and she told me to get in. When I asked her how much it would cost (as I thought she was a taxi driver) she said it was free as she had a guesthouse nearby that she was going to. Her name was Mimi, which I guess wasn't her real Chinese name! Her guesthouse was half the price of mine, but I had a reservation with MCA and I didn't want to lose my deposit, but I took her card anyway. At the hostel I got shown to my room whilst Mimi scouted out the competition. The room was pretty much the same as the hostel in Dali. I ordered some food in the restaurant and while it was being cooked I went to use the internet, which didn't work. The food was disgusting as well! I then went to my room to find that the flush on the toilet didn't work. A guy came to fix it and after completely flooding my bathroom he told me it was fixed and walked off. I decided to test it before I actually used the toilet. It worked once before breaking again. I went to reception and told them that I wanted a room with a working toilet. They gave me a key to another room which had no window and was really dirty so I asked for my money back and left. That's guesthouse number three that I've pissed off! As I wandered around looking for Mimi's guesthouse I spotted an English pub, Frosty Morning, so I thought it would be rude not to go in for a beer! The owners were an English guy, Phil, and his Chinese wife, Hsiaoping. I also met two Austalians that had just moved to Lijiang, Danny and Anna, and were helping out in the bar. Phil was really cool and Hsiaoping is probably the nicest lady you're ever likely to meet. After a beer Hsiaoping gave me directions to Mimi's guesthouse and I set off on my way. After about 20 minutes of following a really dodgy map on the back of her card I eventually found it. She was suprised to see me and immediately offered me a coffee after I dropped my bag in the room. I paid for the room, had a chat then went for a well needed toilet break. Guess what? Bloody squat toilet! Bugger! I had been so busy chatting that I completely forgot to look at the bathroom. As she had been so nice to me I decided to stay one night anyway. By the time I left to explore the Old Town part of Lijiang, where I was staying, it was 5pm and bloody freezing. My first impression of the Old Town was that it was tacky and touristy and didn't look old at all! All the buildings are wooden and look exactly the same. They are either a shop selling paintings, jewellery, carvings, t-shirts, etc, or a restaurant. I really didn't like it. I ended up in the New Town and somehow found myself back at Frosty Morning so I stopped for dinner and a few beers. I trundled back through Sifang Square, which is just as busy at night as it is in the day, and back along the maze of alleys to the guesthouse. I was on the bottom floor of the building and whenever the two small Chinese girls in the room above walked around on the wooden floor it sounded like an herd of elephants was up there!
Tuesday 15th April
I woke up around 9am and packed up my things ready to move on again. I explained to Mimi that I wanted somewhere with a western-style toilet and she was still really nice and offered me a coffee and recommended a couple of guesthouses. I was going to go where she said but as I walked up the street some people were hosing down the street with an almighty powerhose, meaning that I had to walk in the other direction! I ended up at a place called the Tea Horse Naxi Family Guesthouse. Every morning they give you a big flask of boiled water so that you can have green tea which was a nice touch. I went back to Frosty Morning for an awesome full English breakfast that I had been eyeing up on the menu the previous night before walking out of the north of Lijiang to work it off. A couple of hours later I ended up back in the Old Town. My second impression was that it was horrible and tacky! I ended up walking all the way through and out the other side. The whole place just looks exactly the same as there are only about 5 different types of shops just repeating! After walking back through I stopped for a beer and the cheesiest pizza I have ever eaten. I love cheese but this was ridiculous. The layer of cheese was almost as thick as the base! I bought a couple of beers from the shop before going to chill in my room and watch a bit of Chinese TV. The problem is that there is only one channel in English, CCTV9, which shows boring, out-of-date documentaries. I watched one about the railway system in Myanmar which must have been made in the 1980's!
Wednesday 16th April
As my backpack is only tiny I got up early to buy a new one so that I could fit three days worth of stuff in it for my three day hiking mission at Tiger Leaping Gorge. After dropping it back at the guesthouse I went to hire a bicycle so that I could get away from the monstrosity that is the Lijiang Old Town. I cycled through a nearby village and then onto the main dual carriageway out of the city and towards Snow Mountain. I tootled along quite slowly admiring the beautiful countryside and conserving my energy for the way back. I stopped a couple of times to take pictures and to sit on the grass by the side of the road. Only a handful of cars drove past me for the first 8km. I stopped just off of the dual carriageway by a horse farm and there were a group of six Chinese people taking photographs. Whilst I was sweating my arse off and I thinking that I had collapsed both of my lungs one of them came over and asked if I would be in some of their pictures. I was a little confused as to why they would want me in any but I agreed anyway. I had a couple taken with a man and a woman (bike included!) and a couple with a super cute girl who was holding the silver lighting disk thing before saying goodbye and cycling up the road a bit further. I soon realised that the road wasn't going anywhere of interest but I carried on up the hill anyway so I could fly back down it! A couple of kilometres back down the dual carriageway a white minivan suddenly cut in front of me and stopped and the slide door flew open. I was expecting a group of big blokes to grab me and drag me into the van and kill me, but it turns out it was the photo gang who wanted me to join them for lunch. I accepted their invitation thinking that we would be going to a place 1km down the road that I had seen on the way up. I thought wrong! I ended up hacking it downhill following this minivan for about 4km until we reached the outskirts of Lijiang! When we sat down for food I found out that four of them were working for a photography company and they were taking wedding photos for the man and woman that I had a picture taken with! One of the girls spoke very good English so she was having to do a lot of translating. The food was really good but it was a bit of a feast. The cooks just kept bringing out more and more bowls of food, and my new Chinese friends kept on filling up my bowl. I could barely move at the end! I arranged to meet up with them in the evening and then set off to chill out in the park which, for the first time that I had seen in China, was actually a proper park with grass and trees. I sat in the sun by the side of the lake for a couple of hours before returning my bike. I went to Frosty Morning for a few hours and chatted to Phil, Hsiaoping, Danny and Anna about Tiger Leaping Gorge which was my next destination. Hsiaoping knew Mama from Mama's Guesthouse and booked me on her minibus to TLG for 9am in the morning. After a quick dash back for a shower I met the two girls, Juan - the assistant photographer - and Shan Shan - the cute makeup artist. We went to meet the newlyweds at a bar in the Old Town, which was about as big as my bedroom at home, to watch a really good singer and guitar player. I didn't stay out too late as I had a long walk ahead of me the following day.
