Picture Perfect Lijiang
Trip Start
May 02, 2007
1
53
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Lijiang,
China
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Lijiang, the capital of Yunnan, has a great history. It was once the center of the Naxi kingdom, whose people - descendants of Tibetan nomads - are now one of several ethnic minorities scattered around the province. The town is split into "old" and "new"; the new part being a soulless collection of concrete buildings and glass and it is busy and grungy; in other words, a typical Chinese city. The old town, on the other hand, has been left as is; a maze of cobbled streets lined with two story, tiled roof houses and canals that criss-cross around town. An earthquake in '96 decimated the town and it has since been rebuilt, but with tourism as the driving force. It is so obviously geared towards tourism; it's more like a cultural theme park than anything else. The houses have all been converted to hostels, guesthouses, cafes, restaurants and shops selling all sorts of souvenirs, even, for some strange reason, Russian nesting dolls
Empty street in the early morning
. But despite all this, and the tons of visitors that crowd the streets, it is still a really pleasant place to stroll around. There is no question that it is pretty and picturesque. It is just a little TOO pretty and picturesque!It must be that the entire old town is pedestrianized that we really enjoyed the city. We were able to really relax and just wander around, pop in the odd shop to browse around, and just get lost. And that's the nice thing about this place too, once you ramble off the main streets and into narrower alleys you easily lose all the tourists and soon find yourself among locals going about their daily business. In the cold mornings, they would sit outside their doorsteps stoking an open fire fueled by coal, with a blackened pot for boiling water sitting on top. Old ladies crouched in the canals washing their laundry and scrubbing their feet. In these same canals we also saw many people from restaurants washing their veggies; somewhat disturbing, but really, who knows what goes on in these kitchens. We're sure there are worse things!
The only sight we took in here other than our excursion to Tiger Leaping Gorge (see next entry) was the Black Dragon Pool - a park just a few minutes walk outside the old town. It's a really nice place to amble around, but at a steep price of 60 yuan ($8) each. There are a couple of temples to look at and the obligatory snapshot of the pool with the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain as the backdrop. We also walked up Elephant Hill, although not without some difficulty
Canal and weepingn trees
. A security guard tried to stop us because you are supposed to be in a group of four. They say that since they don't have walls around the hill, sometimes "strangers" walk in and there have been known to be some muggings. One thing we've learned though is that the Chinese are overly paranoid. They are always telling you that this is too dangerous, or it's too cold there, or something else along those lines. Maybe this is why they only travel in big tour groups - safety in numbers! Anyway, we put up enough of a stink, telling her that we paid a lot of money to get in the park, and the hill is part of the park so if we want to go up we should be able to go up. Of course, she didn't understand what we were saying, but in the end she threw up her arms and let us through. But with all the talk of robberies and muggings and with the walk going through a forest, they really put us on edge and we were jumping at every snapping twig and constantly on the lookout for someone hiding in the bushes. We made it to the top without incident, took in the views, snapped a picture or two, and hastily made our way back down before any unsavoury types could accost us.Next up on the list is Dali, just a few hours away, and one of our last stops in China. We are excited about moving on to Vietnam soon for a change of scenery and some much needed beach time!
