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yunnan province, spring festival, 2006.
my school had 5 weeks off for the holiday and jessica had just arrived in china, so we decided to go traveling to yunnan, the land of the southern cloud, of eternal spring. we only managed to hit some of the sights in the northern half; the southern parts, with jungles and waterfalls and elephants, remains to be explored. we had three major goals: kunming, dali, and lijiang.
kunming is a beautiful city, by chinese standards. the streets are clean and litter free, the air fresh, the mountains in the background stunning, and the city itself a growing metropolitan area. whether it was hit during the cultural revolution or not, i cannot say; but regardless, efforts to preserve the chinese as well as minority cultural influence were not unnoticed, and we found the place quite agreeable. we were mainly interested in the city as a terminal in and out of yunnan, but we did manage to walk around a bit, and went to the black dragon pool park on the northern outskirts of town.
dali was our next stop, and a place that we'd heard much about. it was populated with many young packpackers, and the 'scene' was very relaxing. upon arrival at 6 in the morning, we happened to meet - purely by chance - 2 polish friends of mine from xiangtan! it was good for a laugh, and we booked into the same hostel they were in, which turned out to be nice and cheap. after coming from central-no where china (ahem... hunan), the western commodities found in town (essentials like coffee, pizza, and imported beer) were a godsend. one day we rode horses up the mountain and then walked back down, one day we rented bikes and rode to the lake, and another day we headed to some hot springs in another town in the area. the bar scene was nice, and the little old minority ladies on the streets were happy to provide us with samples of local flowering plants.
we then moved on to lijiang. while unesco has labeled the lijiang old town as a world hertige site, i feel as if the whole thing has been sold out; i liken the experience to a chinese disney land - the streets are lined with vendors selling trinkets to the throngs of tourists - though i wouldn't to say that it was a bad experience; it was certainly worth the trip, just not something that everone would enjoy (or something to stick around for after a few days). there were countless nooks and crannies to explore, and the black dragon pool park (wasn't that in kuming? no, there must be two black dragons living in limpid pools in yunnan) was excellent. lijian is also near the tiger leaping gorge, which we most definately wanted to do.
the gorge was an unforgettable hike. it wasn't difficult for either of us, but i've been told by my friends that i should stop calling it 'a walk in the park.' if you like this kind of thing - lots of hiking in beautiful country along a pretty well marked path, stopping in small villages each night, for 2 or 3 nights - then you really should do the gorge. it's pretty straight forward: just keep walking until you get to the end. we bypassed the front gate by paying some chinese people half the price to drive us in. we hiked leasurely for half a day, and slept in the wonderful luye guest house, a not-so-well known stop, but which, for 10Y for the two of us, gave us our own room with dinner, breakfast, and a spectacular view. the second night we stayed in the midway guest house with the rest of the backpackers, and we mingled with many people like us. cheap beer and international friends later, we were fast asleep. the final night we stopped at sean's guest house. over-priced and over-hyped, it was still pleasant, and the foliage growing in the middle of the courtyard was very nice indeed.
from there we grouped with other travelers and took a taxi back to lijiang. from there we took a sleeper bus (UGH - too smelly. i will never recommend a sleeper bus in china ever) to kunming, and from there a train back to hunan. and that was a nice little trip to yunnan.
"Naxi Women" photograph by Jessica Leza. Prints available here.
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