Dimanche 31 décembre 2006
So we arrived in Lijiang on the 26th. I had booked the
Stone
Bridge
hotel but somehow they didn’t have any rooms available so we took a room at the Swiss Snow Inn and it was well worth it, well a very good coincidence. The Swiss Snow Inn is a typical Naxi Home within the old town of
Lijiang
that still keeps all the charms of those houses and yet has all the comfort you would expect from a nice hotel. Quite surprisingly the owners spoke French and actually studied at the “Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne” and went back to have his own hotel after a few years working for some big hotel chain. When we arrived there we went straight away for a walk in town, by night it looked absolutely gorgeous. Small streets old houses, very typical and plenty of charm, I would recommend to anyone to go there at least once.
The day after, we went to Tiger Leaping Gorges using the services of a taxi for the whole day. As we did not had the time for the two day trek we stopped in the middle gorges and walk for two-three hours (down and back) and went down to the river. It was one of the most beautiful scenery I had seen for a very long time and I still have all the images moving around my head. Down, in the middle of the gorges we had the very high cliffs on both sides of us and the river was running fast through the rocks. I have only one word to describe this place; magnificent.
When we were back in Lijiang we still had the time to visit the
Black
Dragon
Pool
Gardens
. It was built in 1737 and the park is dotted with many plants and ancient building such as the Dragon God temple and the five opening Bridge. Sadly the weather wasn’t good enough to see the snow mountain on the back but still it was a handsome and quite enjoyable park. We stayed there until the sun was down.
The day after was our last day but as our plane was at 7 30 we had the time to visit the surroundings of Lijiang and we went to some small villages recommended by some people we had met the day before. So we went to Yuhu which is not yet touched by tourism so very authentic and finally we went to Baisha where we met Dr. Ho, a world famous, 84 year old doctor that uses Chinese medicines and thus plants as his main ingredient. The old guy was still in a very good shape and gave me some medicine for my knees so we’ll see whether or not it works.
So there you are that was our trip in
Yunnan
, I hope you enjoyed the reading as much as I enjoyed sharing my feelings about the place with you.
Dimanche 31 décembre 2006
After a short night in the train in the hard sleeper section we arrived in Dali at 6.30 and by 6.45 we were in the old town. As the taxis are not allowed to get inside the old town our dear driver dropped us in front of the South Gate (which by the way was beautiful by night) due to an accumulation of reasons it took us three hours to find our hotel which was finally only ten minutes away from where the taxi had left us (it was night, we were tired, the map in the guide was wrong). But we finally found the f-place we were looking for. The hotel was the “Jim’s Tibetan Hotel” (Jim must be some king of local star since he has one lodge, one guest house, one restaurant and the Hotel…) This place was very nice and had great decoration (Tibetan furniture) and the rooms was relatively big so everything we needed was there.
After dropping our luggage we left straight away for a walk in town. I have to say that I was very surprise the guides are all saying that it is very touristy and finally there weren’t so many tourists and the town is extremely cute. You can see all those old houses exactly as you dreamed in your childhood. Moreover, the town has a really good atmosphere; it feels like it is a centre were lots of backpackers are passing by but at the same time it really feels like you’re in the “old” china. So after walking downtown all morning we had a lunch then rented some bikes and went to the “three pagodas temple”. We were at that time expecting to stay there only for one hour at max, after arguing about whether or not we should get in because of the price we decided to go for it. Believe me it was 120 kuai per head very well invested. The three pagodas temple does not limit itself only to three good looking pagodas as many people think but it also has plenty of temple one after the others. We were walking there and every time we finished w temple we discovered that there was another one bigger and more beautiful behind the one we had just finished. After an addition of was I believe was 8 temple we headed to the 9th one, went on the last floor then we say an incredible view. One of those views you think can exist only in movies or in the national geographic.
That night we went to Jim’s restaurant in the centre of the old town (on Renmin Lu as you might have guess) I had a really good lamb roasted in the Tibetan fashion and it was really good. I also tasted the “local” a local alcohol, homemade, fermented with walnuts apparently 56% alcohol but it didn’t taste like it, it was really good.
After a good night sleep we took the cabins to go up the mountains where we were expecting to do the 15 km walk but finally we took another way which was by far more beautiful and actually breath taking. The gorges were amazing and really enjoyable. We stayed there for a few hours then went down the mountain and visited some villages around there. We first went to Xizhou where we found a group of old musician playing Naxi music on the main place of the village. Again it was a very nice village very typical.
By the end of the day we were in the bus heading to Lijiang for three hours.
Dimanche 31 décembre 2006
We left Friday the 28th of December from Hongqiao Airport meant to be at 6.30 but it ended up that the plane was cancelled (I’m getting used to this over here) so after negotiation we managed to have first class seats on the following plane but we still had to wait for 4 more hours at the airport. But whatever, the flight was nice and smooth and we were the only one to be seated at the front end of the plane and anyway we hadn’t plan to visit or do anything that night.
So we arrived in
Kunming
grabbed a cab and went to the Yunda Hotel which was not too bad but with a very good location (near the university so plenty of animation).
After a good night rest, we woke up around 10 o’clock had a breakfast and then went for the visit of the day; Shilin aka the Stone forest.
So after the hour and a half of taxi (negotiate at 400 kuai for the day) and paying the 120 kuai entrance fees we were finally inside The place. Believe me it was definitely worth the trip. The stone forest is one of the wonders of the natural patrimony of
Yunnan
. It consist of a lot of stone pillars small gorges and eroded cracks. It is the consequences erosion and brushing along the crevices of limestone over eras by sea waters. Finally the sea bottom was broken up and moulded into the shape we can find over there and then the sea went down leaving this wonder to the eye of those visiting.
We also discovered that day that
Yunnan
food is absolutely delicious. We had some great beef (with ginger and mint) and some fried mushrooms with eggs.
After visiting that for most of the day we went back to the town and visited the city (nothing extremely exiting but some nice park), then we had a showered, went for dinner then went to bed. The first good day was just finished.
On day two we woke up earlier and went to the western hills 16 km away from
Kunming
. So after the relatively short journey by bus we arrived at the bottom of the hills (Gaoqiao) and we walk all the way to the top of the hills stopping by all the temples. The temples were beautiful the first one is the
Huating
Temple
which has wonderful rooms where you can find 500 arhats. The second temple was a rape as we paid the full entrance fees to find out that we couldn’t see anything inside as everything was under heavy restoration but the small bits that wasn’t was very nice. But anyway the best of the visit is at the top of the mountain where you arrived at the Dragon’s Gate. There you can enjoy some nice views and plenty of small temples while walking next to the cliffs.
Since we disided to wlak all the way rather than taking the tourist buses and the lifts we stayed there for the whole day, went back at the hotel by 7 to pick up our luggage and then we took the night train to Dali.
