For 12 days - visa runs are much less tedious with a holiday thrown in.
In Yunnan there are 25 ethnic groups, and I saw a lot of diverse landscapes, from the busy city of Kunming, to traditional Naxi farmers in the 4km deep Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Tibetan monks in Zhongdian, at 3300m altitude. Lots of travel too - more than 35 hours on buses......with travel sick locals, smokers, and "rustic" toilet stops as part of the course. And chasing men of all ages around the country side, as is apparent when you see the photos.
I spent 3 days travelling around Kunming on my own, and 9 days on an Intrepid tour (hi guys!), in good company with some avid photographers, so I've posted lots (incidentally major camera envy - impending SLR purchase on Oz return!). It was so nice to leave the humid tropics and head into the mountains for awhile.
Can't say I really learnt much more about the history while I was here, but some things reminded me of where I was. For example blogspot and news websites are some of many banned in China, I met a tourist who had his lonely planet guide confiscated at the airport, and found the subject matter in the national media to be... slightly off, shall we say.
KUNMING
Kunming is a bustling city with 3million residents, a good bus system, and manic drivers with major car horn issues. So many gawkers - OK, yes people, I'm not chinese. Only amusing for about 5 minutes - happily being neither famous nor beautiful I can now slink back to anonymity.
I was pretty brave on Day 1 - geared only with "Ni Hao" (when most people know hello as their only English word anyway), a sketchy map and a vague direction, I travelled on 8 different buses to get to see the Stone Forest and Dadieshui Waterfall. Eucalypts everywhere, with corn, tobacco, rice and sunflowers mostly. Lots of quarries. What did this place look like prior?!?
Diverse Kunming; dressed-up tourists at the world heritage Stone Forest park
impressive Dadieshui Waterfall from the cablecar
LIJANG
Our tour group of 16 met up and bused it north to the old town in Lijang, a major tourist trap, but very cute all the same. Lots of photo opportunities, taken. Getting used to toilets with no doors and leeches in the mornings.....
sights in and around LijangTIGER LEAPING GORGE
Big 1km vertical ascent on the first morning (confound this warm summer weather) provided it's rewards many times over on this 2 day hike. Absolutely phenomenal scenery. We ate our way through all the guesthouses, so it was a trek done in style. Our Aussie guide, Margo and pup were lots of fun, and we had remarkably clear weather, making for great views. Apparently stunning autumnal colour in October, and best seen before 2009, when a dam will destroy this beautiful stretch of rapids forever to form part of the 3 gorges dam system. We heard preliminary blasting taking place. So sad. So many local people up the Yangtze to be displaced.
I'll let these photos do the talking! They don't do it justice though
ZHONGDIAN
Regretfully leaving the gorge, we headed further north to the town of Zhongdian high up on the tibetian plateau. Once part of Tibet, the cultural landscape here is very distinctive to the other areas we'd been. Lots of solid tibetian houses. Think I had an altitude-related headache for a bit. Amusements included an incident with applying sunscreen in view of a curious bus driver, and chasing buddhist monks around the famous Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery.
pretty marsh scenery at the forced bus-sick stop (enter this jellybean-eating lady centre stage)
scenes from the Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery
DALI
We stayed in another old town, and filled in our time taking photos at a local market, and watching cormorants catch fish in the traditional fishing manner - a string around the neck prevents swallowing. A bit apprehensive about this practice, but the birds were well fed, happy enough, and obedient like hunting dogs. Very comical, likeable birds. A fun boat ride to boot.
From there we headed back to Kunming, said our farewells, and I spent the next 2 days walking and watching the locals in city parks and getting away from the city noise by walking in the Western Hills Forest Park and visiting Dragon Gate, a series of temples carved into a 300m cliff, with a stellar view across the massive lake and city area. A fun trip for the most part!
Gastronomic experiences - in a nutshell (haw haw)
- thousand year old egg
- yak steak and yak butter tea
- lots of yak and goat cheese
- lots of ginger tea with honey - fab!
- happily lots of banquet experiences in our group, so lots of local food - very fresh
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