November 17, 2004

Well hi there sports fans! Greetings from My Favor Cafe in Kunming where we are enjoying some free internet with a hot chocolate and a mango juice. I think that the last time I caught up with the blog we were cooling our heels in Lijang. So I am sure you are all at the edge of your seats waiting to find out what we have been up to these last 10 days.

Oh by the way - thanks for your emails letting us know that you are actually reading this long string of thoughts. It really helps to know that people out there are enjoying our adventures through this small piece of text. Keep them coming.

So what have we been doing since Nov. 5th? Well let's see.....Lijang was beautiful - you had to overlook the crowds of people in the main street but it was a great place. After our first day we started getting out and about. On Nov. 6 we were off by hired car to Yak Meadow about an hour and a half outside of town. From this vantage point you could get a great view of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain - an impressive peak towering over 5000 meters into the sky. We were lucky with the weather - the clouds billowed picturesquely around the summit - we took a lot of photos as the light kept changing. Yak Meadow itself was at 3600 feet so we were moving slowly as we walked around the area. I missed seeing the Yak in the meadow.....what a rip off...but there were a few all dressed up for Chinese tourists to have their pictures taken on. Oh and by the way - we did not hike up to take in these views - the Chinese had very nicely put in a chair lift that we rode up to the meadow and then there was a trail that led around the meadow that took us about an hour. We were joined on this adventure by Klaus from Austria and Liugi from Italy. They sort of joined up in a bit of morning confusion at the desk of our guest house. By doing so they lowered the price of our car a bit so that was OK. Our driver was first rate - Ms. Huai. She was very careful and took us to all the spots we wanted to...so first Yak Meadow, then we went to Yunfang Si - a small temple on the way back to Lijang. After that we went to Baisha - a beautiful town that has not been destroyed by new buildings. People were going about their daily lives - harvesting turnips and other crops and bringing them into their courtyards. We visited a small temple in town and almost got to join in the shooting of some sort of movie but I guess we did not look the part as we were shooed off the set. Oh well - our chance at fame will have to come later. After we visited the temple you had to walk out by a lot of craft vendors and I succumed to one last one selling embroidery. I am not sure how much of it was hand made but I like it - although today sending that and one other thing home cost much more than the two pieces did combined.....life goes on.

We arrived back in town about 6:30pm - a great day. We bought some fruit as we got out of the car...the same lady the prior day had charged us 3 yuan for 4 oranges and this day she charged us 3 yuan for 6 oranges...I guess she likes repeat customers! :-)

The next day we took it easy and walked to the Dragon Pond park near the outskirts of town. We hiked up to the top of Elephant Hill - not a mountain but still a good hike in high altitude. As we hiked up we past a number of local grave sights. It was interesting to see the different styles and carvings on the grave stones. At the top while there was quite a lot of litter we were rewarded with a great view again of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain - albeit from more of a distance. We could also look over the town of Lijang - which until we reached the top of this hill, we did not realize that it was as big as it is. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon enjoying the park - we found a quiet place to sit and read. As we walked out of the park we saw at least 4 couples having their wedding pictures taken in the park. They were all in western white wedding dresses. It was interesting to see. We eneded the day by having a great dinner at Mama Fu's on one of the water ways in the old town. We tried the local style fish and also had some local cheese and a vegetable dish - one of our best dinners in Lijang - and you all know how important food is to us Nolans....the only slight negative was having to wash it down with some of the local brew rather than wine but I am getting used to drinking beer!

The next day we once again hired the great services of Ms. Huai and took off for Liming about 2.5 hours away from Lijang. We were this time accompanied by the manager of our guest house, Mr. Cheng, who decided to take the day off with us as he had never been to this area. It was a great day - a beutiful drive along the Yangtze River, taking in what they call the "First Bend" in the river. Liming is a small town in a fairly steep valley. It is distinct because of its red rock formations - you know how much we love rocks! We drove in the valley to see some formations and then hiked with Mr. Cheng to an area called Thousand Tortoise Mountain where the rocks looked like the back of many tortoises - it was very strange and beautiful. The hike took us about 5 hours round trip - we were moving pretty slowly - lots of steps to get to the top. I think Mr. Cheng was worried that we wouldn't make it but slow and steady always gets us to our destination and we were rewarded with amazing views of the valley and really strange rocks - very worth the time to drive there. We also enjoyed the company of Mr. Cheng - he seemed pleased to spend the time with us and had fun having us take pictures of him in various locations along the way. We even took a group shot while we were climbing. At the top, there was a sign noting the location of a hanging coffin - we had thought that only people along the little three gorges did this but we got our binoculars out and were able to locate one ladded and coffin...Mr. Cheng said that perhaps the people in this area used to do this but did not practice this now....it was hard to know whether this had been put up for the tourists or whether it was legitimate but it was still kind of cool to see.

After our hike we had a well deserved feast in the village. Mr. Cheng and Ms. Huai joined us - we took pictures, ate and had a good time trying some local foods. They seemed pleased to be with us. We later had some of the pictures printed and made a big hit by giving some to Mr. Cheng and we asked him to pass some on to Ms. Huai as well. On our way back to Lijang we stopped frequently to take photos along the river - the scenery and the light were great. Ms. Huai very kindly bought us a small souvenir which we will treasure and use as a xmas tree ornament. We arrived back in Lijang at 7:30pm...everyone was tired but very happy after a great day.

The next day we explored town a bit more, climbing up to a Pagoda built for the tourists a while back and while not the most impressive structure we have seen in China it did afford great views over the old town. And so ended our stay in Lijang - a great place - very friendly and with some great sights to visit. Many people may be surprised that we did not go to Tiger Leaping Gorge - a must for many westerners to this area but we decided we did not have enough time or energy and we thoroughly enjoyed our two outings with Ms. Huai so we did Lijang our way!

On to Dali south of Lijang - a comfortable bus ride away....this was almost aborted as Tom left his glasses in out taxi on the way to the bus station but just as the bus was going to pull away the taxi driver pealed into the station waiving the glasses case.....Dali is not as developed as a tourist sight as Lijang but it has its own appeal. We took two trips up the Cang Shan mountains behind the town - beautiful views over Er Hai lake both times. On our first jaunt up the mountain we met Francesca and Massimo from Turin in Italy. They were great and we had dinner with them and then spent the following day with them, once again hiring a car and taking a rather busy tour of the surrounding area. This was on November 12 - we first went to Xizhou a town highlighted by some beautiful Bai architecture - we visted two old houses here. Next we were on to Xhoucheng where the local people make a batik/tie die combo with indigo dyes made from plants. We obligingly bought some things here which were again shipped home today and a rather high price relative to what we paid for them. The next part of the trip was probably the most interesting. We went to a local market in Yousou - it is supposedly the largest market in Yunnan and we were the only westerners there - not a souvenir in sight just lots of people shopping for every day things. It was incredible to see all the different people shopping. This area is noted for its various minority races and they were all at the market this day - so many different faces, clothes and customs. The market was divided into animals, vegetables, grains, clothes, and household goods and we wandered around for about an hour - we could have certainly stayed longer. What an amazing experience. Once back in the car we were off again for a beautiful drive around the east side of Er Hai lake - much quieter than the Dali side of the lake. Small villages were the norm, many of them focused on farming and fishing. It was really a great drive. We stopped in a few places to take in the local sights and had lunch in Wase. One interesting thing on this part of the tour was a visit to a glass house....we wandered through narrow streets to get there but right on the edge of the lake was purched something that should be in architectual digest and maybe it has been - an east meets west house of glass right on and over the water - incredible. Evidently the owner of our guest house is friends with the owner of this house. It was a special treat to see it! Our driver delivered us to a small ferry boat landing and we took a ride across the lake and then finished our day with a demonstration of corrmorant fishing which we could have done without but that's OK - it was interesting to see how the birds were trained. They don't really use this method of fishing anymore - a tourist only attraction!

I forgot one detail of this day....we stopped to take a picture of a small temple on an island in the lake. As we did many children were getting out of school. Tom started to waive at them and they all started cracking up at his antics. We had fun taking some photos of them and then showing them the results on the small screen of our digital camera - they all thought it was great fun. I was sorry that I couldn't print some for them right then and there but it was still fun seeing their reaction to seeing themselves on the screen after I had taken the picture.

One other notable thing about Dali - we were in room 205 at the No. 5 guesthouse....we noticed that there was a small shrine in front of room 206 - at first I thought that perhaps someone had died there....we weren't sure what to make of it. There were both Christian and Buddhist sybols on the wall and in front of the door - an incense burnt all day. The door was open one night and the TV was on and we discovered not a body but a Chinese woman. We finally asked the manager of the guest house and she said that she thought that the woman was from Tibet and that she had been living at the guest house for about a year and that they had not gone into her room for about 6 months - the woman keeps her own room and just ask the staff when she needs something. She evidently goes out each day perhaps to the near by temples....it was pretty interesting and I was glad that no one had died. Speaking of Christian symbols we have been surprised to see 4 or 5 churches since our arrival in China - one in Pingyao, a small brand new church in the country side on the way to Liming, a Catholic church in Dali and one here in Kunming. There may have been others that we missed but we have been interested to see these signs of Christian religion in the communist country. We have also seen a few mosques - there are at least two here in Kunming.

So tomorrow we will head south again - sadly leaving behing one of the best hotel rooms that we have had in China - the Spring City Inn if any of you are here in Kunming in the future. It is really great! We will take the bus to Jianshui and then go onto an area of beautiful rice terraces before making our way to the boarder of China and Vietnam. We will be sad to leave China but we need to move on. We are already making our list of places to go when we come back! What great experiences we have had and how lucky we have been to meet the people we have met here - both westeners and Chinese people - we hope to keep these relationships alive for many years to come! After 9 weeks we are still happy and healthy and looking forward to our next adventure.

We already know we will see one of our new friends again on our flight from Singapore to Perth - Stefan and Hanna from Sweden (our friends from Yangshuo) will join us on that one - how strange is that that they have booked the same flight!

So adios from Kunming. We hope that you all have great Thanksgivings. We did see a store here in Kunming offering Turkeys to the western folk that live here but somehow I think we will miss out on Turkey and stuffing this year and probably tuck into a big bowl of Pho in Hanoi or environs near by!

Gobble gobble to all and big hugs to all.



Pam