Li Jiang

Finally, another post.



Yes, it's taken me a while to finish this post. I'm sure most of my readers have stopped checking the blog by now, but I still want to complete it.





After spending the day in Kunming in the pouring rain, we got on board what is called a sleeper-bus. It is a long-distance bus that is filled with bunk beds instead of seats.

Three of the girls in our little group got to the bus first while I was in the bathroom. The driver looked at them in amazement and said, "Sange laowai?" To which one of the girls replied, "Uh-uh, wuge laowai." He exclaimed in great excitement, "WUGE LAOWAI!?!"

("Three foreigners?" "Uh-uh, five foreigners." "FIVE FOREIGNERS!?!")

When I finally made it out to the bus, the girls asked me to try and negotiate seats so we could sit together. Because we were an anomaly (wuge laowai) the bus driver accommodated us, asking two men in the back to change beds so we could be together. One of those men seemed to think that it was only four foreign women, and was very excited thinking he was going to be in a bunk amongst us. I had a short conversation with him explaining that we were already five persons, not including himself, and would he kindly move. He was kind of skeezy, and for the rest of the ten hour bus ride tried to talk to me because it was obvious to everyone that I was the speaker of the group. Our bunks were very tiny and we spent the night unintentionally snuggling. I was very grateful there were five of us so that we didn't have to share the bunks with the creep-a-zoid.

The trip was long and we were all exceedingly tired. During the night we made a stop at some random little town for about 45 minutes so people could get off and pee (which the men did on the building next to the parked bus). One of the girls and I got off to search for a bathroom. There was some kind of late-night bar open with a roof squatpot that served as the public toilet. I wish I had taken a photo or two of that place.

We arrived in Li Jiang at 6:30. Our hostel was in the "Ancient Town," an area of Li Jiang that has maintained the same architecture since the Ming Dynasty and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is similar to Huang Long Xi in that it has maintained the same architecture, but has an authenticity that Huang Long Xi has lost. We couldn't check into our room until noon, but we were allowed to leave our luggage with the desk while we explored the town.

Because we were there so early, there weren't any tourists clogging the streets, so we took some wonderful photos.

Ancient Town has a lot of these little canals running through it. I suppose in an era before plumbing, they served as both water supply and sewage drain, but now they are only charming.

The main thoroughfare.

As we were walking around, all the stalls were opening. This is a traditional Chinese Apothecary, obviously maintained as a tourist shop more than an actual medicinal facility.

I don't know who these people are or why they were riding their donkeys around, but I took their picture anyway. They didn't look like they wanted to talk to anyone.

There was a stand where you could buy one of these dangling wooden boards to write a prayer on and hang.

This is the Ancient Town Water Wheel. A very important feature because it is at the northern end of the Ancient Town and all the canals flow away from it. If you are lost, all you have to do is find a canal and travel upstream until you find the water wheel, and then you are not lost anymore.

This woman is one of the thriftiest businessmen I've ever met and one of the oldest. There are old people everywhere in China. She wasn't shmoozing or trying to coax people into buying her maps and postcards. All she had to do was stand and people flocked to her. I myself purchased one of her maps.

This is an example of Naxi calligraphy, also known as Dongba Script. The Naxi are an ethnic minority indigenous to Li Jiang and the surrounding towns. They developed their own script which is older than the standard Mandarin used today, or even that used by scholars of the Tang and earlier dynasties. I think it more beautiful and expressive than the other scripts I have seen. If I ever master Mandarin (fingers crossed), I would like to study this calligraphy as well.

We kept walking North until we found a park. Okay, so the park was clearly marked on the map I had bought from Grandmother Time, but we weren't following the map. Because it was so early, there wasn't an attendant at the gate and we entered for free when it would have been 80 yuan per person.

After passing through the gate and travelling a little ways, we reached the reason this park exists, Black Dragon Lake. This lake is absolutely gorgeous and featured in all the travel guides I've ever seen of China.

We wandered around the lake (pond really) for a while, but nothing was happening because it was still early in the morning. Thankfully a vendor's stand was open and I was able to buy a lot of horrible Chinese-brand AA batteries. My camera's batteries were almost dead, and it would have been very sad if I hadn't bought spares. There was a small mountain/large hill next to the park with a path leading to the top. We decided to climb this and as we climbed higher, the weather became more sunny and glorious.

I didn't understand at first why I was having so much trouble climbing this mountain. I was one of the more athletic members of the group and ran three to four times a week. It finally dawned on me that we were several thousand feet higher than Chengdu and I don't adapt quickly to altitude changes.

At the top of the hill was a little pavilion.

Inside the pavilion was this kid, obviously dragged to the top of this hill unwillingly, since he would rather play his PSP than look out at the view. He didn't even notice that I took his photo.

View to the East of the pavilion.

View to the West. The Old Town is to the left of that little green hillock in the middle of the urban spread. If you'll notice, the buildings look slightly different than their modern counterparts.

There was another path to descend and it took us to the northern end of the park.

Here's a pretty view of Black Dragon Lake.

Since the climb had taken us two hours, the park had become a little more lively. This is Yufeng Monastary, built next to the lake.

Inside the monastary are more excellent examples of Dongba Script.

Near the monastary was a little stage set up with an orchestra of native instruments. To be honest, they didn't sound very good, but the fact that they were playing indiginous instruments was cool!

By the time we left the park, it was noon and we could go back to the hostel for a much needed shower. After that, one of the girls and I went out to have lunch. On the way, I was introduced to the Li Jiang garbage truck. The store attendant shooed me off her stoop when the truck pulled up so that she could pass along two garbage bags to be thrown in the back of this truck by the garbage men. I was taken to see this display of everyday life for the citizens of Li Jiang and chuckled to myself, wondering how few tourists would notice something like this.

That night for dinner, we wandered outside of the Ancient Town to find something cheap to eat. All the food inside Ancient Town was way too pricy for some of my fellow travellors, so we went to where the locals eat, an outdoor hotpot stall. Some of the girls ate hotpot, I myself had some sort of eggs and rice dish. None of us ate for more than 6 yuan and it was fun trying to order.

Afterward we walked back to the Ancient Town by a different path.

We noticed these wooden bundles everywhere, but didn't know what they were for until dusk when they were set on fire.

When we got back to the main area of Ancient Town, it was absolutely packed. We hadn't seen anything like this kind of crowding all day and were very confused.

Finally I asked a woman what was going on and she explained that it was a kind of Fire Festival celebrating the harvest. I asked about the significance of the burning bundles. A girl next to her mentioned something about ghosts, but the older woman shook her head and said they were just for celebrating the harvest. The bundles finally made a little more sense, especially since some were stuffed with apples and other crops.

Some people were sending these flower candles down the canals.

All in all, we were fantastically lucky to have been there when we were. To have the town almost to ourselves during the morning and then to see the festival that night was magical. Li Jiang was by far my favorite place to visit in China and I want to go back again.