C & C globetrotting around the world…

After the Tiger Leaping Gorge, we returned to Lijiang. We had heard Lijiang is very nice, so we thought it would be a good place to spend time and avoid traveling during the “Golden Week”. October 1^st is the Chinese National Holiday and the entire week following that is chaos everywhere in China. Most Chinese people are on holidays during this time, so 100 million Chinese travel every day (that’s right: 100,000,000 ppl!) and we definitely didn’t want to be part of this craziness. We stayed for a week in Lijiang, a pedestrian town with beautiful small alleys, canals and flowers everywhere, avoiding trains and buses. It was really nice and reminded us of the floral villages in Alsace, except for the Chinese tourists. The town is touristy in normal times as well, but since October 1^st there are masses of people.

In the surroundings of Lijiang live the Naxi, an ethnic minority who still have a hieroglyphic language and a matriarchal society. In the town there were so many shops selling traditional hand-made Naxi colourful shawls, scarfs, skirts and shirts. There were also many places selling knickknacks and wood carvings. The most remarkable thing is that the million tiny shops selling CDs are all playing ONE song: “Darling, darling…”. There were also lots of restaurants and bars and we had the impression that nobody really lived there; that it was all for tourists, but it was still very nice. One day we had lunch at a small restaurant and Christoph ordered “Ants climbing a tree” (rice noodles with chicken and veggies) which was delicious, but a few times we went to our hostel’s family dinner (Mama Naxi dinner).

There are not many attractions in town, but wandering through the alleyways was very nice. It’s like a maze though, so you cannot be in a hurry. What’s funny is that 99% of tourists stay in a few alleys where most of the shops are, so if you go an alley left or right, you might find a peaceful corner. We didn’t do much while in Lijiang, so working on the blog and relaxing while talking to other travelers were our top priorities.

Christoph did go on a day trip to Shuhe village with a Dutch guy, which was supposed to be an ancient Naxi village, but it turned out to be a miniature of Lijiang. One evening we also went to the Naxi Orchestra concert. What was interesting was the fact that most of the musicians are over 80 years old and they play ancient traditional instruments. We hope this tradition will get passed on. The old guys were funny to watch, some falling asleep as a guy held a speech, while others were popping Mentos all evening. We had planned on doing one more day trip to Baisha village by bike, but the rain (any laziness?) kept us indoors. We did go to a market, where you could buy anything from fruits and veggies to brooms and car tires. We only bought peaches and a melon though. There is also the Black Dragon Pool Park (where the spring of the town river is located) which is supposed to be pretty nice, but with the drizzle and high entrance fee, we decided to skip it.

In one hostel we were staying (Garden Inn), there was a dog barking from midnight to 6am, so we switched hostels. We traded the barking dog for a screaming 2-yr-old! Because many hostels are guesthouses, the family actually also sleeps in one of the rooms. The kid of the family here can do whatever he wants to, even at 7am when the guests sleep. The Chinese don’t control their kids at all, so they do what they want. With each family having only one child, and therefore 4 grand-parents spoiling this one child, the kids are known as “Little Emperors”. There is a lot of pressure on these kids for supporting the family later, an issue called the 1-2-4 problem where 1 kid has to support 2 parents and 4 grand-parents. It’s going to be interesting to see what is going to happen to these generations in time.

After Lijiang we are going to Dali, where we will spend few more days until the “Golden Week” is over.