Yunnan - February

January and February in Shanghai is not really the place of sun and heat, more like rain and odd snow. In other words the place to escape from as far South as possible - to Yunnan province. One of the traditional corners of China with many different minorities, mountains and finally of course a lot warmer weather.

Initial plan Lijiang - Tiger Leaping Gorge - Lugu Lake - Kunming, went through radical modifications and one of the key destinations, Lugu Lake, is waiting for better times and better road conditions.



Rooftops of traditional Lijiang, the home town for Naxi people. The earthquake in 1996 took down the whole town and all these roofs are actually brand new. Unfortunately the restoration turned the town into Disneyland kind of theme-park - each house having a tourist shop or a cafeteria - for sure 15 years ago the shops were selling little different goods. Still it was a very relaxing place to wonder around, taking the first rays of morning sun from a little guesthouse looking over the "old" roofs.









Lijiang








News










Naxi traditional clothes











Naxi people







Yangtze River and terraces near Lijiang








Intruders in kitchen of a Naxi family house in a small village around Lijiang









Drying pig legs.










Naxi house with a inner courtyard.











Tiger Leaping Gorge - 3 days hiking (originally planned 2, but sometimes in remote areas everything cannot be predicted and the trip stretched longer) in mountains along the 30km gorge, somewhere down there Yangtze River making its first meters. After few thousands kilometers and a boosted by all kinds of wastes the same Yangtze will make its way to sea right in Shanghai.









Crazy Australian whose bag, for this trip, was the market bag bought from Prague or Budapest, considering our rucksacks, he really looked like being on the way home from market. Hiked with him for 1,5days.










Mountains and river










Walk on the edge








People in mountains












Waterfall on the way









The reason why our hiking trip stretched a day longer was that boat down there, on the other side. By the time we arrived it had finished operations for this day, next time tomorrow...
nothing else to do, than just to walk 1 hour in darkness to village and find the only guesthouse there.








Waiting for the boat, crossing 2 minutes, waiting for it 18 hours.










Lijiang street life








After the delay in crossing Yangtze, there was unfortunately no time to make it to rather remote Lugu Lake. Instead of this we headed to Dali, in Lonely Planet described as the fading alternative to Lijiang. Cannot really agree - Dali didn't suffer in earthquake, it has preserved more of its traditional inhabitants and looks less like an artificially created museum.








Noodle factory, fresh noodles taken into sun to dry.





Lake near Dali