The Nazi Woman in Lijiang
Workers at attention early morning in Kunming
Hello, I am really slow in keeping updates on my travel journal but I still want to do some catch up. Actually am now in Mongolia (Ulannbataar), wasn;t feeling very well, in fact I had bad stomach flu and vomitted about 4 times and diarrhoea. It was an awkful experience as I could not sleep the whole night :(
Aredi, now come back to my traveling in Southern China: We arrived Kunming, early in the morning and check into a youth hostel called The Hump, the location was great - in central and near shopping areas. It was really an experience staying there - we could not sleep the whole night. There are loud music played throughout the night. As what Shaz said, it is like putting your bed in the middle of a disco place. Also the room does not come with air condition and it is very warm to sleep in. Anyway, thank God we only stayed for 1 nights as we decide that since there is nothing much for us to do there, we will proceed to Dali (the old ancient city of China empire) earlier. As usual, I will have to find a local hospital to have my wound treated. But in Kunming the hospital is big and the system is somewhat quite troublesome for me. First I will have to regisiter my name and pay Y3 at a register counter, thank I will have to find my way to a doctor office, (here, anyone can just barge in to the doctor room anytime they want - like a fish market) After the doctor had examined the wound, he then write a something on a note and asked me to make payment, I will tend have to find my way out to look for the appropricate counter to make payment (long queue - often the people with cut in the queue very fast) Ony after you had finished paying then you will proceed to another room to have your dressing done by a nurse or doctor (whoever is available). When teh nurse saw my wound she is very professional and clean in very well for me. She was very concern, as she claims the wound was quite badly treated before. I later took some advice from her not to have my wound treated with alcohol nor any medication that will casue pain to the wound.
Dali, was great, we fall in love with the structure of the buildings and the look of the anicent city, and the culture Naxi people. I felt as if we were living in the olden period and it was great to be able to see a different setting from city lives. The toilet hostel we stayed was really something. Very old and dirty Oh gosh -we are really in China.
Dali was a place we happen to meet people whome we either have met before in the train to kunming or in Kunming itself. While roaming in the city, we met a Dutch couple Ruth and Eddy (Eddy has been teaching in Yang Shou for 6 months and Ruth was there to accompany him). It was great to have met them (as I got my companion to trek down Tiger Leaping Groge - cos Shaz does not like to hike at all) But over in Dali, we actually took a cable car up to Cang San, and up in Cang San we actually walked for about 4.5 hrs trying to get to the other part of the mountain to get another type of cable car down. To me I enjoyed the walk a lot (despite my wound knee condition) but Shaz dislike it. I even venture to walk up to a very steep slope up to a very narrow cliff to have an bird eye view of the city (but Shaz decided not to go waited for me at the foot) Often, I will challenge myself and is very curious of things or places that was strongly recomended to me.
Sometime, life is just very conicident, we met Misha (a girl from UK) we met her in Kunming on the day we arrive, and the day she leaving Kunming at the Hostel. We later help her to get a bus to Dali. For the whole time when we were in Dali we did not bump into her. But on te day we leaving Dali for Lijiang, she happen to board on the same bus as us to Lijiang. We had a good conversation journery all the way to Lijiang.
Dali was great but Lijiang is even more beautiful, the old town is like the Venice in Italy, a very quaint ancient romantic town with unique and beauitiful building structure. There are many small canals by the houses, and the water irrigation system is very ancient and interesting (there are 3 levels of the water usage - upper one is for drinking and food, 2nd is for washing of vegetables and 3rd is for washing of pots and pans) great to see and experience the sights. I even go to watch the Dongba ancient orchestra we Misha and some of the other guests living in her guest house. We truly enjoyed watching the orchestra listen to some of the old and antique musical instruments, in fact almost 1/2 of the troupe consist of people in already in their 80's. Wow, great to see them still so active in life.
On the way to Zhong Dian (Shangarila), we spent almost a day treking down Tiger leaping Gorge. When Ruth and myself saw the rapids at the gorge we were really excited as it was really a magnificent view and our almost 2 hrs of treking down was not in vain (it was a great treking and excellent sight experience), we later took another to trek back up to Tina Guest house (Where Shaz's waited for me) to catch a transport out to the town to catch another bus to Zhong Dian.
When we arrived Zhong Dian it was already 9pm, but the sky was still very bright, so we checkin to YHA and had our dinner at a very friendly Han couple small eating place. We love the place not so much of the food but the warmth and family feeling we received from this young hardworking lovely couple (they work form early morning to very late night for almost everyday). We ate at their place for most of our meals.
Next day, early in the morning 2 young beautiful Mai and Catlin from Australia check into the hostel and happen to be in the same dorm as us. We decided to take up a day trip together (hire a guide and a van) to the nearby area to see some spectacular view of the Baishuitai and the grassland of beautiful Shangarila. We had a great time together and enjoyed ourself a lot with the beautiful sights.
Hmmm.. so much about Yunnan... next will be Si Chuan (our experience about Tibetan)...
Ok ok ok... I will definitly post pic once I get to USA. as I can use my brother in law computer to download the photos.
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