Lijiang

If I had to sum up Lijiang in 3 words: Amazing Mountainous Clean air. Okay that’s two words and a phrase, but still. Really nice. My flight from Chengdu to Lijiang was really early in the morning, like, leave Chengdu at 5 to get to the airport. Early. Blah. Arriving in lijiang I was nervous because I was banking on the shuttle to downtown to get there. Thankfully the airport is so small there are only 2 doors, one for departures, and one for arrivals, and I had no problem finding the bus that was just outside the arrivals door. It was cool and rainy when I arrived, which I had feared but was going to have a good trip no matter what. From the shuttle station I got a taxi but the woman was like, “this place is in old town, so I can’t take you there.” I’m like, “well, how about nearby? Can you tell me how to get there?” Lijiang’s old town is pedestrian-ized, but my hostel (so I’d read) was actually on one of the few outer streets that could have cars. My driver was just being a nasty woman. But I was groggy, had to trust her since I had no idea where I was going, and so I didn’t argue and hoped she’d 1. Take me to the right place and 2. Tell me where to go. She stops and points and I’m like really? She was pointing down this alley that looked like it led to her friend’s psycho killer home. Okay, I’m dramatizing a bit but it was rainy and I was tired. Luckily, once I go down the alley I see a sign “Panba Hostel ” yay!
I check in, it’s still rainy, and go to put my stuff in my room, the place seems almost empty. I’m in a room with 4 beds, and 2 of the beds have stuff on them. My door opens and who is it but my roommates for the next few days, Brynn and Elliot, from Ohio! From the Cleveland area! They seemed super cool, I was so relieved because I hadn’t really met anyone cool in Chengdu. Not only that but it was the first time in almost a year I was around people who sounded like me, said the same sayings, had the same accents, I had never really missed that before but it was certainly nice to have around. They invited me to watch a movie with them, so I got settled in and met them downstairs where they’d started watching Kungfu Panda, how China appropriate, besides being a cute movie.
The sun came out as we were watching the movie, while still mostly cloudy at least it’d stopped raining. They invited me to walk around with them but I opted to go out on my own, we made plans to have dinner with the staff at the hostel later that evening.
By the way, our hostel was really nice, and everyone who worked there was amazing, here’s my plug for Panba Hostel if you’re ever going to Lijiang, it’s the place to stay. It was clean, cozy, great location and great staff.
So I walked around (in the wrong direction) for about a half hour, got caught in a downpour under my tiny, broken umbrella, but finally found my way to the heart of old town. They (lonely planet and others) say that Lijiang (which means beautiful river btw) is a wonderful little town that has old city charm, some even call it the Venice of China because of the canals that run through town. Others say that it’s too touristy and not worth the walk through. I tend to agree with the former opinion. Yeah Lijiang has its share of tourist streets, but at least they’re dressed up with old style architecture. And the thing that I’m most concerned about, food, well you can always find decent traditional food. And oh boy did we find lots of it. More on that in a bit. Lijiang is beautiful and it and the Tiger Leaping Gorge are the first places in China that I’ve told myself I must come back to see again one day. When the sky started to clear on that first day and I say the blue, blue sky, I was awestruck. After living in what is deemed a “clean” city for 10 months I’d gotten used to the haze that obstructs the true color of the sky from shining through. In Dalian I’d tricked myself into believing that the color the sky was there on a clear day was the color of the sky. And so in Lijiang I remember asking Elliot and Brynn, “is that really the color the sky is?” and them being a little confused about how to answer, since it was just a small patch through the clouds, and of course the sky is that color. The canals in Lijiang are not big enough to carry a gondola, but rather small streams that run along the sides of streets so that many places must be accessed by a small bridge. The water is impeccably clear, and you can see many shops using the water for, well, lots of things (let’s hope not cooking though, not sure it’s that clean). The water originates from a mountain spring, and there’s a park on the outskirts of old town (Black Dragon pool) where you can see little bubbles rising from the ground beneath the crystal clear water while you gaze upon the towering snow capped peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the distance.
That afternoon I met Matt, a cool guy(from Portland) who not only loved to eat as much as I do but had been travelling for something like 8 months, Europe, South Africa for the World Cup, Trans-Siberian, Mongolia, China, then onwards to Tibet and other places. He was in the midst of planning his Tibet trip when I sat down across from him to read a book. We started chatting and it turned out he too was planning on going to Tiger Leaping Gorge, but the next day (my plans were for the day after). I brought up maybe going together, and he was down, yay! I was happy not only for the company but that of a cool guy who also happened to be a solo-traveler. Staff dinner was yummy, if a little salty, and the conversation was a mix of English, Chinese, and a little Japanese (the 4th in our room joined us for dinner, Sako? from Japan, who was fluent in English and studying Chinese). We all just hung around talking that evening, it was a lot of fun.
At some point that evening Rob and Reve arrived from Dali, where Matt had also just been, at the same hostel. A couple from New Zealand, the reigning authority on everything travel (for the last 8 years or so they’ve been travelling on and off all over the world), and just really chill people. The 6 of us (Myself, Matt, Brynn, Elliot, Rob and Reve) kinda hung out over the next week whenever we were in the same place). We walked around the old town, ate awesome food together, though Matt and I championed that one. There was this little northeast style restaurant just down the road from our place, and Matt wanted dumplings, so we went there. He was appreciative of my being able to order (I was happy to be useful to everyone in translation services all week, kinda fun actually). Well we went back again later that week a couple more times and I chatted a bit with the lady who ran it, she turned out to be from a city not too far away from Dalian, how fun! I translated her menu for her, and she was much appreciative, and a blast to talk to. But anyway, we ate all kinds of good things that week. Tibetan dumplings called momos, with curry and vegetable fillings, yum! Yak, which was actually pretty good. Baba, which is the local specialty bread. For breakfast every day we had Naxi pizza (Naxi is the local minority people), which was fresh baba with an egg cooked into it, and this homemade smoked chili sauce, so good, also a 10 minute walk from the hostel. delish.

From the feisty woman who sold us postcards and chinese medicine to the honey guy to sitting around a table, being with good people, lijiang was awesome. And of course tiger leaping gorge, but that gets its own special post.