after li jiang

we're back. the flight home was a little unsettling being rater turbulent. we were sitting near the front of the plane where its seems you feel much more movement. it didn't help that one of the stewards kept announcing in a shrill and shaky voice that we were going to hit more every few minutes. nor did the baby sitting a few seats down that screamed continuously. i assured qingwei several times that we are not having children any time soon during this din. we landed at chengdu airport to find it absolutely packed, this is due to the chinese new year of course. our driver was on his way having got stuck in traffic. when he arrived half an hour later he took a wrong turning...circled back and then another, having to drive back to the airport and start again. so it took rather a long time to get home. anyway, a little about li jiang...
li jiang is a town of yunnan province which if you're looking at a map of china is in the south west bordering burma. it is a town surrounded by mountains, sitting approximately 2,500 feet above sea level and is a world cultural heritage site. the climate at this time of year is still fairly mild with temperatures around 15.c. we had at least several hours of decent sunshine every day often with clear deep blue skies all day. li jiang has a long history and the houses are apparently up to 800 years old all being made largely of wood. there is a lot of clean water running through the town which is used for washing clothes, food and bodies (live ones) in which you can see a lot of fish as well - this is very rare in china. normally they would be caught and eaten or unable to breathe for the polluted water.
the place we stayed at was an 'inn' called 'you ran ju' which like the other houses in the town was a very old traditional styled chinese home. it had a lovely courtyard where we ate breakfast in the mornings and another where there was live music in the afternoons - although we were never around to watch it. the downside was that the windows didn't close, the electrics and plumbing were rubbish and most other things didn't work either. but for 5 days it wasn't a problem.
after i had recovered from illness mentioned below, we walked around to take a first look at the town. i should mention here that there are basically 2 li jiangs. the old and the new, each on one side of a mountain. we were staying in the old li jiang. (see images linked at bottom). what we saw was shops and more shops all selling what appeared to be the exact same things. there was the occasional restaurant and if you searched long enough a convenience store for the essentials oh, and bathrooms - and these were something special. the nicest bathrooms i've ever seen in china. feeling slightly disappointed (apart from the great bathrooms) we made plans to get out of the town over the next few days.

the next day we had an early breakfast in the fresh mountain air and left for la shi hi where we were to ride horses along part of the silk route. we arrived to find that we would in fact be riding along a small dirt track. the silk route was in the mountains and that was accessible via a 3hr trek and more expensive ticket. so we mounted our horses. i soon noticed that mine was not attached to the others via a rope. he lacked behind and then suddenly ran to catch up, stopped to eat and then ran ahead of all the others and down a different path. he tried barging past the other horses on a very narrow bridge almost falling in on the way. but i have to say that whilst it was pretty scary at times, it was fantastic fun. we arrived at a wetland and took a boat out into the water which was a relaxing break from having my back broken. i think the point of this boat ride was to see some pretty huge birds that fly there for the winter from siberia. it was nice. sun bounced off the water. cold breeze against our face and freezing our hands. we rode back and caught a lift to another smaller town where we ate noodles and bought some cushion covers. the place was similar to li jiang but less commercial with far fewer people.
i've written too much now so the rest is going to be in note form.
next day my back ached from the horse. at night we went to see a show about the 26 minority cultures of li jiang which was impressive at times but tacky at others. the music was recorded, the actors mimed - they perform the same thing every day. still worth seeing, just didn't feel an authentic experience. slightly plastic.
at some stage we drank wine at a bar with a guy playing guitar and singing - and his voice... amazing... so deep. he had long hair, dark skin and a seriously fantastic voice. the bar was called 'blue bird' apparently. all the other bars were playing awful awful modern 'tibetan' rave music with people in ethnic minority costumes dancing with lights flashing, l.e.d's, lasers - whatever. as you walked past, people outside screamed in your ear over the music to go inside... so this blue bird place was the only place to be - real mellow. the music was still quite loud - it had to be so you could hear it over the other crap - and there was a real nice view looking up the mountain which was flood lit at night. we did in fact walk up this mountain to look over the town and visit what we thought was a temple at the top which after paying an entrance fee we found was made in 1997 and only housed yet more things for sale. this didn't stop some visitors from walking eyes fixed upwards, hands clasped together as if praying, towards the only image of buddha in the joint. however, the sun was shining again and we sat at the top for a while before heading back down.

on the last day we picked up some gifts for people and mementos for ourselves including a seriously amazing hand made leather bag and caught a plane back to pengzhou. flying over mountains is amazing. really amazing. and then a shrill and shaky voice came on the loud speaker...


most of the photos we took were on film but we took a couple of snaps on a digital camera which you can see [here]