Lijiang, China
I and a freind of mine went to Lijiang in late of Jan 2009. We flew to Kunming and took a bus to Lijiang in the following day. Lijiang City is in Yunnan Province and is the main region inhabited by Naxi Group, one of China’s 55 minority ethnic groups. In its long history, the local residents have established their splendid Dongba Culture which has absorbed aspects of the culture of Tibet and the Central Plains along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. Traveling to Lijing is considered easy as there are many trasportation connected from many major cities in China, or even from abroad. My impression from Lijing was The Old Town where you can feel ancient Naxi culture.
I would recommend to spend at least 3 days in Lijiang. Walking through the Old Town every day made me feel like I was there months ago and feeling just really cool. We loved the Chinese tea served with apple pie in a Tibetan Cafe’ and I was later found this cafe’ a shelter of mine after along day walk exploring the city. We walked all the way to the Black Dragon Pool to its lovelynatural scenery together with traditional building styles with snow mountain (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain)on the background. Visiting Lijiang in Late Jan was a good idea as when we were there, it was not very cold during the day time and nice to have a long walk, but during the night time? I’d tell you how freeze it was!! There was an electronic bed and blanket provided at the hostel we stayed…But..that helped just a little and we had to sleep with a paranoid kind of feeling that we had the electronic covering us over the night…quite an expereince, ha.
We took a bus no# 7 from the city to the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain on the following day. It must have been a result from the global warming that it didn’t snow that much as we expected on the top of the mountain, and I realized that this is just getting worst with our climate changes these days. Our trip was just on the very last of the Chinese New Year or the beginning of Spring in China which I should have been aware off. But finally the sudden trip had come out after catching the Super Deals airfare to Kunming, so I was not hesitated at all even it was the Big festival acrossed the country. So it seemed that everywhere we went, there were crowded already with the Chinese celebrating their traditional festival and traveled during this long holiday. Eventhough it took us couple hours to wait for the pass to the cable car which would take us up to the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain and another hour to come down to catch the bus bak to the city, but it was nice experience to see the atmosphere of the huge festival.
After 4 days in a beautiful Lijiang, we catched a night sleeping bus back to Kunming where we were going to spend another 2 nights there. It was quite an experience traveling with a sleeping bus in China. It looked like a bed on the train but smaller, or I would say tiny and didn’t seem to allow you for toss & turn. We were on a very fast bus which reached Khunming within 7 hours instead of 9 and with people smoking along the trip while we tried hard to sleep. Though it seemed pretty nightmare to me, but we were arrived Kunming saved and sounded and would recommend that if you plan to visit Lijiang, try to take the train or a day trip bus. If if you don’t mind the smoking game going along the night, sleeping bus is still an expereince though.. ha ha ha.
Enjoy your trip!