Lijiang - China
7/7/05
Dali was a laid-back and pleasant place to be, but we had to move on. A five-hour bus trip took us to Lijiang, at the height of 2400 meters.
Lijiang is set in a beautiful valley and it is home of the Naxi people. The women use blue blouses and trousers covered by a blue or black-apron. The T shaped traditional cape protects from baskets worn on the back and also symbolizes the heavens.
They created a written language, over 1000 years ago, using pictographs; it is the only hieroglyphic language still in use.
We didn't do much on the same day of arrival. From the bus station we went to a guesthouse in the old town, but out of the noisy touristy area. The place is run by a family and we were welcomed like if we were old friends. The place had a nice quiet garden and we were served tea and boiled corn.
There was an old woman, probably the mom of the family, very interested in talking to the guests, but she knows only a few words in English; Angie had a good time trying to communicate with her in Chinese.
She had a magazine with an article about the communist times in Lijiang where she appears as an active member of the party.
At the end of the day we went around the old town for a walk. It is crisscrossed by canals, bridges and amazing narrow streets.
We stopped in one of the many tea shops and, again, the attendants were unbelievably nice to us. We sat to try some different tea at the most authentic Chinese way, with the tiny tea cups. They had a lot of fun trying to understand our broken Chinese and they even took our picture (their camera) for the posterity. And of course, we took one too!
After a lot of tea we walked to the higher part of the old town where is possible to see the gray tiled roofs overlapping each other in tangled disarray and their ends turned up nicely.
7/8/05
Well, on the second day in Lijiang, the quiet place with a chili temperature was the perfect combination for us to catch up with the sleeping, something that we haven't been doing much lately; so we slept the whole morning. :)
With the batteries fully recharged, we left in the afternoon to climb the mount at the Black Dragon Pool Park.
Mao Zedong's statue in Lijiang is a mandatory picture, so here it is. Erected in 1976, the year of his death, the statue is placed in a square right in front the bus station as if greeting anyone arriving in the city.
A steady 40-minute upstairs walk to a peak where from there is a nice view of the 5500 meters high, Jade Dragon Mountain.
Around the pool, we found this, quite peculiar, sign and wondered if it was badly translated or if it really means what it means.
After the mount we walked back to the old town to explore its narrow streets and old houses. It is a real maze where you can get lost easily.
We had dinner outside in a nice street by the sound of a Chinese acoustic version of Bob Marley's Woman No Cry, it sounds quite interesting.
7/9/05
The third day in Lijiang was not so lazy. We biked to Baisha, another village 8 kilometers on the plain north of Lijiang. Baisha, a collection of dirt roads and stone houses ...
... is home of this very special medic, so famous in the region and somewhat famous abroad, Dr. Ho Shi-Xiu.
Dr. Ho has developed unique medical treatments based on the use of herbs. He was born in 1923 and graduated in 1949, as of now, more than 300 thousand patients from over 100 countries have visited him to seek medical advice. In addition, the doctors at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S.A. worked with him in researching herbal treatment of leukemia with fully documented successful cases.
His son, daughter and daughter-in-law are also following his steps.
Not too long ago, TF1 from France, produced a documentary about him and in case you want to know more, a German woman, Julia Bergen, made a movie entitled 'The Most Admired Man'.
After all this propaganda we couldn't leave without buying some of his tasty miraculous - good for everything - Healthy Tea, as himself like to call it. There are many others, there are teas for a whole load of different illness.
After that historical moment, we left on our bikes, but not too far from Dr. Ho's clinic, we came across this band playing a music just like the ones you hear when the Kung Fu fights keeps your eyes on the screen on the Chinese movies. Angie was even invited to play along with them.
Since there was no Kung Fu, just music, we didn't stay too long; a nice old lady, in her T shaped back-apron Naxi costume invited us to her place. She speaks no English but carries around a little book with the impressions left by the tourists she convinced to visit her place.
We decided we should give a try and went with her along the narrow streets that leads to her house. Here too, there was a nice garden behind the high walls and a table where we were served tea, peanuts and salty roasted sunflower seeds. She even had a spare costume and dressed up Angie as a Naxi.
Few minutes after we left Baisha to go back to Lijiang, it started raining. So, at least 7 of the 8 km going back, were done under rain.
Back at the guesthouse, we took a shower and went out for dinner, and local place asks for local food; we had Baba, a kind of vegetable pita bread and snails.
Dali was a laid-back and pleasant place to be, but we had to move on. A five-hour bus trip took us to Lijiang, at the height of 2400 meters.
Lijiang is set in a beautiful valley and it is home of the Naxi people. The women use blue blouses and trousers covered by a blue or black-apron. The T shaped traditional cape protects from baskets worn on the back and also symbolizes the heavens.
They created a written language, over 1000 years ago, using pictographs; it is the only hieroglyphic language still in use.
We didn't do much on the same day of arrival. From the bus station we went to a guesthouse in the old town, but out of the noisy touristy area. The place is run by a family and we were welcomed like if we were old friends. The place had a nice quiet garden and we were served tea and boiled corn.
There was an old woman, probably the mom of the family, very interested in talking to the guests, but she knows only a few words in English; Angie had a good time trying to communicate with her in Chinese.
She had a magazine with an article about the communist times in Lijiang where she appears as an active member of the party.
At the end of the day we went around the old town for a walk. It is crisscrossed by canals, bridges and amazing narrow streets.
We stopped in one of the many tea shops and, again, the attendants were unbelievably nice to us. We sat to try some different tea at the most authentic Chinese way, with the tiny tea cups. They had a lot of fun trying to understand our broken Chinese and they even took our picture (their camera) for the posterity. And of course, we took one too!
After a lot of tea we walked to the higher part of the old town where is possible to see the gray tiled roofs overlapping each other in tangled disarray and their ends turned up nicely.
7/8/05
Well, on the second day in Lijiang, the quiet place with a chili temperature was the perfect combination for us to catch up with the sleeping, something that we haven't been doing much lately; so we slept the whole morning. :)
With the batteries fully recharged, we left in the afternoon to climb the mount at the Black Dragon Pool Park.
Mao Zedong's statue in Lijiang is a mandatory picture, so here it is. Erected in 1976, the year of his death, the statue is placed in a square right in front the bus station as if greeting anyone arriving in the city.
A steady 40-minute upstairs walk to a peak where from there is a nice view of the 5500 meters high, Jade Dragon Mountain.
Around the pool, we found this, quite peculiar, sign and wondered if it was badly translated or if it really means what it means.
After the mount we walked back to the old town to explore its narrow streets and old houses. It is a real maze where you can get lost easily.
We had dinner outside in a nice street by the sound of a Chinese acoustic version of Bob Marley's Woman No Cry, it sounds quite interesting.
7/9/05
The third day in Lijiang was not so lazy. We biked to Baisha, another village 8 kilometers on the plain north of Lijiang. Baisha, a collection of dirt roads and stone houses ...
... is home of this very special medic, so famous in the region and somewhat famous abroad, Dr. Ho Shi-Xiu.
Dr. Ho has developed unique medical treatments based on the use of herbs. He was born in 1923 and graduated in 1949, as of now, more than 300 thousand patients from over 100 countries have visited him to seek medical advice. In addition, the doctors at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S.A. worked with him in researching herbal treatment of leukemia with fully documented successful cases.
His son, daughter and daughter-in-law are also following his steps.
Not too long ago, TF1 from France, produced a documentary about him and in case you want to know more, a German woman, Julia Bergen, made a movie entitled 'The Most Admired Man'.
After all this propaganda we couldn't leave without buying some of his tasty miraculous - good for everything - Healthy Tea, as himself like to call it. There are many others, there are teas for a whole load of different illness.
After that historical moment, we left on our bikes, but not too far from Dr. Ho's clinic, we came across this band playing a music just like the ones you hear when the Kung Fu fights keeps your eyes on the screen on the Chinese movies. Angie was even invited to play along with them.
Since there was no Kung Fu, just music, we didn't stay too long; a nice old lady, in her T shaped back-apron Naxi costume invited us to her place. She speaks no English but carries around a little book with the impressions left by the tourists she convinced to visit her place.
We decided we should give a try and went with her along the narrow streets that leads to her house. Here too, there was a nice garden behind the high walls and a table where we were served tea, peanuts and salty roasted sunflower seeds. She even had a spare costume and dressed up Angie as a Naxi.
Few minutes after we left Baisha to go back to Lijiang, it started raining. So, at least 7 of the 8 km going back, were done under rain.
Back at the guesthouse, we took a shower and went out for dinner, and local place asks for local food; we had Baba, a kind of vegetable pita bread and snails.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 1:05 AM
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