Jade Dragon Snow mountain

Going up to 4506m

The plan for the day was to go up to Jade Dragon Snow mountain. We found the bus stop to get there but the bus had just departed. It took about 40 mins to fill up till we could go but we remained productive by checking the bus schedule for our departure tomorrow. And we bought 10x xiaolongbao for only CNY2.50 (NZD0.60)!!! They were very nice.

The bus ride of 40 mins took us to the base or station where another bus took us to the lower end of the cable car. Here, the queue looked long. I had visions of Huangshan where we queued for several hours.

Fortunately we got onto a cable car after an hour. The people flow was continuous with these small cable cars rather than intermittent with bigger ones.

The lower station of the cable car was at 3356m. The ride was impressively beautiful and offered good views of the start of the Tibetan Plateau. The 2968m ride took us to the upper station where it was a short walk to the marker at 4506m. The summit of the mountain itself was 5596m.

There was lots of slippery slush on the walkway to the marker, probably from the number of people walking there and back. This was despite the cold icy wind. Fearing there would be a queue for the cable car back down, we didn’t linger.

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Back in Lijiang

Back in Lijiang’s old town we had lunch at yesterday Old Town Guesthouse located a couple of doors from our guesthouse. They must know what westerners like here and we went along with the sweet and sour pork plus curry vegetables. We finished with a cuppa tea elsewhere before relaxing, walking and generally enjoying the ambience of Lijiang’s old town.

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For dinner, we once again ate at Old Town Guesthouse. It was a little disappointing perhaps due to our choice of meals. We did a little souvenir shopping in the form of a prayer wheel and a small trinket box before going to a Dayan Naxi music concert. Naxi are a non-Han minority in Yunnan that follow matriarchal traditions.

The music was enjoyable but I personally can’t distinguish the music or the instruments from Chinese ones. After an hour, it was getting a little monotonous so we left early. We didn’t want to offend our guesthouse hosts by returning early as they would have known the concert wasn’t over.

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So we popped back into Old Town Guesthouse for a banana pancake. We chatted to a Taiwanese man who works until he has enough money, then travels. Then he repeats it again and again. That’s my aspiration too. [Edit: I did actually attain this lifestyle a couple of years later.]

I tried to burn into my memory the beauty of Lijiang’s old town by night. It was like a fairy wonderland with the traditional houses set amongst running water, illuminated by red lanterns and candles.

We had our latest night out this trip, returning to the guesthouse at 2130. Unfortunately, they had run out of gas to fuel to hot water. Damn!

Ramblings about China

For a communist country, there is a lot of user-pays eg. road tolls. And advertising is everywhere eg. Headrest covers on planes and buses, and even indelibly stamped into the aircraft tables of the planes.

It’s common now for people to have small dogs like Pekingnese and pugs as pets. They are carried fondly in arms or free to roam. However, cats are chained up and birds are caged.

There were a few striped puppies around. I wonder if they have been bleached for special effects.

One of few striped dogs. Perhaps achieved artificially for special effects.