China Day 9: Lijiang

James and I awoke the next morning -- bright and early, as usual -- to catch the first bus back to Lijiang. We took a break at our favorite pit stop and got some more strawberries and seasoned potato kabobs. When we arrived in Lijiang we were instantly approached by a tall, thin woman of about 50 who showed us to a nice little hotel hidden in the maze of streets, where we threw down our bags for the night.

I took some time to explore Lijiang -- a serious maze of Naxi architecture and cobbled streets which will inevitably lead you to get lost. It took me 30 minutes just to find the hotel, and the whole town is probably less than a square mile in area. A UNESCO World Heritage site (for its architecture), Lijiang is FULL of Chinese tourists. I mean HORDES AND HORDES of Chinese tourists. I saw less than 10 white people the entire time I was there. Granted it was a holiday and many Chinese had a few days off, I don't doubt that on a typical day it's much less crowded.

The massive tour groups with their neon hats and the guide holding a flag takes away quite a bit of the charm of an old town, but Lijiang grows on you after a while. It certainly hasn't got the uniqueness of Dali or the serenity of Shangri-La, but it does have a quaint personality with lots of ancient influence. There are still tons of stores selling song bowls, prayer wheels, and typical Tibetan antiques and jewelery, but also several tea shops, artistry shops (and even a gallery or two), and, the most interesting, are several shops which carve personalized stamps -- square ones to use with red ink, as an artist's signature on a brush painting.

We stayed in Lijiang for one evening, and packed up the next morning to jump on a bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge...