Day 11: Dali or Lijiang?

Dali or Lijiang? Which one do you prefer? This is a common question that you will hear fellow travellers discuss. So it is time for me to find out my preferance. After getting an email from Chris last night, I got to know that he is also in Dali now and so we decided to meet for breakfast. I told him that I will see him at his guesthouse. But once again, we failed to meet. For some reason I cant locate his guesthouse and when I ask around, noone seems to know where is it. After looking around for about an hour, I gave up and headed back to my guesthouse. There, I met an korean and we chatted for awhile.



Afterwhich, I packed up my stuff and am ready to leave for Lijiang.



Taking the road that runs between the lake and the mountain,



it was quite an enjoyable ride.



But it was not for long that I had to once again ascend . Lijiang is situated at an even higher ground than Dali and it was a slow crawl up the mountain for my tiny underpowered bike.



I decided to take a old but shorter road but when I made my turn, I saw this. No choice, had to take the longer way.



After a long day of riding. I finally reached Lijiang Old Town. Unlike Dali, no vehicle is allowed into the Old Town. Everyone has to park at the carpark outside. BUt when I turned into the carpark, the carpark attendance told me that no motorcycle is allowed. So I asked him then where do I park? He replied dont know. Then I told him I dont mind paying the same price as a car pays. But he still gave me a straight no. "Noone has ride a motorcycle here before, everyone comes by bus or car, so no", that what he told me. How can that be so, right? Even if it is so, there is always a first time. Why cant he be more flexible? As a result, I ended up parking my motorcycle in an alley with the tyre chained to a pillar. I just prayed hard that it will still be around when I come for it the next day.





Lijiang is so different from Dali. It is huge. Its streets are like a maze. It is easy to lose your way. But it is in a way more beautiful. It has streams running through the old town and small bridges for you to cross, it is just like a scene out of the television. And by the way, Lijiang is the home of the Naxi Minority group, so it is of a different culture here. Here are some photos of the streets.









The famous square market of the old town.









After walking around abit, I went to the hill behind the old town which has a great view of the whole old town. You can see how huge this old town is.







LOOK AT THAT!!! Haha, my signature shot agian. That's me flying.



There is a temple within this hill.















And from there you can have an overview of Lijiang New City.



Then I went back to explore the old town again. Went to see the traditional 3 pit well of the town.



Click on this picture to enlarge it to read the explanation.



This is the main well where water is taken for consumption.



Then the water flows down to the second pit where people washes their vegetables and lastly the water flows down to the third pit where clothes are washed.



A combination of old and new.



While I was walking down the streets I saw this poor little chap shlivering like mad. It has just drop into the water. It must be very cold. Even I feel cold when I am wearing 2 layers of clothes. Poor thing. See the video.





Within this old town lies the Mu Residance who was once a powerful figure.





Peeking into the Mu residance.



More photos taken in the streets.











It is common to see signs like this that tells you that they have vacant rooms.



This is interesting. Look at the video to see how they make use of water to do work for them in the past.







Time for dinner



Tried the Naxi speciality, Ji1 Dou4 Liang2 Fen3



Then came in 2 other chinese from GuiZhou. They were so friendly. Although we sat at different table, we chatted and they gave me some soup. Also, they ordered a special dish, Tree Bark with Fried Egg and they gave me some. TREE BARK?? WAH!! I got to try it. The granny of the shop also kept asking me if I have enough and if I wanted more vegetables She kept giving me some. So nice of her.



Here are my new found friends from GuiZhou.



The friendly waitress. She of Naxi Minority.



Lijiang became more beautiful after dark.















Traditional chinese candy making in progress.



The down side of Lijiang is that it is too commericalised. There are pubs everywhere. Loud music, people dancing etc. It spoilts the whole traditional Old Town feel. Watch the video. Dali is better in this sense.











More night view of this beautiful old town.







The hostel that I am staying at.



The view from my room.



In my room, I met a taiwanese who also love motorcycle.



He used to be repairing motorcycle for 10 years. He told me about an annual cross desert race held here in china. Hmmm..... Now he got me interested. Maybe my next ride??? But I am not into race, I only love touring. Hmmm.... We shall see.



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