Day 3: Lijiang

The bus arrived at 4am, and of course I was exhausted. We stayed on the bus until 7am, when they woke us up. We wearily dragged our luggage inside the bus station and called our hostel. We had told them we’d be checking in around 7/8am, so they were expecting us. Originally we stepped into a cab but the driver told us he could not drive us to our hotel because it was in the old (pedestrian) part of Lijiang. The hostel’s phone number originally did not work. We must have woken up someone because they called us back after we tried calling them a second time, a person called us back. They said they were open and that we could check in. After negotiating a cab ride and getting lost in part of the back alleys (not creepy back alleys, but quaint large cobblestone path alleyways), we arrived. We wearily checked in. Our room was on the second floor. The outside hallway had various chairs and tables, so after dumping our luggage in the room, Laura and I just drank some hot water and watched the sun rise with a gorgeous mountain backdrop. It was quite bisque at 7:30am but the view was spectacular, especially with a warm cup of water in our hands.

Instead of sleeping in, our book suggested walking around the city before 8am because tours begin to swarm the city after 8am. So we walked through the cobblestone streets, over bridges that went over small streams/canals. Some of the streams had hundreds of orange and white fish! I walked past a place with these glass containers filled with YAK YOGURT. It looked like the delicious yogurt I had while in Beijing, so I immediately bought a glass and it tasted SO GOOD. After finding the main square, we were welcomed by many touristy shops. We wandered around some more, uphill towards a park that supposedly had an entrance fee, but we just walked a bit and watched more of the sunrise in an area that overlooks the entire city. It was gorgeous.

We then walked down the paths and headed back toward the main square. By this time there were many tourists. Our stomachs were rumbling so we stopped at a local place for some noodles. We returned to the hotel and decided to rest a bit before going back out and exploring. After napping for an hour or two, we walked towards a local park. We decided to purchase tickets to a Naxi (a minority group) music concert for that evening. So on our way to the park we bought the tickets in case they sold out. We assumed it was going to be a “tourist authentic” version of music, but we wanted to listen to it anyway. The admission to get in was 80kuai (so expensive!) but Laura’s Lonely Planet book spoke of a free entrance that was another 5 minute walk away. We followed the instructions, got lost, then found the second gate, The guard let some Chinese people in but when we approached he stuck his head out and tried to make us pay. We pretended to just want to know where the museum was (which was right next to the park), so he pointed to the building. Past the building we saw a path and a small footbridge that led straight into the park. There were no guard buildings. So, we just walked past the museum, walked over the bridge and into the park. We wandered around a bit, but were exhausted from the bus ride and all the walking we had already done that day, so we sat down on some stone stools. I had playing cards with me so Laura and I just played card games at the park by the water for maybe an hour or two. The sun started to set so we headed back towards the old city.

We decided to go to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. The food was a bit expensive but good. We had a potato dish, dumplings, some sort of vegetable and rice. We arrived a bit early to the Naxi music performance to get good seats. The music was similar to a Chinese Music Ensemble performance you’d hear at Wesleyan- they had erhus, gongs, drums, and various other instruments.

The problem with the building was that it wasn’t heated, so as it became darker outside the room became colder and colder. After two hours we left early—we were exhausted so we headed home and at the hostel we just bought two beers and played some more card games before going to sleep.