Back in the Saddle Again
Lijiang, Yunnan, China
May 24, 2009
Here is more about Lijian and the Naxi (Nashi) people: The Naxi people have been in this area for the past 1400 years and are descendants of Tibetan Qing tribes. It is a matriarchal society. The women have a friend (azhu) system that allows them to take lovers. The man sleeps at the woman's home at night and then goes home to work for his mother during the day. The woman is responsible for raising the children, but the man has to support the children unless they split up. Women inherit all property and a female elder presides over disputes. If female is added to a word it "strengthens" the meaning. Ex: stone + female = boulder; stone + male = pebble. Women wear blue blouses and blue pants with black or blue aprons. They t-shaped cape is light and dark to symbolize night and day, the 7 circles represent stars and the 2 large circles on the shoulders represent frog eyes (used to be an important Naxi god). The purpose of the cape is to prevent chaffing from the baskets that they wear on their backs to carry goods. Old Lijian has countless shops selling all kinds of Chinese traditional arts, paintings, copper wares, handicrafts, accessories and paintings and postcards with the Naxi, Dongba" pictographs. The written language is over 1000 years old and is the only hieroglyphic language still in use today. Dongba are Naxi shamans who were caretakers of the language and religious leaders. The religion is a combination of Buddhism, Islam and Taoism. In the evening, they kick things up a notch. It goes from serene to quite a "scene". The town is lit up and there are red lanterns everywhere. There are singers, bands and karaoke everywhere. Each place is trying to drown out the next. Young people in Naxi traditional clothes try to coax you into their bar or restaurant. That is the history lesson and now back to our normal daily life...
We were up on good time, showered and dropped off our laundry to be done at the hotel for 40 yuan.
Bill had to pay the last of our house utilities and we checked email. Our packages from Bangkok have finally arrived! Yeah!
We walked just outside of the Old Town and had breakfast at Buon Appetito. I had an omelette with mushrooms and tomatoes, bread that was like wafers (big difference from the lovely fresh bread at the last hotel), jam, honey, tea and orange juice. Bill had orange juice, scrambled eggs, bread, jam and honey. We shared some fruit that tasted like apple and pear.
We rented bikes next door for 20 yuan each, but had to leave a deposit of 200 yuan each.
We stopped at the Black Dragon Pool Park first. It was founded in the Qing Dynasty during 1737. There are three symbols at the Civilization Gateway where we entered meaning Black Dragon and Pool. It used to be called Yuquan Dragon King Temple. It is the source for the water in the Old Town. This used to feed wells or pools, if there were 3, 1 was for drinking, 1 was for washing clothes and the other was for washing vegetables.
Sites around the park are Freedom Forest from 1601. It was the former Fuguo Temple gateway. Pence Pavilion was built by donations collected from a Naxi grandmother. It was given this name because she only collected a penny at a time from each person.
The Research Academy for Dongba was founded in the '80's. We had a birch paper making demonstration. Only the shaman can use this paper. A student here was able to give us a good little tour. His English was very good. He showed us some of the samples of the language - it was "Happy Birthday". One of his masters in traditional costume gave us a demonstration of the written language with special ink and brush.
The highlight of the park visit is to see the Five Arch Bridge and the Moon Pavilion with the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background. The bridge has a marble railing with lions (shi) and elephants (xiang). There are 9 outlets which symbolize the 9 dragons harnessing the rivers. The pavilion dates back to 1876 (rebuilt in 1963), Qing Dynasty, and the roof looks like a flying dragon. When it reflects in the pool it looks like a dragon in the sky and a dragon on earth.
At the Five Phoenix Pavilion there was a guy giving a demonstration of painting with ink using his hands, fingers and nails to paint landscapes. This was built as a village and family temple for a Mu chieftain in 1601. The roof looks like 5 phoenixes flying...
We started to head out of town and stopped at Mama Mio's for lunch. It is run by two guys from Italy; we met Simone from Pisa. We ordered a pizza with prosciutto, tomato, mozzarella, and pepper. We had a mineral water and TsingTao Beer. The pizza was very good and Simone was a great host. It is the best Italian food that we have had since Erie St in Windsor.
We detoured slightly and ended up at the ticket office for Longquasa Village. They would not accept our Park ticket and wanted 50 yuan, so we moved on. Bill had seen the turn for Banyan Tree Hotel, but had not mentioned that this is where we needed to turn, so we went back and up that road. At the hotel we made a left and then came to a jog. We headed up and around the hotel and then we expected to see Baisha (Bays Ya), but did not. We took a road into the village to our left and headed back toward Longquasa. We ended up at another entrance to the village where you have to pay to enter. Again, we turned around and headed back to the bend, around the hotel and further North.
Our Lonely Planet map and the map from the bike rental office are not helping us very much. We also have a map that we purchased in Dali that includes Lijiang too. I am not sure why none of them are to scale or do not include all the streets or street names... It is very frustrating!
We saw a sign for Baisha and a street called Fougo, so we headed that way. We rode around the village and past another one. The is supposed to be a fork in the road, but we never saw one. We were getting tired, so after a bit we turned around and went into Baisha. The road was cobblestone and was difficult to ride on. Bill's seat would not stay flat so we walked with our bikes for a bit and then switched. The seat stayed for me until we reached the cafes and shops.
We had a coke and some water. They served sunflower seeds, but they were unseasoned and a lot of work to open so we did not have many. Bill relaxed while I walked up the street. I like the medallions that are used at the end of a roof, the yin and yang coins, the lion door handles, the Mao hats that were for sale, but did not buy anything. Honestly it is just too exhausting sometimes. You can not just inquire about the price without entering into a negotiation. I am just curious, I really don't want to carry more things around from place to place! I like price tags, it makes life easier!
I saw Dr Ho's office, but did not go in (famous Taoist physician). I did not seen any frescos or temples that are supposed to be points of interest in the town.
We rode back to Lijiang without taking any detours. We did take some time on the way back to take a picture of the wheat fields and a guy herding his cows (holsteins). We saw lots of people working in the fields and using the road to dry and separate the wheat. Many of the people were wearing traditional clothing.
In Lijiang we stopped at the market and looked around at the fruits, veggies, meat, industrial sized stainless steel bowls, household items,... It was not the most exciting market, but we did end up overpaying for a mango and a couple of oranges (4.5 yuan). We did not buy the small shampoo for 18 yuan.
We dropped off the bikes and I am injury free today! We checked out the street food, but nothing looked terribly interesting there either. So, we went to Lamu's House of Tibet and I had Indian Milk Tea and BIll had 2 cokes. I had some cheese balls (like ricotta with flour and sugar deep fried) that were pretty good. We waited out the short burst of rain and then stopped at a few tour offices.
Most of the tourism offices do not have English speaking staff. We found two places that spoke some English (one very good), but it does not seem like there are any English guides. It would be a shame to pay for a tour and not get any of the background, but that is maybe what we are going to have to do.
We went back to the hotel and I had a nap because someone is using the computer. After our break we went back out and checked a few other tour offices.
I went into a shop while Bill was at a bank machine and purchased an inexpensive bracelet with some jade on it (and maple leaves).
We wandered in and out of several restaurants that either had no food or no English or not what we were looking for. We were forced to choose a spot when it started raining. We went to Maxi Restaurant. We had pork and veggies (hot green peppers) and beef with fried noodles (very little meat) and a warm Dali Beer. We had to look up the word "ice". We could have ordered fungus, bark or dragonfly...
We went to the Prague cafe a few doors down and I had a Masala Chai (same as Indian Milk Tea) and Bill had Dali Beer. We were going to play Rummy, but were told "no cards". So, I wrote for Nigel while we finished our drinks. I tried the internet, but it was painfully slow.
We came back to the hotel and used the internet here after a short wait.
It was after midnight when we went to bed. Bill did not fall asleep until 2:30 and I had dreams again all night for the 6th night in a row. Strange!
We have decided that the bikes today had the most uncomfortable seats, the bikes in Bagan were the crappiest and the bikes in Siem Reap were the most painful. The bikes in Yangshuo were the best (we also paid the most...).