Rooftops of Lijiang

We had a great night’s sleep at last. We woke tomfind the weather had totally changed from the bright day yesterday. It was very cold, damp and overcast, so we were very pleased we’d gone to the park yesterday for the view to Jade Dragon Mountain, which was hidden in cloud today. We went out at 8 to climb to a pagoda only built in 1996 where I got this view down to the old town. We had a 360 degree view so got a sense of the geography. Then we had wander in the “old” town. It has all been rebuilt to a high standard and looks authentic, but it is just miles of shops and restaurants. It is a big tourist hot spot tourist for Chinese, but our group is the only western people I’ve seen. (I’ve only seen one of the ethnic minority who used to live in the old town. I think it is like Kashgar and they are rehoused outside in the new town. Al the shops are owned by Han Chinese.)

We packed up with a small day bag with things we’d need for the night at the Tea Horse guest house, and rain gear etc for tomorrow’s walk which is forecast wet. The bus came to the pick us up at the entrance to the old town, and luggage was loaded from the trishaw, as the bus wasn’t allowed in the old town. The drive took us by cultivated terraces of oil seed rape and wheat for about 2.5 hours. A lot of construction was going on to build a new motorway. We got to a place where the guide had to get permits to get into the gorge. There was a big statue of a tiger leaping. Then it was a short drive through the gorge to the place the bus dropped us off. It was a shame the cloud was down and the mountain tops could not be seen. The gorge stunning. It took me over an hour to walk up the zigzags to the guest house, as not only are we at altitude, it was also steep. But it is alarming how much fitness i’ve Lost in the 5/months since I broke my ankle. In September I was climbing up to the Nanga Parbat base camp which was at a much higher altitude.

We are having an early stir fry dinner at 6 as we only had a banana on the bus.