Living Lijiang Loca

2 August 2009

Left the next morning for Lijiang. Lijiang exists mainly to make me feel better for missing Shangri-La, I believe. It's 100 times as quaint and Ye Olde as Shangri-la, with 10 times as many shops. Lost Jen along the way to the hotel (we had our own Team Softcore trek getting to it from the only parking lot big enough to handle the truck), and spent ages looking for her. All very boring. The hotel was lovely, though, with a view out over the rooftops of the Old City and a little courtyard with paving stones laid to show auspicious bats in each corner and beers for 5 yuan—about 85 cents. Lijiang is extremely touristy—in a fascinating way, as mot of the tourists are Chinese. Personally, after a lifetime of Chinese tourists abroad, it's very absorbing to watch them be strangers in their own country (FYI: they take just as many photos here).

The city is full of little cobbled alleys, all lined with shops and exhibiting a wide array of extremely crap-English signs exhorting the reader to be more civilized. The usual old lady dancers were about (no paensions in modern China, they are paid to be cute), as well as exorbitantly priced restaurants and random white people. Bought a beaded top, completely unnecessary for my bush-camp laden life, and a tie-dye cotton wrap, and wooden dragon necklace, and suspect I may have finally morphed into a convincing replica of a hippie. Oh, god. Hi, Lizzie.

After the best Mexican meal I've had in China (gracias, Rosa Maria at the Frosty Morning), Amy and Lou and David and I spent some time admiring a bald Chinese guy singing badly at a tourist place on Bar Street, nursing overpriced beers. Awesome.