misadventures: Spring Festival Break: Pt 5. Lijiang

Oh, Lijiang. Lovely, lovely Lijiang. Just the prettiest town I've seen in China. Amazingly well-preserved architecture, a maze of fascinating tiny alleyways to get lost down, mountain views, great food, lots of traditional minority stuff going on, and a lively nightlife.

Maria, James and I found a nice hostel in the old town called First Bend Inn, which was perfect. The staff were really friendly and helpful and the courtyard which each room opened on to (top pic) was beautiful enough for me to overlook the fact that the squatters only had waist high stall partitions.

We ate lunch in a cafe situated within an old four-storey house on the edge of the town square. From the top floor we watched people come and go beside the river bridge, had our photos taken by Chinese tourists, admired the view and took in some sun.

Then we went exploring. We'd hardly walked 5 minutes up one alley when we heard the sound of music being played (nb. not the film). Curious, we followed and came another guesthouse round a courtyard where a couple of Chinese guys were playing guitars and singing. The girl who worked there invited us in and we all shared a beer together, just listening and enjoying the atmosphere. Most laid-back thing I've done in ages.

We promised the guys we'd come to their gig that night and carried on our explorations. At the top of a hill overlooking the town we bumped into a couple of other westerners, Steve and Grey, got chatting and shared another beer.

Both are teachers here but Grey is also researching parts of China for a new travel guidebook. I've forgotten what the hell it's called now, but it's a kind of alternative to the Lonely Planet and other such guides. While most guides concentrate on pretty sights and lovely little day-trips this one is more

for the traveller who wants to 'have fun', if you know what I mean, in various dodgy and dubious ways. It's the anti-Lonely Planet. I may be in it even, if and when it ever gets finished. While Grey sure knew how to have fun, his note-keeping was not the best. And even when he did write stuff down, urgent calls of nature meant some had to be put to another use... When you gotta go, you gotta go, and if you're not carrying your own supply of tissues, well, you gotta improvise...

We met up with him again in the evening to go to a bar, Sakura, where the musician's we'd met earlier in the day were playing. The bar street was something else. It's a little old street, quaint as can be, with a small river running through a channel down one-side and bridged by small wooden ledges built to access the many ancient buildings now being used as bars. Most have open fronts and at least two-storeys and it was a beautiful sight at night with everything it up. Most striking though were the apparent slanging matches between the staff at various different bars. All the (usually) girls at each bar would stand outside or lean out the top storey and sing/shout at the top of their lungs at the girls from the bars opposite, always rounding off with a cry of "ya so, ya so, ya ya so!". Then, the girls from the other side would shout back, and so it would go on. I don't know why. Created atmosphere though. We listened to covers of Chinese classics, drank beer, shouted at people across the street with everyone else and ate fried silkworms. It was a good night.