Spring Festival Break: Pt 7. We Met On A Mountain-top

Day three in Lijiang started late. We really didn't know what to do with ourselves that day and while watching a load of old Naxi women dance ('sway and...step') in the town square, we were approached by Li, a large Naxi woman, who has a very persuasive manner and excellent English. She wanted to take us on a tour up some mountain to some remote village. We resisted for a while, but bumped into her another three times around town that morning and eventually agreed to go with her on the assurance that we would pay later and making sure we left all our valuables in the hostel safe beforehand.

We needn't have been so apprehensive. She was an honest woman and took us on a fantastic trip up a nearby mountain to a Yi minority village that has no road access. The weather was again beautiful and the scenery breathtaking. We climbed to over 3400m above sea level, well within the range that altitude sickness can have an effect (we're pretty near Tibet and the Himalayas here) and nearly three times the height of the UK's tallest mountain.

We had no problems, and neither did the 69 year old man who walked with us the whole way, only stopping for the occasional fag break.

We soon made it to the Yi village, where we paid a visit to one household and were given tea and potatoes in one woman's new house while she changed into her traditional costume for some photos.

When I say her 'new house' I really mean it. Only a few years old but constructed of mud bricks in the traditional style. For all the poverty the place displayed, they still had satellite TV. They mainly grow potatoes, some corn and marijuana here. They're not pot-heads, much to James' disappointment, but make oil from the seeds
instead. It was all very interesting to see, but a little too much like a human zoo, so it was completely ok when we left soon after to climb back down.

On the way down we met up with Richard, Li's husband, who had taken two other tourists on a tour further up the mountain. These were Ursula and Julia, mother and daughter, from Switzerland and Germany respectively. I dug up my slightly rusty German and we were chatting the whole way down.

At the bottom Li had arranged a discount horse
ride for us all to the shore of the lake below, and in the evening sun we rode around rather pointlessly for about 20 minutes as the promised rare waterbirds failed to show up.

We were all pretty hungry by now and as we were all getting on so well, we went with Li and Richard to have local Naxi Hotpot at a small place they knew. This was where, in addition to James, we discovered that Julia and Ursula were also vegetarians. Bit of an issue in China at the best of times, and certainly an issue when the hotpot came out piled high with steaming ribs of pork. When they protested, our Chinese friends helpfully pointed out that there were vegetables underneath...

It took a good five minutes of explaining and insisting, using such ridiculous comparisons as '...just as the Snow Dragon mountain is so sacred to you that no-one can climb to it's summit, so these people cannot eat anything that has touched meat...' before we finally managed to get a second
hotpot with just vegetable stock and a selection of veggies to add. You can eat damn well as a vegetarian here - I've never seen so many different types of veg before in my life - but you'll find a lot of them cooked with meat products or with a little meat just thrown in as a favour, because if you order no meat they'll assume you're too poor and may take pity. Warm-hearted a gesture as this is, it's been the downfall of many a veggie here.

I have found the Chinese to be very close-minded when it comes to certain ideas (we've been told off many a time for peeling oranges 'the wrong way' - as if there could possibly be more than one way to peel an orange) and vegetarianism is one idea that many just don't get. All the way through the meal Richard and Li just kept looking over to the vegetarian's table and shaking their heads or laughing to themselves in disbelief. I had to field a lot of questions that night...



I had an absolutely excellent time though and we were looked after so well. It was so much better to eat with locals in a recommended restaurant than to sit in one of those touristy places where sex with fruit is encouraged.

I promised them that I would spread the word of their service and so here is a link to their website. They can do anything you want, and always visit places outside the tourist's traditional realm.

Another cool outcome of the mountain trip were our new travelling buddies. We managed to persuade Julia and Ursula to abandon their
planned trip to Hainan (too busy and commercial anyway) and come with us to Chengdu.

Yep, by this point I had lingered in Lijiang for too long, and had just 5 days left until the Spring Festival, which I had said I'd spend in Lanshan. I worked out I'd need about 3 days to get back, and with the possibility of not getting any tickets, it wasn't looking too hopeful. I didn't fancy spending my Spring Festival in a station waiting room so decided to keep on travelling.

The next day therefore was spent chilling and preparing for the next leg of our journey - the
most interesting by far...