Thursday, February 11, 2010

Yunnan adventure: DAY 1 & 2..the amazing race goes on :)

And here comes my very first real long adventure in China with my first ever real hike!!!

Sooo...
9 days
4 people
Yunnan province in the Southwest of China

Plan:
1) Lijiang old town
2) Tiger Leaping Gorge 2 day hike
3) Lugu lake that had to be replaced by Dali city ;)


Day 1(more like late evening): Shanghai -> Kunming flight

Day 2: Kunming -> Lijiang flight & Lijiang
Flight was real cool giving a short preview of what to expect...quite impressive with occasional smogs above bigger cities :)

Lijiang from the plane window!

Jade Dragon Snow mountain...plane sightseeing :)

Lijiang is a nice city ~ 2480 m above the sea level, blue sky, fresh air, felt very relaxed, and its Old town is a maze of cobbled streets,canals and shopping opportunities! Rather touristic, but still very nice! The 1996 Lijiang earthquake destroyed most of the city, but the city was reconstructed and in the end of 1990-ies was inluded in UNESCO heritage list.

This kind of signs are all around the Old town...free entertainment :)

Definitely a highlight of the day...sitting by the pot on fire..drinking tea offered by the man on the photo...real relaxing and warming :)

Lijiang

Lijiang

Naxi minority hardworking women.
The people of the Naxi ethnic minority mostly live in the Naxi Autonomous County in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, while the rest live in Sichuan and Tibet. There still exist remnants of a matriarchal family structure within Naxi families. We learned and saw that women do all the hard jobs, earn money, do business, work in field, raise children while men can only be seen sitting around, chatting, playing games and relaxing... that`s like the ultimate step of feminism :))) Thanks, but no, thanks ;)


The Naxi language belongs to the Tibetan-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan phylum. In the past, they used a pictographic language called 'Dongba' and another called 'Geba'. In 1957, they designed characters based on the Latin alphabet and now most can write in Chinese.


Lijiang


Lijiang


Lijiang


Yammy :)

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