"The Abolishment of the Most Reactionary, Darkness, Brutal, Ruthless Feudal Serfdom"

Obviously it's been awhile...I only have one more post, about the Potala Palace, before I'm out of things to say about our travels the past year, and I think subconsciously I didn't want the trip (and this blog) to end, so I never got around to the last post. Unless you've been living under a rock, though, you can't have missed the demonstrations in Tibet over the past couple of weeks, and I wanted to say something about that, so here I am.

First, let me say that China is an amazing place. It's a vast country (almost the same size as the U.S.) with a rich history that I could spend my entire life studying and still barely scratch the surface. I find the culture of the dominant Han ethnic group to be fascinating even as it's changing at an astonishing rate. China is an exciting place to be, what with the upcoming Olympics and the breakneck speed of development, and I wouldn't trade a minute of our time there. But even with the new economic developments and freedoms of everyday life, there is also a lot of darkness. That darkness, which includes not only the pollution and hassles of living under a pseudocommunist state but abysmal human rights, is a major reason why we left Beijing ahead of schedule--it became too hard to ignore the dark side of the current government.

Let me be frank: That stuff you hear about human rights violations in China? It's all true and then some. It's hard to be in a place where the government is so paranoid that it insists on tracking virtually every move of its citizens and visitors--a daunting task for a country of more than a billion, but they're sure giving it their best shot. In addition, the Han ethnic group is the majority, but there are a lot of minorities, too. China is home to more than 50 minority groups, although it seems they wish this weren't the case. The minority groups that are small enough not to pose a threat are turned into tourist attractions in China's very own version of It's a Small World. Han Chinese have flooded the south of China and Tibet not only as tourists but as settlers of a sort, colonizing towns like Dali and Lijiang with their endless souvenir shops. Needless to say, there's a lot of resentment toward the Han in these places.

No place has it as bad as Tibet, though. When the Communists took over, they stormed Tibet, which had long had ties with China, it's true, but had also been more or less independent for hundreds of years. Hundreds of thousands Tibetans were killed, and eventually the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader, fled to India, where he's now head of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala. On top of that, the Chinese have attempted what amounts to cultural genocide, trying to control the religion and culture and encouraging Han Chinese to settle in Tibet in an effort to outnumber ethnic Tibetans.

When we visited the Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Lamas past and present, we first stopped at a museum at the base of the palace, where we were stunned by the outright lies of the Chinese propaganda. I've posted a photo of one of the signs (click on it to make it bigger). It reads as follows:

"Tibet has been an important part of China since the ancient times. Tibetan and the people living in the south area of Yellow River had close relations and the central political power is throughout exercising the effective jurisdiction over Tibet. On May 23, 1951, the Central People's Government and the old Tibet Local Government signed the Seventeen Point Agreement for the peaceful liberation of Tibet. In 1959, Tibet implemented the democratic reform, and completely abolished the most reactionary, darkness, brutal, ruthless, feudal serfdom. In September, 1965, Tibet Autonomous Region was established officially Tibetan history had turned a brand new page."




Tibet certainly turned a brand new page with the Chinese takeover, but not in the way they're implying. Clearly, China wishes it could rewrite history. Their suggestion that Tibet has been part of China is as accurate as saying that Mongolia is part of China. All three have been interconnected for centuries, but that doesn't mean China has the right to take over Mongolia, and it doesn't mean it had the right to take over Tibet.

The Dalai Lama compared the current situation as a young deer in a tiger's hand. I'm not an expert, obviously. There are all kinds of articles in the papers and online that give more details and facts than I ever could; I'm just reporting my point of view as someone who lived in Beijing for a short while and traveled fairly extensively around the country. Tibet was the most vibrant, heartbreaking place we visited; fortunately, the tiger hasn't broken its spirit yet. I just hope that doesn't change.

Wild Wall

One of the things we knew we had to do before leaving was return to the Great Wall. When we visited a year ago, our tour included the wall, of course, but it was totally Disneyfied, and we wanted to see the real, unrestored version.






There are a few different sections of wall near Beijing. The closest, Badaling, is also the most touristy and restored. If you remember from the pictures I posted last October, the first part of the wall was jam-packed with tourists, and it took us 20 minutes to get out of the bottleneck to where we could at least go at our own pace. (That was also during one of the biggest holidays of the year, so there were extra tourists, but it's still supposed to be pretty bad all year round.)







Lucky for us, some hostels do tours to the unrestored portions of the wall. We chose to do an 8-kilometer hike from Jinshanling to Simitai, two sections of the wall that are about 3 hours outside of Beijing. At both ends, the wall is fairly restored, especially at Simitai, but in between, it's all wild wall (as they call the overgrown sections of the wall).







It only took us about 3 hours to do the hike. In parts, it was steep and a little tricky because of the rubble, but for the most part it wasn't a hard hike. It was great to get out of the city (even if the sky was still a little hazy), and the wall itself was incredible, obviously! Our pictures don't do it justice.






I highly recommend the hike, which is through the Beijing Downtown Backpackers hostel. Even if you're not much of a hiker, though, I would still recommend Jinshanling over the other sections of the wall. You can take a cable car to the top, and it's not fully restored--it's the real deal. It's well worth the extra effort!

October Is the New June

Last year, we missed two different weddings during the month of October. Aside from the whole megaexpensive plane ticket thing, there was no way we could have gotten off work. And now this October, one of Joel's best friends from high school is getting married. Since we're coming home for Thanksgiving anyway, it seemed silly not to come back a little early for the wedding. The wedding is on the 20th, but we have to leave China by the 12th because of the 60-day limit on our visa. It turned out to be $500 cheaper to fly to LAX and then buy separate tickets to Des Moines, so we're leaving Beijing on October 6th and spending a week in Santa Barbara before leaving for Des Moines.

After the holidays, our plans are up in the air. Buenos Aires is calling my name, but so is a puppy, not to mention the Goid. One thing's for sure, though--we're not staying for the Olympics. Our original plan was to stay in Beijing until then, but any desire to go to the 2008 Games has disappeared, and I'll show you why.

When we came back from Mongolia, we went from this:

Fresh, clean air! Beautiful blue Mongolian skies!

To this:

Sadly, that's not fog. Yuck!

Beijing in August is hot and polluted. This picture is not an anomaly--there were maybe two clear days the entire month. On top of that, there's the little matter of the more than 1 billion people who are dying to go to the Games. After seeing the madness that is Chinese domestic tourism, you can count us out.

Anyway, now that it's September, the weather is back to this:

Finally, we can breathe again!

There are still a few smoggy days, but for the most part the weather has been clear and pleasant--perfect for all the sightseeing and shopping we'll have to do when we get back from Tibet. (Oh yeah, by the way, we're taking the train to Tibet tonight. We'll spend about two weeks there, and when we get back, we'll only have 10 days left in Beijing. Yikes!!)

Things to Do in UB

After we got back from our adventure with gers and horses and such, we spent the rest of our trip in Ulaan Baatar. It only has ~600,000 residents, but when your entire country only has about 2 million, that's a pretty good proportion. For a city of its size, it has surprisingly decent restaurants, not to mention museums, monasteries, and shopping.

Let's start with the museums. We went to the natural history museum, the national museum, and the museum of political persecution. They were all rather dusty, but the contents were still impressive.

For example, did you know that Mongolia is a hotbed of dinosaur fossils? Several of said fossils are in the natural history museum, including a neat one of a velociraptor and protocerotops fighting to the death (scientists think that a sand dune collapsed on top of them and killed them in the midst of mortal combat). There's also a 9-foot-tall skeleton of a tarbosaurus, which looks a lot like a tyrannosaurus rex, as far as I can tell anyway.

Tarbosaurus!

At the National Museum of Mongolian History, we got to see some armor from the 12th century. And at the Memorial Museum for Victims of Political Persecution, which is dedicated to all the crappy stuff the communists did in the 1930s, we got to see a bunch of skulls with bullet holes in them. Seriously though, in spite of the peeling paint outside and the middle-school-history-fair feel of some of the displays, it was chilling.

I'm getting the sense that communism was a very, very bad thing for a whole lot of people.

Speaking of communism, UB is pretty much a Soviet creation--since Mongolians are traditionally nomadic, there weren't really any cities when they switched to communism. Adding to the Soviet feeling is the fact that they now use the Russian alphabet (they used to use a really pretty script that's somewhat reminiscent of Arabic, but they switched to the Russian alphabet to improve literacy rates, which were around 2% at the beginning of the 1900s). Anyway, UB even has its own communist-style square featuring a statue of Chinggis Khaan (Ghengis Khan) as well as a statue of Damdin Sukhbaatar, who declared Mongolia's independence from the Chinese in 1921.

Sukhbaatar Square.

Moving on to the monasteries...actually, most of the monasteries were destroyed by the communists (are you sensing a theme here?), but there's a pretty impressive one that's been restored--the Gandan Khiid.

Inside is a giant gold Buddha--no pictures allowed, sorry!

We also went to the Winter Palace of the Bogd Kaahn, the palace where Mongolia's last king lived. Construction was completed in 1903, and it somehow managed to avoid being destroyed by the Russians (alas, the Summer Palace was not so lucky). It includes a ger that's covered in the pelts of 150 snow leopards, as well as a bunch of crazy stuffed animals. Both the Gandan Khiid and Winter Palace look very Chinese, which made sense when we found out that China invaded in the 1700s. The Manchurians weren't the greatest overlords, and there's still a lot of antipathy toward China.

One of the monasteries at the Winter Palace.

Enough of the monasteries. Now it's time for the good stuff--the shopping. Mongolia has the best souvenir shopping out of all the places we've been to this year. It has lots of great, inexpensive art, as well as cashmere, furs, and other goodies. In addition to the state department store, we went to the Black Market, or Naran Tuul, which doesn't have a lot of souvenirs, but it does have a lot of clothes. I bought some cozy shearling boots for mucking around in during those cold Iowa winters.

Gateway to heaven? Naran Tuul.

We also celebrated our 5-year anniversary during the trip. Boy, does that make me feel old! We just did some sightseeing and then ate dinner at an outstanding Indian restaurant. It was just a little better than last year, when we had to sneak away from work to grab a kebab and Starbucks (ha!).

Self-portrait outside the Gandan Khiid. Awww.

And that, my friends, concludes our tour of UB. Stay tuned for a few more random thoughts on Mongolia, and then we'll get back to the smoggy but comforting environs of Beijing (bet you can't wait!).

Dog Days of Summer

Actually, there aren't any dog days, at least not at the moment. After a month of pollution and heat, the past week has been cool and relatively clear. Perhaps it's just been a mild summer, but if that's all Beijing has to offer, it's safe to say that Iowa summers are still the worst I've experienced. Korea had a period of about 3 weeks that were the most intensely miserable I've seen, but the summer rains kept it bearable the rest of the time. And I can count on one hand the number of insanely hot days we've had in Beijing this summer, which means that Iowa, with its scorching days and stifling nights, wins.

Even without the heat, though, it feels like the dog days. I have tons more to post about Mongolia but am in major procrastination mode. Today we did manage to drag ourselves across town to a cobbler to get our feet measured for some shoes. I'm trying not to get my hopes too high because the shoes might not turn out as amazing as I'd like, but the experience of having shoes tailored has been pretty fun in itself.

Right now I could really go for some Coldstone Creamery birthday cake ice cream with sprinkles. Or maybe some fresh lemonade from the state fair. Why hasn't anyone invented a machine that lets you be in two places at the same time already?

The Trans-Mongolian Railway

I was wrong about taking the Trans-Siberian--we went on the Trans-Mongolian, which originates in Ulaan Bataar instead of Moscow. The trains are similar though and the route of course is the same. Anyway, travel is so busy in July and August that we couldn't get tickets directly back to Beijing. We ended up taking a local train to the Chinese border town of Erlian and then a sleeper bus to Beijing.

The local train provided some food...which we obviously didn't eat!

The local train left at 8 p.m. and arrived in Erlian at 9 a.m. or so. We slept through the steppes, but we were able to get some photos of the Gobi at sunrise. For the most part, the Gobi in Mongolia has more scrub than sand dunes, but it's still pretty dusty. There wasn't any air conditioning on this train, so the windows were down. The temperature was comfortable, but you can imagine what the train was like in the morning! It got so bad that eventually we closed the window in our cabin.

Sunrise over the Gobi.

Note the tail of the train and all the dust it kicks up!

After going through immigration and customs in Erlian, we headed straight to the bus station and got tickets for a bus leaving at 3 p.m., so we only had 4 hours to kill. One of my least favorite parts of budget traveling is killing time while waiting for the transportation of the next leg of the trip! Luckily, I had my laptop with me, so we watched The Painted Veil, a movie based on a book by W. Somerset Maugham and starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. It was set in 1920s China in an area that's really similar to Yangshuo, so that was kind of fun. Although it's a bit of a downer, it's still a good movie and I definitely recommend it.

Right-hand aisle of the sleeper bus.

Sleeper buses are better than regular buses, but in China they're quite cramped. There are three rows of beds, and I found the bed to be a bit short (and I'm not too tall myself)--poor Joel! We had no idea what time we would arrive in Beijing, but we expected it would be sometime in the morning. Since we were so uncomfortable, we were pleasantly surprised to arrive at 3:30 a.m. After a quick shower to wash the Gobi out of my hair, it was off to bed. Total travel time: 31 hours--the same as the Trans-Mongolian, but it felt twice as long.

Xian

We caught another sleeper train from Chengdu to Xian, the last stop on our trip. Xian was the capital of China for hundreds of years, and there's a ton of history there, including the famous terracotta army--the second most popular tourist attraction in the country.

Hotels aren't cheap in Xian, but I managed to bargain our way into a nice, private room instead of the dorms at the first hotel we tried, so that was fun. My bargaining skills are getting pretty good, if I do say so myself! The hotel had tours of the area, so we signed up for the eastern tour, which included the warriors.

On our own, we saw the drum and bell towers, walked along the city walls, and went to the big museum in town. We also checked out the Muslim quarters, home to a famous mosque (looks like any other Chinese temple from the outside) and delicious food. I think my favorite food in China is the Muslim Chinese food, which has a lot of naan, lamb kebabs, and other goodies. I got my fill of lamb sandwiches on flat bread, and Joel ate lots of the bread (he thinks lamb smells like feet).

City wall at dusk.

Most of the stops on the tour were kind of lame. They included a tiny museum, a mausoleum that's basically a giant hill, and Huaqing Pool. The pool was interesting--it's where the emperors used to hang out--but the others were filler at best. The main attraction, of course, was the warriors, which were last on the itinerary.

One of the "sights" at the mausoleum--a slad of brick! Wow!

Also at the mausoleum--a traditional shrubbery (ha!).

Because our hotel was still kind of expensive even with the discount, we wanted to leave Xian as soon as possible, so we booked our train tickets for the following night. The tour was supposed to finish at 6 p.m. and the train left at 8:30. The hotel was right next to the train station, so we thought we had plenty of time.

That is, until the president of Iraq decided to visit the warriors! They shut down the whole place for him almost all day. We really didn't know if we were going to make it, because they kept extending the time. First it was going to open at 1, then 3, then 5. Fortunately, it actually did open a little before 5, so we had plenty of time. The main downside was killing time all day waiting to get in. Our guide says it happens all the time, though--random celebrities and politicians show up and everyone else just has to wait around all day.

Here's the thing they don't tell you about the warriors--yes, there may be more than 8,000, but the majority haven't been uncovered. They were originally painted, but when exposed to air the color fades, so they're waiting to dig up the others until they have the technology to preserve the color.

Buried warriors.

Restored warriors.

Ready for action!

The warriors are supposed to protect the emperor in the afterlife. A lot have been crushed, so I'm guessing it didn't work out too well for him. It was a massive effort that took 700,000 workers 38 years to complete--clearly, an amazing feat. However, personally I don't think it's worthy of being the second most popular tourist attraction, at least not yet. When they get everything restored, sure. But for now you just can't get a grasp of how amazing it is--it looks like a few statues in a pit.

It didn't help that we had what Joel termed "minor tourist site fatigue." You travel so far to see one big thing, and then along with that one thing, you see a million dinky sites (did you see those pictures from the mausoleum? Come on--that's not a tourist attraction!). Needless to say, were were a little burned out.

We did make our train, with enough time to even grab another lamb sandwich. We couldn't get sleeper tickets, and since it was only a 12-hour train, we got hard-seat tickets, which are a lot cheaper anyway. The seats aren't really hard, but they don't recline--they face each other in groups of four! I don't know whose idea it was to make an overnight train with seats that don't recline, but they should be fired. We did manage to nap off and on, though, and in the end it was worth it to be back in our beloved Beijing...

...with only 6 weeks until we had to leave the country again, which would be, well, tomorrow. We get up bright and early to make our 7:45 train (30 hours total) to Ulan Bator. Mongolia, here we come!

(Be sure to check out all the archives for July and August--I've posted a lot in the past couple of weeks, and they don't all show up on one page.)

Da Xiong Mao!

The main reason we stopped in Chengdu instead of flying straight to Xian was to see the pandas at the breeding and research center. We weren't sure if it would be worth it, but you can't go to China and not see the pandas, so there you go.

Playing on the slide.

In Chinese, they call pandas da xiong mao, which means "big bear cat." It's a completely apt description--they seem exactly like a cross between a bear and a cat. They are the cutest things on the planet! You really have to see them in action to get a sense of their cuteness, especially the way they lumber around clumsily and eat bamboo leaves as if they were candy bars. They have these pseudo-thumbs that allow them to grasp the bamboo, and they look strangely humanlike as they eat.

Which is pretty much all they do--eat and sleep. We went in the morning during feeding time so we could be sure to see them in action. Lucky for us (and you), we can take videos with our digital camera. Here's a video of the young panda cubs playing around.






Did you notice the one just lying there chowing down? He basically buried himself in bamboo and ate his way through it the entire time we were there. So funny!

We also got to see some red pandas, which look a lot like raccoons, only cuter. Sadly, we didn't get any pictures of their faces, but you get the idea.

Red panda chowing down.

The final verdict: It was more than worth it to stop in Chengdu to get to see so many pandas in action. They are soo funny! It's like seeing cute, furry aliens--it's hard to believe these creatures exist on our planet, although they might not for much longer. The breeding program hasn't been as successful as they'd hoped, and habitat destruction is still a big problem. Time will tell, I guess--at least China seems committed to keeping them around.

Chengdu

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province, home to spicy food, bamboo forests, and pandas! At a guesthouse in the Philippines I'd picked up a book called The Crippled Tree by Han Suyin. It tells the story of her grandparents, parents, and then herself as a child, and the first part is set in Chengdu. I learned more about China from that book than anything else, and I was excited to see Chengdu for myself.

Obviously, things have changed. Apart from the pandas, there's not that much to see in Chengdu itself, although there are several great places to in the surrounding area. We didn't have time or money for any of that, so we stuck to the city.

We went to the famous River Viewing Park, home to this crazy pavillion and all kinds of different bamboo.

River viewing pavillion.

Better yet, we went to the Green Ram Daoist temple, which Suyin describes in her book. If I hadn't read The Crippled Tree, I wouldn't have been too impressed, but I could picture what it was like in the early 1900s when her father was young and then later when she herself visited it.

Ram at the Green Ram temple.

You rub the ram's neck and whisper your wish in its ear, and then the ram is supposed make it come true. I won't tell what I wished for! (Actually, I don't really remember.)

Lijiang

I've already written a little about Lijiang in my post about hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge in June. The gorge was one of the main attractions; the other is the old town of Lijiang, which is a maze of Naxi architecture and canals. The Naxi people are the dominant minority in the area, with their own language and hieroglyphic script, food, dress, and more, and the old town in Lijiang is better preserved than in Dali.

Canal in the old town.

The first night, we stayed in a traditional Naxi courtyard house in the heart of the old town. It was a great experience, but there were shared bathrooms with squat toilets, so when we got back from the gorge we stayed in another courtyard house, but one that had its own bathroom (it was just outside the old town and had a hideous color scheme of purple, yellow, black, green, and pink--tradeoffs we were happy to make for the last couple of days, I have to admit!).

Our courtyard hotel.

One night we went to a concert by a traditional Naxi orchestra. Some of the instruments were original--the musicians saved them from the Cultural Revolution by burying them. The oldest musician in the group was 88, and there were several in their 70s and 80s. A lot of them wore glasses, I think so the audience couldn't tell if they were sleeping! There was a lot of talking in between songs, most of which was in Mandarin, so that was a bit boring, but overall it was worth the $17 tickets. It's supposed to be just about the only place you can go to hear traditional Chinese music played as it was meant to be played--although my favorite piece was a haunting Tibetan song that was sung a capella!

Naxi orchestra.

Besides hanging out in the old town, we rented yet another tandem bike and went to Black Dragon Pool park. Its entry fee had only gone up to 60 from 10 ($8 instead of $1.30), so we sucked it up and paid, especially since it's the most famous park in the south of China. It was a little cloudy that day so the pictures didn't turn out how we'd have liked, but it was still beautiful.

Black Dragon Pool park, with Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the background.

We also go to see a traditional dance in the park, which was fun. The aprons and caps that most of the women are wearing are what the older Naxi women actually wear every day (except for the white caps--usually they wear black or blue hats that look sort of like railroad engineer hats).

Traditional dance.

The food was another thing we loved about Lijiang. The Naxi are famous for their ham (real ham! not Spam! miraculous!) and cheese (which is more paneer--firm, squeaky, and a bit tangy). We especially loved the Naxi sandwich, which has fried bread, cheese, veggies, and an egg and/or ham.

Mmm, Naxi sandwich!

There was an earthquake in the 1990s, and a lot of Lijiang was destroyed--except for the traditional buildings. Beijing was impressed, so they restored the buildings that were damaged instead of tearing them down to make way for new ones. Or something like that.

Traditional Naxi house (with "guard" dog).

It was a smart move, because the old town is yet another huge tourist attraction now. During the day it's great, but at night, it's impossible. Some of the streets are wall to wall with bodies, and the busiest ones are filled with competing noise from street performers and vendors (another reason why we didn't mind sleeping just outside the old town!).

Tourists, tourists everywhere!

All in all, Lijiang is a unique, charming place that feels like it's in a world of its own (probably because it is--we didn't have to fly to Chengdu for nothing!). It was worth the effort to get out there, even for such a short time.

Hanging out in the square.

So long, Lijiang.

Dali

Due to three different traffic accidents (involving among them an overturned apple truck, an overturned chicken truck, and a smashed-in minibus), we barely made our train from Guilin (Yangshuo) to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. We had showed the bus driver our tickets, and he did a great job of getting us there, but we had to run as fast as we could and still only made it with 2 minutes to spare (literally!). I really didn't think we were going to make it, but thankfully we did. Sometimes the travel gods smite you (thank you, Philippines), but sometimes they smile on you.

After our overnight train ride to Kunming, we headed straight for the bus station and bought tickets to Dali, a picturesque village about 5 hours away. We had just enough time for a quick lunch and we were on our way. As you might imagine, all that traveling can be exhausting, so we were relieved when the first hotel we tried not only had rooms for us, but was simply gorgeous. Between the mountainous backdrop, purple flowers everywhere, antique furniture in the room, and a private bathroom, we were thrilled. (It was MCA Guesthouse, by the way, for anyone who might be traveling there.)

Sunset over the city gate.

The walled old town of Dali is the main attraction, and our hotel was right outside one of the city gates. The first day we wandered around the old town, which mostly consists of travel agencies, restaurants, souvenir shops, and tourists. Still, it was charming and a nice change from the chaos of downtown Yangshuo. There was even a great bakery called Sweet Tooth that had super cookies and bars (have I mentioned how difficult it is to get good baked goods in China??).

Chillin' in Old Town.

China is home to more than 50 minorities, and the Bai people live mainly in Dali and the surrounding area. It was interesting to see the architecture, which to our eyes looks a little different from Han (majority ethnic group) architecture but probably looks massively different to the Chinese.

Bai architecture tends to be white with blue decorative painting--pretty!

On the second day, we rented a tandem bicycle to explore the neighboring villages, Lake Erhai, and the three pagodas. The three pagodas are the most famous site in the area, and were built more than 1,000 years ago. They're just outside of town, so we went there first.

Three pagodas.

Just to give you an idea of how much and how quickly China is changing, our guidebook, which was published in 2006 and the latest edition available at the time, said that the entrance fee was 10 RMB, or about $1.30. When we got there, we were stunned to find that the fee had been raised to 121 RMB, or $17! We were completely unprepared to spend that much, so we just admired the view from the parking lot.

Our real view of the pagodas! (Note the ubiquitous tour buses.)

Our next stop was a little village on Lake Erhai, an ear-shaped lake a few kilometers away from the old town. We thought we'd walk along the lake, but that turned out to be impossible--the village ran right up to the water and there wasn't anywhere to walk. It was nice to see some unrestored Bai architecture, though, and to escape the tour buses.

Authentic Bai architecture.

The ride to and from Dali was the best part because of the way the sun was shining on the rice paddies and mountains. It was sunny and the air was clean and clear (no smog!).

Hope you're not tired of rice paddies yet...

Dali was a great stop for us to recharge our batteries after traveling for so long, but beyond that, there wasn't a lot to do and we had limited time, so after a couple of days we left for Lijiang, about 3 hours away by minibus.

Yangshuo

Our first real stop back on the mainland was Yangshuo, a little town plunked in the middle of incredible limestone karst formations.

Rice paddies and limestone peaks.

We rode bicycles among the rice paddies, hiked in the hills, and cruised down the river. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

It might be hard to tell from this picture, but this is the exact spot featured on the back of the 20 yuan bill.

Moon hill.



First, we hiked up to this spot on Moon Hill.

Then we hiked to the top of the moon.

Our guidebook described Yangshuo as a "sleepy but hip village." However, I think it's safe to say sleepy is no longer accurate! Domestic tourism is booming, and the town and even the rice paddies were overrun by tourists and their gigantic tour buses. We had a nice time, but lots more places to go and things to see, so after a couple of days we had no qualms about leaving Yangshuo to the tourist hordes.