So now here I am, in Ha Noi Vietnam, with loads of pictures - in my head and on my computer - and I do feel a bit helpless regarding the overflow of impressions I want to sort before having all the new impressions from Vietnam flushing them away...
Where to start then?
In the Lonely Planet (yes, again...) they wrote that when heading to Yunnan - the region I spent these last two weeks in - you should double the time planned. I can only agree: if it had been possible for me I would have doubled it for sure!! Seeing these pics, you'll understand why:
Lugu Lake
Lijiang in the morning
Lugu Lake in the morning
Tiger Leaping Gorge
Black Dragon Pool Park in Lijiang
Sunset over the rice terraces of Yuanyang
Erhai Lake at Dali
However, it is not only for the breathtaking landscape that people are heading to Yunnan but also because of the many different minority people (China recognises 56 ethnic groups, with the Han Chinese as the biggest group), of whom many are still living their traditional lives in the very villages of Yunnan (more than 50% of Yunnan are non-Han):
Naxi-women dancing on the mainsquare in Lijiang
Mosuo-people paddling us over the Lugu lake
A Yi-woman on the way to Lugu lake
Dai-women (I'm not 100% sure) selling chicken on the Sunday market in Lao Meng
A Mosuo-women at Lugu Lake
A woman (no idea - I think Dai as well) selling a pig on the Sunday market
Kids with traditional haircovers in Yuanyang (I think Miao)
So, how did I finally spend these last 2 weeks in China?
After a few days in Yunnans capital Kunming, where I just relaxed and hang out with friends I got to know via CS I headed North:
Lijiang
I was lucky to arrive early in the morning so I could walk through the really nice but definitely kitsch old town before all the touristy shops opened and the masses hit the town. What should I say: it does look like Disney Land...
Lugu Lake
Even though the trip to this very lake at the border between Yunnan and Sichuan province took 7 hours on quite shitty roads it was soooo much worth it! The lake and the landscape around it are so beautiful!
With some young Chinese people from the bus (I had been the only non-Chinese person on the bus...) we made an extended trip around the lake the next day. This gave us the opportunity to see all parts of the lake, the small villages bordering it, the farmers living there and their way of living and farming: till then I had never seen farmers plowing their fields with an old horse- or ox-driven plow - appart from in films of course...
Tiger Leaping Gorge
This very gorge is a quite known challenging two day hiking trek. It was part of the Ancient Tea-Horse-Route where horses were transporting tea from the South of Yunnan (Xishuangbanna) to Tibet. And today you would still see loads of horses packed with goods when hikingk. I guess it's not tea anymore they are transporting though...One woman on the trek sold big bags of marihuana, next to refreshing drinks and snacks - however, I don't think these horses were transporting marihuana neither :)
Dali
I didn't have any time left before heading back to Kunming, so I had only one night and one day in this nice little town next to the quite big Erhai Lake. I had a great evening in a pub run by two brits - I had really been in the mood (or should I even say need?) of having an evening out like back home...
Yes yes, I admit: I am in no sense better than the people I was criticising in my last post :D
Yuanyang
Before heading on to Vietnam I really wanted to visit the rice terrasses of Yuanyang. After having seen those of Langli I wanted to see some paddies filled with water so I spent my last 3 days in this very mountainous region. It is really amazing: as far as your eyes can see there are only rice paddies, the mountains end up looking like layers over layers...
But the most impressive view you can get of these rice paddies is for sure in the very early morning at sunrise. It is worth getting up at 6am for that!
Staying in Yuanyang for 3 nights was definitely a good place to end my trip to China. Not only that I could see these very rice paddies. But also becausw this region is not yet overcrowded with people and it is in fact still really rural. So you are walking around in the small villages, making your way through wild pigs and chicken walking around your feet. Women from very different minority groups are all wearing their traditional clothes all the time. I wished I had had more time to learn more about their lifes - now I can only guess how their lives are after having seen bits of it...
On Sunday we went to a really interesting market in another village two hours away: instead of the usual stuff you'd see on classical markets - vegetables, flowers,... - it was a rural market indeed where mainly animals were sold. While in the rest of China people would always more or less look at you or pay bigger attention to you when you're a Westerner, here they didn't give a damn about us. I guess it was clear that we wouldn't buy one of their piglets anyways...
All this will change in the very near future: at the moment you can really feel that Yunnan is still a quite poor region in comparison to others. The majority is working in agriculture, many streets are still in a really bad condition and everything is comparably cheap. However, in the North I saw loads of constructions for future motorways. And in the mountainous regions of Yuanyang were constructions going on literally everywhere: on the roads, in the very villages (mainly hotels and guesthouses), viewing platforms,... They are aiming to become an Unesco World Heritage site. So far they couldn't cope with the huge amout of people this very title would bring them. (Jacky, the amazingly nice owner of the Guesthouse I stayed in, told us that during the peak season you wouldn't get a single bed without a reservation.) But they are doing everything to be able to cope with it in the future.
In the end this will of course kill what I enjoyed the most in this region: the authecity, the rural life and the calmness. However, it would be arrogant to say that this is a bad
development: not wishing these people another source of income, of much higher income than they can have through agriculture, is an arrogant point of view of Western people: we are lucky having grown up with this great standard of living, but please, let us at least when we are travelling in foreign countries see some of the real poverty, can't we?!
In this sense I can only say: I am happy and lucky having been there while it was still what I'd call authentic - in order to be call Lijiang authentic in my eyes I came too late...
The only thing that is left for me to say now is: 再见中国 (Good bye China)!!
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