Dali

We take a public bus from Lijiang to Dali.  As we travel we keep catching glimpses of and crossing and re-crossing the new highway that is being built. When it is finished, the journey time between Lijiang and Dali will reduce from 4 to around 2 and a half hours. We pass through rural farming communities where the land is terraced for rice production. People working in the fields wear the traditional ‘coolie’ hats. The rice harvest is well underway and in most fields the crop has been cut and is stacked in small neat stooks. In other fields we see people cutting the rice with hand sickles.

 As we approach Dali we drop down to a plain and the farm land becomes flat and the crops more varied with vegetables (some identifiable and others not) and fruit as well as rice. The land is divided by irrigation channels and small banks. The town of Dali lies of the western edge of Erhai Lake and below the Green Mountains. The 4 original gates and some of the old city walls remain. It is home to an ethnic minority called the Bai. Dali was one of the original backpacker destinations, so it is easy to find a place to serve you a banana pancake. It is another tourist destination for both Chinese and westerners. The main streets are full of souvenir shops and western restaurants with wi-fi and chinese restuarants and women dressed in traditional ethnic clothes approach the tourists trying and sell them silver hair clips and earrings.

Peggy and Katie having a beer

bar street at night

city gate at night

ingredients outside a restaurant

We have one full day here and Peggy, Katie and I decide to walk down to the edge of the lake where there is a traditional Bai village. We walk away from the city, with the mountains behind it and through flat farmland, where the rice has already been harvested. The weather is very changeable and heavy clouds and dark skies hang over the mountains, while the sun shines brightly on the lake. A whole rainbow hangs in the sky.

mountains and farmland

rainbow

We arrive at the village which is very traditional and with no tourist development in the village itself, although tourist boats come and go from the jetty here. In the small square a few local people are selling produce of fish from the lake and vegetables.

stalls selling fish and vegetables

We walk down to the beautiful lake. We can see settlements on the far side and it stretches away to our left and right farther than we can see. A flotilla of tourist boats, with little pagoda-style roofs is waiting for passengers and at the end of the jetty two Chinese men have set out several fishing lines.

tourist boats waiting for tourists

Erhai lake

We walk around the streets of the village. The architecture here is different; the houses are bigger and taller and decorated externally with white-painted plaster and murals. Even the brick-pattern is painted on.

Bai houses in Caicun

painted brick pattern and flowers

mural

We reach the edge of the village and sit to rest by the side of the street. A old man and his grandson come towards us. The grandfather is friendly and smiles and says, ‘Hello, hello’. He is keen to show these strange western women to his grandson, but the boy is shy and refuses to move his feet to come closer to us and then hides behind his grandfather’s legs and under his jacket.

grandfather and grandson

We catch the bus back to Dali and wander around the old town. We come across an authentic food market selling fruit and vegetables, meat and fish. We have to be discreet about the photos we take, as some of the stall holders don’t appreciate this intrusion. In one corner a man has just finished plucking a chicken and is about to gut it. Goods are weighed on a balance rod, with the item in a pan one end and a weight that is moved along the rod to find the balance point. Live fish prove problematic as they flap around, so they have a string stitched to their scales which enables them to be suspended as they are weighed.

fruit and vegetables in the market

In the meat section the counter is made of metal to keep the meat cool. Every piece of the animals seesm to be for sale. We see chickens feet; lovely looking joints of meat and unidentifiable offal.

pork butcher

In the evening Peggy and I check out a Chinese restaurant that is recommended in her guide book, as we are keen to try the local fish casserole. This would have been a challenge to our chop-stick abilities a couple of weeks ago, but now we are very dexterous and can separate the meat from the bones almost like the locals! All these posts seem to end with me and Peggy eating.

Peggy and fish casserole

Tiger Leaping Gorge

We take a bus out of Lijiang and for the first time in this trip we feel as if we are getting away from cities and built-up China. We drive along roads that pass through small rural communities and the landscape is made up of small plots of farming land planted with vegetables and fruit trees. Cutting through this is the construction of a brand new major road. In places the concrete supports go right over old houses. Where the old road crosses the new, the traffic goes on the rough unmade road and sometimes has to wait for cranes and diggers to complete their work.

 concrete pillars for new road stride across the countryside

the traffic crosses the road construction

 

Along the way we stop to stretch our legs at a place where there is a good view of the Yangtze River. A small higgledy-piggledy market is here, selling fruit and other things to the people on the coaches.

roadside market

chillies for sale

our first view of the Yangtze River

Our walk starts in an uninspiring little place at 2000m above sea level, which is the access point for Tiger Leaping Gorge. We will be walking up to 2800m towards the top of a gorge of a tributary of the Yangtze, the Jin Sha Jiang river. It is on the path of an old route which enabled trade between tea from India and horses from Tibet. My guide book says that this is the deepest river gorge in the world! Can that be true? Our guide buys our tickets for the gorge and also arranges for 2 horses and men to accompany us to the top of the gorge, in case anyone can’t make it on their own. We leave the bus and follow a steep concrete road up the side of the hill. Very soon we are in a more rural landscape and walking along a dirt path between terraced fields of sweet corn. Round a corner a man and woman struggle with a plough and a buffalo on a small plot of land. It begins to feel for the first time that we are doing something for its own sake and not just because there is a tourist site to visit. 

ploughing the hard way

horse and his man

view of the valley near the start of the walk

The landscape is very reminiscent of the trek I did in Nepal – but without the steps. Small farms and settlements dot the terraced hillside and every so often there is a small restaurant, guest house or shop selling drinks and provisions. We climb steeply and steadily for a couple of hours. We share the route with a few other western tourists and locals working.

hillside with terraces and farms

woman carrying a load of sweetcorn stalks - for firewood

 We stop for lunch in the restaurant of a guest house. The courtyard of the place has sweetcorn drying on one side and bougainvillea growing up the other. In a cage are two pretty birds.

lunch stop guest house

birds in a cage in the courtyard

After lunch we have a section that takes us, via 28 hairpin bends, to the highest point of the walk at 800m above the river. Carol begins to feel unwell and opts to ride one of the horses.

Carol on a horse

views of the valley

We reach the highest point of the path and we can look down on clouds in the river valley below us, but the gorge is too steep to be able to see the river.

me at the top of the path

 

We have a fairly easy walk for the rest of the afternoon until we reach the Tea Horse Guest House, where we are staying the night. The place gets its name from the trade of horses and tea along this route.

Tea Horse Guest House

chillies drying

In the courtyard there are some traditional Naxi garments hanging up on display. Most are made out of dead animals. Hanging with a leather jerkin is this little fur bag that still has feet and holes in the flap where eyes were!

fur bag with legs and eyes

Harvey tells us that the local families have collaborated to build a dam and provide electricity to the village. Government electricity won’t arrive here for another couple of years. The supply is temperamental and can cut out from time to time. In the evening we have a meal around a fire and it is not at all late when we go to bed in our cosy little cabins.

camp fire

The next day the walk is level for a good way to begin with and we have more opportunity to enjoy our surroundings. Peggy and I walk at the back of the group with Harvey our guide and we are able to ask him about life in China and how things are for him and his family. It was all incredibly interesting, but I won’t recount the conversation here, as it would feel like publishing things that were said privately.

We pass various farm houses and sometimes the small children run out and then disappear, squealing.

yard

We begin to have to concentrate on the walking as the path becomes very exposed and cut directly out of the cliff, with a steep drop down to the river. We pass a waterfall and have to walk over the wet, slippery stones.

a long way down to the river

waterfall

A woman and her herd of goats come towards us. Here is a photo of her talking on her mobile phone.

goats and goatherd on her mobile phone

We stop for a short rest at another guest house. We sit on a rickety roof terrace called ‘Inspiration Terrace’ which overhangs the valley and looks out onto the clouds. Theguest house toilet has a fantastic view through an opening in the wall, straight out onto the gorge - there's inspiration for you.

Inspiration Terrace

view from Inspiration Terrace

view from the toilet

The final part of the walk is quite steeply downhill and slippery from the light rain. We take our time and I m glad to have my walking poles with me. We come out on the road and meet up with the others for lunch. The youngsters have already been there for a good while and are eating already. We check out the menu. The items are written on individual pieces of bamboo, which are laced together like a window blind.

Peggy choosing lunch off the bamboo menu

Jade Mountain

The next day a group of us take a trip to the top of Jade Mountain. It is a cloudy day, but hope that it will clear and allow us some glimpses of the mountain peak. As we walk out of the old town to find a taxi we pass this statue of Chairman Mao in the new town square.

statue of Chairman Mao

We take a taxi up the mountain to the tourist centre, then we join a mass of Chinese jostling for a bus, then we have the peace and quiet of our own cable car which swings through the mist up to the top cable car station which is at 4506m. I feel lightheaded and slightly dizzy from the altitude. Everyone gets their photo taken to show they have arrived.

me and others at 4506m

The mist begins to clear and the Chinese gasp and cheer as the peaks and surrounding scenery become visible. There are wooden steps going higher from the cable car station and we join the parade of Chinese to reach the top point. A workman in a uniform with a shovel attempts to clear the ice from the steps. We have to walk slowly because of the altitude and carefully because of the slipperiness of the steps.

clearing the steps

Chinese people on the mountain

mountain scenery

our group by the Chinese flag at 4626m