Yunnan Xishuangbanna Day 4 Morning market

We left LiJiang on a 9:30 pm flight and arrived in Xishuangbanna and hour later. By the time we checked into the Dai Ethnic Garden Hotel it was midnight. The beds were very hard.

The minority people here are called the Dai. There are 300,000 souls. Dai means freedom. The Dai migrated throughout south west China. There are three Dai minorities, the water Dai live near the river, the mountain Dai live in the mountains and the flower Dai (their belt is colorful and many are Muslim).

The village we are in, Xishuangbanna (1 million people) has an interesting meaning. Xishuang menas 12,000 and banna means rice field. We are in a beautiful valley that reminds me of the 40 shades of green in Ireland.

1950 revolution happened 6 months after the east of China. Pre-1950 there were 41 kings. the first imperial palace was built here in 1160. The last king lives in Kunming. In 1517 there was a war with Burma. The king here had one daughter and she married a Burmese king. As a wedding gift this area was divided among the two.

We arrived at a ferry port on the Mekong River locally called Lancang within the China borders. This river starts from Mount Tanggula in Tibet and runs down through Yunnan province, through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam into the South Sea.

This little girl and her father (on the bike with a fresh chicken hanging off the side) are waiting for the ferry with us. The local people were very interested in 30 foreigners carrying cameras.

A ferry just left, we were all gaping at the goings ons; we will wait for the next ferry. We crossed the river, stayed on the boat and came back. There were two ferries and cars, trucks, people on bikes and motorbikes were making good use of this way across the river.

This morning market is in the village of Ganlanba (water Dai people). The name means tail of the peacock. It is most beautiful. The people here practice Buddhism. All boys must be monks(girls will not marry a boy who is uneducated). The schooling is all provided through the monasteries (it seems that in all of history, the religious are always the teachers). They attend for 1, 3, or 5 years. Girls do not go to school thus never learn the written language. It was the dream of our guide (25 years old) to learn the written language (her other dreams are to see snow and to take a train). She asked her father to teach her and he said no. She went to Burma and learned on her own.

People marry at 13 or 14 years old, they are young parents and retire young. they marry first cousins to keep the land in the family.

This fish vendor tries his luck away from the fish vending area. The bowls in the front hold blown up stomachs. The bowl in the back holds fish heads for fish head soup. Yum. Nothing like fresh!

Pig snouts in the front and pig feet at the back on the right. We did see a whole head for sale but the woman quickly put it in a plastic bag out of our sight.

Snails and peppers. Pretty combination.

Here is a beautiful display of spices in the foreground and seed packets in the background.

Fishing nets.

This woman shaved off the outside of lengths of bamboo. She wrapped rice and spices in a leaf, rolled the leaf and put it inside of the bamboo to roast on the fire.

Tom and a fellow traveler wait for us as we wander on. The market is long and very interesting. I bought some red thin wool yarn. It was from NZ but processed in Shanghai. I also bought two baskets that markets use for display. They are horseshoe shaped and open at one end. One is rougher woven than the other.

Yunnan LiJiang Tiger Leaping Gorge

It is day two on our tour. Did I mention that there are 30 people on this bus tour? We have a man with us from Beijing to see to our needs and we also have a local guide to tell us all of the good stories.
We stopped along the way at a pagoda and took this picture of the beautiful valley. Our local guide showed us a hemp field along the way. The locals use hemp for mourning clothes. On the way down the steps to this scenic spot he pulled off and handed me some flower buds from a nearby wild hemp plant. Amazing. Our destination is Stone Drum Village. There are 30,000 souls here. The French occupied this area in 1875 and brought Christianity with them. There are many here who still practice.

You are looking at a very old stage here in the middle of town. There are performers getting ready for a show behind the window in the front, under the stage. The door is to the right and we peeked in to see many smiling faces. The audience was sitting on steps across the street. One vendor was selling bittermelon wine. It looks like the melon was grown in old plastic Coke bottles. Yum! The village still retains its ancient buildings. It was nice to see. Here are tile rooftops.
This lovely lady is selling baskets, shoes, and hats that she has woven. I took a fancy to the basket on her back. Every woman in town carries one like this, although the newer ones are woven of plastic. She made this one and I bought it. If you look closely there is a pad for your back hanging on the wall above the basket. She wove this also. It is a summer pad. It is fluffy on the one side and fashioned into a web on the other. The web side keeps the basket from breaking the straw. In the winter a yak skin is worn on the back. I got lots and lots of looks as I carried my basket through the town. One woman who saw me asked me how much I would pay for hers. The guide thought I was nuts for wanting an old basket. It is awesome. This is Tom on a 500 year old bridge. It is a rope and wood bridge. He is smiling because he loves my new basket. We stopped to take pictures of the first bend in the Yangtze river. It looks calm but the water has cool little swirls on top. Our local guide said very few can swim across safely.

Lunch was at a local place. Our tables are in the back. There was a large group of Naxi people.

After lunch they all went outside and sang and then did several group dances. They sure know how to have a good time.

We arrived at the Tiger Leaping Gorge. This section of the Yangtze is called the Jinsha River. There are 34 rapids. It looked like an awesome place to white water raft until we got to the point where there is an enormous boulder in the middle and then two smaller boulders on either side a little down river (the guide called it a reverse rooster tail). We were told many had died on the river; it is much more dangerous than it looks.

Can you see the path that has been carved out of the rock on the right side of the river? That is where we walked. There were signs along the way that it was dangerous and if rocks fell we were to get close to the wall. They must know this from experience as part of the path was closed off and there were 3 or 4 tunnels we used instead. Another interesting sign warned of falling rocks, it just said "It is dangerous here, don't stop". It was a beautiful day and it was nice to be walking.

We climbed up to a viewing spot above the loud roaring of the rapids at this point. The rock formations were interesting; like giant slabs.

Back to LiJiang for dinner and a walk around the town. These are some of the lanterns that line the streets outside of the restaurants. We visited a local grocery store and looked at all of the packaged local food. That is always interesting.

Yunnan LiJiang

Hello again Beijing! We just returned from Vietnam over the Chinese New Year Holiday and we are off to join the Chinese Culture Club trip to Yunnan province. It is Saturday morning, February 9th. We leave from Beijing on an auspicious plane:

We stop over at Kunming, deplane, pick up our bags and get in line to check into the flight to LiJiang. It is a tad rural in this part of China; we are far west and a bit north of Tibet. Here is a picture of beautiful LiJiang. The people here are of the Naxi minority. This is a very old city. It resides along a beautiful and pure waterway. The morning hours are for washing vegetables in the stream that flows through the center of town. Dirtier household chores such as washing clothes are saved for the end of the day, so as not to sully your downstream neighbors water. At times the stream is damned up and the streets flood. This is a very unique way to keep the streets clean. The paving stones are smooth from water and use. We are at 7000 feet. Daytime temperatures are in the mid 70's and mid 50's at night.

The famous Pu'er tea is from Yunnan province. The story goes that a long time ago as tea was carried over the mountains to Tibet wrapped in animal skins, about one third would be spoiled from dampness. The Tibetans drink yak butter tea daily as part of their religious traditions and the tea grows in Yunnan (Tibet's altitude is to high to grow tea). The tea that was spoiled was given to and used by the herdsman. It was discovered that this tea was very healthy and became better with age. This is our room at the LiJiang Old Town San He Hotel. Love the single beds. It was clean and the shower had hot water.
Here is a street along the center of town. The market is in the center and all roads radiate out from it. In the evening there are many restaurants with red lanterns hanging out side. Some of the buildings are made of the local bricks (clay, limestone and straw); they are very strong and last a long, long time. There is a famous bridge in the town. It is 500 years old. In ancient times it was a place to find a husband. Young women of marrying age (18) would sit on the bridge and men will walk by (8 to 10 year olds). Women would chose a man and put him in her basket to carry home. Men in this town study, women do everything else. Naxi mens' interests are in art, music, books, painting, smoking, drinking, tea, and falcon hunting. Bear hunting is now banned. Rabbit and pheasant hunting are still permitted. Falcon hunting is still practiced. The captured falcon is released after one month. The women make all of the major decisions. The men in our group seemed to warm to this idea until they learned that the men live to be 62 while the women live to be 72. This is the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5600 meter summit). It is part of the Himalayan mountain range. The Naxi people call their city the real Shangri la. This mountain and the one below keep the village 2 degrees cooler in the summer and 2 degrees warmer in the winter. There is an area on the other side of the main river that is the new town. Ten years ago it was destroyed by an earthquake. It has been rebuilt. this is elephant mountain. It is to the right of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Can you see the elephant resting? This picture is taken from the pagoda high on a hill in the center of town. From the elephant mountain the pagoda looks like a crouching lion. This is very good Feng shui. There is also a mountain that looks like Chairman Mao. We attended a traditional program in the evening. The dancers and singers were amazing. Tom commented that many of the costumes, instruments and songs were very similar to that of the native American Indians. Here the Chieftain arrives. He is preparing to blow through both of these water buffalo horns simultaneously. It was amazing.

Behind Ming Tombs Jan 30 2008

It's Wednesday again, already. It is a beautiful blue sky day and Leslie chose this hike so that a fellow hiker (and photographer) who had hurt her knee could go with us. This translates into "it will be an easy hike today"... not exactly, as it turns out.
We drove up to a small village that grew up around the Ming Tombs. Here you can see the past with the grain grinding wheel that looks like it is probably still in use and the present with the brightly colored exercising equipment in the background. We all used the exercising equipment that morning because it was below freezing with a biting wind to boot.

We were waiting for Leslie to gather some information about the trails from the locals. Sometimes it takes talking to several people. Mostly they look at us and ask us "why?"

We were told to hike up behind the tombs and follow the dry riverbed to the top. Sounds easy.
We get to see all kinds of nature that doesn't get hidden in the winter, like this magpie nest; huge, isn't it?

This is the spirit bridge. It is the pathway used to bring the royals to their final resting place.

This is one of the Ming Tombs. It is called Kangding. It is closed and there are dogs inside barking at us. A car is parked outside..the caretaker. Most of the tombs are closed and many were robbed a long time ago. One woman with us who grew up here shared her stories of finding lots and lots of human remains as a child, so many when they were digging underground in the city, that they played with the skulls, making lamps out of them.

We walked for some time until we spied a caretakers home. There was smoke coming out of the chimney ( and public toilets out of the wind; morning coffee you know). The man happily directed us further up the road and confirmed that the route up the riverbed was the best way to go.

As we walked toward this gate a man on a motorcycle passed us and went through the gate and then shut it. When we got up to it, our sweet talking lady called to the people inside the caretakers cottage. A man came out and saw us all and called to her that we are not allowed in. Of course, sweet talker Carmen asked why and was told the land was national forest. He said that we were foreigners. She got tired of yelling and so told him to come closer because her throat was hurting her to call out. He did come closer and that was the end of that. He was in charge of the cemetary up ahead and Carmen assured him that we wouldn't smoke and most of us were Chinese (we looked foreign and all kinds of things could happen to us, he didn't want to be responsible).

Yay, we got it. The story doesn't end there. Just as we passed the caretaker shack, an older man came running out of the door in his stocking feet and said that we couldn't pass. He was the fire warden and so Carmen went closer in order to sweet talk him. She said "how do I call you? Sir? He responded "No, call me commrade!" Then she told us to walk and keep on going.

Good thing we did not plan to return this same way.

We are not in the riverbed yet, but here you can see the tops of mountains? That is where we were headed. The brush is thick and thorny.
I have to add this picture because the riverbed was overgrown in many places and very steep and difficult. The view from the top was worth it. Leslie was tempted several times to take paths that led away from the riverbed but they only went up to electric towers..how boring. Actually that is the valley that is Beijing in the distance. Look closely, the growing smog is the first clue.

Way up on top and after lunch in a semi sheltered spot from the wind we encountered this lovely sight. You may just be able to make out a circle of land that they left standing in order for the road to wind around it on the lower right hand side of the gravel pit. There is a concrete road leading to the site.

Our goal was this spot in the distance: Heavenly Lake . It is a resevoir on top of the mountain. We hiked to it and then had to climb the fence to get in. We were planning to get to the tower on top of the mountain in the distance then find the path behind it that drops to the valley floor.

We did take a detour to look at this begining of something. It was the strangest building I have ever seen. It was round on the exterior with stairs on the outside (you can see them left of center made of stone) and a valley in the middle with partitions on the inside. Remember that we are in the national forest. Hummmm.

This is the sign warning us to stay out of the resevoir water. There was a concrete road around the entire resevoir and markings that looked like racing lanes and trash can recepticles but lots of walls to keep people out.

This is on the way up to the tower on the hill. "Nuf said. Not sure if you can see it, but there is broken glass on the top of this wall.

This is a great view (if only we were closer) of the Ming Tombs. Look carefully and you can see a line of 4 buildings right of center. These are a few of the 14 Tombs in this area. This is also where we began our hike. Now to get down. We found that the tower is blocked off by locked gates and too tall walls (with glass on top). I did climb up a electic tower that was fully exposed with an accessable ladder. I love the warnings. We were happy that no one was about the place. We were very surprised though. We did, on our decent, stop at a shack and rattle the door. The lock was off it and two young men came out. Leslie just calmly asked where this path went. They were there surveying. Never a dull moment.

We are relegated to walking down a concrete road for 12 kilometers (7.5 miles). We are not happy after all of the adventures we just experience to be walking a concrete road. How utterly boring, not to mention, hard on the feet.

We wonder how long it will take us to walk because by now it is 3pm. Several attempts are made to call Mr. Zhao and have him pick us up halfway (remember the gal with the bumknee?). We are a little worried that since we are in the national forest, there will be a fee to leave (what! again???)

Mr. Zhao does turn up and tells us a funny story. He does encounter a gate at the entrance. He told the fire marshal we were up here. He didn't care until Mr. Zhao told him we were foreigners. The marshall let him pass toot sweet. Apparently a high official was due to visit the next day and they didn't want any incidents. First we had to be Chinese to get in and then had to be foriegn to get out. What ever works.

A hour ride home all recounting the days adventures. A beautiful blue sky day and a lovely sunset.

Vietnam, The Hidden Charm

So the Vietnam Administration of Tourism says.
BF and I left for Hanoi, Viet Nam on Friday, February 1st. The flight was about 4 hours on Viet Nam Air (Viet Nam is one hour behind China). A work colleague and his family were also traveling on the same flight to Hanoi. When we got off the flight, we struggled a little bit with finding a transfer to the Sheraton Hanoi. We shared a ride with my collegue and family in a van to the hotel.

We did little, to no preparation for this trip. We don't know how to say hello, what the currency and foreign exchange rate is, etc. So at the ATM I was presented with an option to withdraw 2,000,000 Dong which is around 135USD. It turns out many things are quoted in USD and can be used, but coming from Beijing we really don't have any USD with us. The first thing that I noticed was the great number of motor scooters on all the streets and the amount of honking horns is way more intense than Beijing. The scooters make for a chaotic scene on the streets. The cars are swarmed by them.

We are staying Hanoi just for the night and then traveling to Nah Trang for a beach vacation. The weather is around 50 degrees F and is rainy. We ran into 3 accidents on the way to the hotel. We checked into the Sheraton on a special floor for Platinum members (not clear how I got that but it guarantees a suite if one is available, and a Jr. suite was waiting for us, very nice). We checked out the hotel, had a drink and then called it a night. Below is the view from our hotel room:On Saturday, we had a continental breakfast then waited for Sheraton shuttle to take us to the "Old City". We walked around the narrow alleys looking at the goods for sale and did some people watching. It was amazing to me some of the scooter jams on these narrow streets with shopkeepers and pedestrians to contend with. The other amazing sight is the small orange trees for Tet that are being sold and transported on the scooters. These trees are similar to our Christmas trees for our Christmas holiday. People are also buying a cut flowering tree as an alternative. These sellers everywhere in Hanoi. We took a taxi back to the Sheraton in time to eat before going to Nha Trang. In the taxi we were met with a huge traffic jam. BF took the opportunity to jump out of the taxi to buy a couple of handmade hand brooms she saw on the street.

We ate lunch at the Vine Restaurant near the hotel. It was recommended by work colleagues' wife. The Vietnamese meal was excellent. Then it was off in a taxi to the airport to travel on to Nah Trang. The domestic flight took close to 2 hours and it landed at an airport about 40km from Nah Trang. It took a little time to find our transfer transportation to the Sunrise Beach Resort in Nah Trang. When we did find the driver he took us on a new scenic coastal highway in an SUV. We arrived at the hotel and were met with a complimentary juice drink and an introduction to the hotel. I think our biggest surprise is that this is not the time of year for beach swimming and water sports. We talked to the concierge to get an idea of what types of activities and excursions we could do. We will need to do them in the early part of the week given the Tet Holiday is coming soon. We also looked into church services for tomorrow. The concierge gave us a great recommendation for a local Vietnamese seafood restaurant not too far away. We took a taxi which is amazingly cheap (20,000 dong or 1.25USD) as we did not know the exact location of the restaurant. Truc Linh 3, like most most establishments here are totally exposed to the elements in the front. They had a great selection of fresh seafood and grills to cook the food at the front entrance. We had a great meal and fantastic service. We then walked onto the main street near the ocean towards our hotel. We came upon an open stage where hundreds of motor scooters were assembled. They were all watching a Chinese Dragon Dance by a young group of performers. It was like a drive-in movie theater where everyone was sitting on the scooters watching ther performance. We stayed for 30 minutes to watch two different dance groups perform their version.

On Sunday we got up early for 7am mass. We walked to the church which looked quite old and fairly spartan. The cross above the alter was outlined in red neon light. The mass was mostly attended by primary school children with youngest in the front extending most of the way to the back. Listening to the whole mass in Vietnamese was interesting.

We went back to the hotel for a very nice breakfast buffet. We then walked to a large local market where BF bought a couple of items. The market was similar to those we have seen in other Asian coutries. Everyone wanted you to look and buy from their small shop.

In the afternoon we took a taxi to the Louisiane Brew House. They had great beer and food. But interestingly, they had their own swimming pool and beach front area. People were bringing their swimming stuff and either laying by the pool or out on the beach under umbrellas and loungers supplied by the brew house. BF and I played rummy at our table.

We decided to stay in for dinner and feast on a Vietnamese buffet at our hotel. They had a great seafood grill. You selected any seafood you wanted as well as other Western, Japanese or Western foods. All of this for 25USD and as much wine as you wanted............

On Monday, we decided to go on an excursion. We wanted to get a local flavor so we went on a village tour. We visted many different types of craft people. Makers of Vietnamese hats, bed matting, bread, rice noodles, clay grills, etc. We had lunch at a local restaurant on the Cai River. What amazed me is BF's determination to bring something out to the villagers. Our guide suggested pencils, pens, candy for the kids and fruit for the villagers. The candy was a huge hit with all the kids. I don't know what we would have done if we had not brought something out into the villages. The people that we stopped to visit were extremely nice and welcoming. BF bought a Vietnamese hat and a couple of matts. They were of course happy about that.

We took a swim at the hotel pool in the afternoon. Then I went to go get a haircut for $8 at the hotel and a $7 Shampoo (what a nice head massage). I needed my hair cut since it is considered bad luck to get it cut for one month after the Chinese New Year. BF went to the gift shop at the hotel while waiting for me.

In the evening we tried to go to the Nha Trang Seafood Restaurant by taxi. When we got there we found out it was closed for the Tet Holiday. We ended up walking back to Truc linh 3 and we ended up with the same waitress. She was happy to see us.