Lijiang

Day 306 (April 30, 2019) – Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China

Lijiang was a few hours by train further into Yunnan Province from Dali. We were on a slow train, but it made it somewhat easier to see the scenery pass by as we climbed the mountains above Erhai Lake. We had arranged for our hotel to pick us up from the train station on our arrival because we heard that the Lijiang Old Town was notoriously easy to get lost in. We were glad we decided to do that.

Arriving by train at Lijiang Station.

Lijiang is another one of China’s ancient towns, somewhat similar to where we had just been in Dali. All the streets in Lijiang Old Town are pedestrian only so a car can only drop you off as far as one of the entrances and you need to walk the rest of the way into town. Our driver dropped us off at the town entrance and one of the guys from the hotel was there to walk us the rest of the way. The streets of Lijiang are truly a maze. By the time we made it to the guesthouse I couldn’t tell what direction we were facing or even in what direction we had come from.

One of the countless alleys in Lijiang Old Town.

We got the warmest welcome from this guest house. After checking in, we were told everything there was to do in town, where we were located on a map, given restaurant recommendations, told how to connect to the internet, and we provided with a number to call if we ever got lost and they would come find us. The guy working at the hotel also asked if we were hungry, which we were, so he brought us to a restaurant down the street and helped us order some traditional dishes off the menu at which point he told us to call him when we were done if we didn’t know how to make our way back to the hotel again. 

All of this may seem like typical above average hospitality, but the amazing part was that this whole conversation happened without any of us ever speaking to one another. All of this was done through translation apps. Our conversation progressed slowly as either he or Travis typed, sent, and then translated messages to one another through WeChat, China's main messaging app. It’s incredible what you can do with a phone nowadays. They helped us every day to communicate with people even when we couldn’t talk to one another.

One of the main pedestrian streets in Lijiang Old Town.

There weren’t any super important sites to see around Lijiang, so we were there to do what most people go there to do: take it easy and enjoy the old town. Lijiang is an ancient city, so as long as we replaced the thought of going to an ancient city with “expansive outdoor shopping mall” then we were less likely to be disappointed. We had read that Lijiang is sort of like the Chinese version of Disneyland, and we can confirm that’s largely the case. There are dozens of streets to wander down and countless alleys connecting them. Most follow the meandering course of small streams and none go in a straight line. It is very easy to get lost or turned around. Most streets are decorated with lanterns, colorful pinwheels, or lined with hanging umbrellas. Nothing feels old or ancient, but it is pretty.

The entire town is filled with shops, restaurants, and guesthouses and all are built in the style of old traditional architecture. It seemed like there couldn’t possibly be enough shops to fill such an enormous town, but we quickly realized that most shops seemed to repeat themselves. It’s sort of like finding a Starbucks on every street corner in a big city. In Lijiang, every street corner has a shop selling fresh fruit, one selling dried tea, and a music shop where someone was always sitting inside playing a drum. There were countless other types of shops too. It’s a shopper’s paradise, but like any big mall you have to put up with the crowds if you want to get around to everything. It took us at least a couple days of walking the streets before we could really say we saw most of the town and a few more days than that to say we saw almost all of it.

This water wheel was one of the main attractions in town and a solid landmark from which to orient ourselves with.

While we’re not much for shopping, one of the benefits of the shopping mall atmosphere is the vast number of dining options. We had some really great meals in Lijiang. Many of the restaurants are influenced by the Naxi ethnic group, who live in this part of Yunnan Province. My favorite item of traditional Naxi cuisine was their bread, called baba. We ordered it almost every meal. It was the first time we saw bread on the table in China and it was delicious. It was essentially a fluffy and flaky pizza bread cut into six triangular pieces. Different restaurants had their own take on it, but most often it was of a somewhat similar consistency to focaccia and often served with a pepper relish. 

I think we got into our restaurant groove in Lijiang, meaning that we finally learned how to navigate a menu and what we generally liked and didn’t like to eat. We typically stuck to vegetarian options, but that’s what we tend to do in most places anyway. We had a lot of stir-fried leafy vegetables, lotus root, and tofu, but we also had an array of other things as well. Most restaurant menus were as thick as books and there were always too many options.

One of our many awesome meals in Lijiang. Plates from left to right are Naxi baba bread, a tofu dish, Naxi style cheese (in addition to bread, cheese was also a rarity in China), and an unknown vegetable dish that looked and tasted like pine tree (it was tastier than it sounds but the bitterness was getting to me by the end of it).

Naxi women performing a traditional dance in the main square.

Lijiang is also where we learned that Chinese bars were too expensive for us. You really have to be financially committed if you planned on spending a night at one of the bars in Lijiang, or alternatively you have to go with a handful of friends. There was a bar street in town lined with well over a dozen bars. All had live music and most had enough flashing lights to make us think they were dance clubs despite it not even being dark out yet. We found one that wasn’t so crazy and went in for a drink. We were looking at the menu but very quickly found ourselves confused. The waitress eventually helped us to understand how the prices on the menu were arranged. The deal was that you got a discount if you bought a dozen beers, and the price for the whole dozen was what was listed on the menu. Of course, we weren’t looking for a dozen beers but regardless, the price per bottle was still very expensive. If you only wanted a single bottle the price was outrageous. 

A big beer from a convenience store in China runs about $0.50. If we got one at a restaurant we typically paid around $2. At the Lijaing bars they were asking for $7-8 and it was only for a small beer. I realize that they’re providing a certain ambiance and live music, but it seemed a little excessive. Long story short, we stuck to ordering beer with dinner and rarely went out anywhere. It seemed like many of the tourists in Lijiang had money to burn if they were going to spend all night in one of those bars, but we weren’t trying to be such high rollers.

When we weren’t walking around town or trying out a new restaurant, most of our time in Lijiang was spent catching up on our Thailand blog posts and planning out the rest of our time in China. We probably spent more time than we should have on our computers and at our guesthouse, but at the same time, after being in Lijiang for five days I’m pretty sure we had walked every street in town. We were staying at one of the hundreds of guesthouses in Lijiang, but it was affordable, spacious, and had a comfortable bed. Although, one of the strange hotel quirks we were noticing in China was that a lot of the rooms don’t provide all that much in the way of bathroom privacy. The bathroom was closed off from the room with a curtain rather than a door and there was a window between the bathroom and the bedroom placed right in front of the toilet. Isn’t that the one place where you don’t want a window? Travis and I know each other pretty well, but I still prefer to not have anyone looking at me while I try to take care of business. We both still cringe and laugh a bit thinking about it.

The view from the bed of Travis sitting on the toilet. At least it was a western style toilet I suppose.

All in all, we had a good time in Lijiang. The streets and alleys were fun to get lost in, the food was great, and once we got over the Disneyland feel it wasn’t so bad. Lijiang Old Town was indeed very beautiful and the pictures speak for themselves, but we don’t feel much of a need to return. It was a little too crowded and a bit too artificial. After Lijiang we were headed to Chengdu, the capital Sichuan Province, and for our first time since entering China we were traveling by air and not by rail.

Maybe we can't travel to Tibet, but we could fly Tibet Airlines from Lijiang to Chengdu.