I arrived in Lijiang reasonably late at night and set about trying to track down a place to sleep. Nestled close to Tibet, Lijiang was a reasonably inaccessible, relaxed town until a new highway connected it to the world a few years ago. Now, it is yet another bustling city like any other, except that it has managed to retain an authentic "old town" center. This is where I was headed to find a hostel. Walking around, I soon realized that the authentic center was just another grab at the extensive travel bucks of native Chinese tourists. Even at 9 PM, there were tour groups wandering around, following the flag of their leader and snapping the most innane and pointless photos. The architecture of the center was, admittedly, old in appearance, and created a very pleasant atmosphere to wander around in, but the souvenir shops, bars, and hotels which inhabited all the old buildings teamed with the teeming masses tempered the coziness of the town.

Dragging myself out of bed the next morning, I did get a chance to see the sunrise lighting up Lijiang's most attractive feature. The 5500 meter Yulong mountain which towers in the distance. Before anyone gets the impression I was becoming a hardcore traveller, let me mention that because all of China is in one time zone, the sun rises pretty late in the morning.

On my rest day in Lijiang, I decided to hike through the city park which has a good size hill settled in the middle, from which you can grab a great view of both Yulong mountain, and the surrounding countryside. I walked that way, and found a nice cement path with toured around a scenic little pond at the foot of the hill. Leading up from this path were an endless array of tiny footpaths through the woods. I picked one at random and started up. Naturally, my path ended a few yards up the hill at a big pile of garbage. From there on, I bushwhacked, climbed, crawled, and scraped my way up the hill to an old abandoned pagoda sitting on the top which afforded some great views. I ran into a pair of American girls up there who told me if I had actually gone in through the entrance, I would have paid 60 yuan ($7.50) but would have had a paved path to follow. Armed with that information, I picked my way back down the hill the way I came. It was more interesting that way.

On the following day, I made my way towards the "can't miss adventure of Yunnan Province" according to the Lonely Planet guide, the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike. This is a 20 kilometer hike through a deep river gorge at the base of a magnificent ridgeline. It is supposedly tackled by 20-30,000 people every year, and I was looking forward to it. I hopped a bus from Lijiang to the starting point, a town called Qiaotou, but managed to miss my stop. I was fretting over whether to hop out and catch the next bus back or just see where my current bus was headed. In the end, I opted for the latter and three hours later was let off in a town deemed by the Chinese government as "Shangri-la". Most people might think Shangri-la would be a mountain town in Tibet, but according to the scholarly deciphering of the name done by Chinese nationals, that is not the case.

Shangri-la, or Zhongdian as it is properly called, didn't strike me as any sort of paradise, but I decided to give it a chance, and it did grow on me. It also had an old town, but unlike Lijiang's, it was not yet overrun by tourists and the style of all the buildings was Tibetan as opposed to Chinese. The town is very close to Tibet (as close as I'll be getting) and the food, temples, buildings, and people all are Tibetan in origin. After buzzing through the old town, I happened up a little hill in the middle of town and came to a charming Tibetan Buddhist temple. The temple itself was pleasant, but the real surprise was around the corner where a massive golden tower had been constructed. It had to be eight to ten stories tall, and I was trying to get a good picture when a local man beckoned me over to the base. He pointed me to the handrail and mimicked that I should help him push. Not being one to disappoint, I set to it and realized that this wasn't a tower, but was a truly massive prayer wheel. It was all the two of us could do to get it started spinning, but once it got going, I made a couple turns with the old guy, murmured some prayers for myself not to get frostbite on any of my favorite body parts, and set off to another part of town. When I left, the old guy was trying to keep the momentum and deep in concentration on his own frostbite preventions.

On the backside of town was a much more substantial hill which I decided I could tackle before I lost the sunlight. Unfortunately, Zhongdian is located at a hefty 3200 meters elevation and the wind is very cold. I didn't feel like being outside without any sunshine to take the sting out of it. I hustled up an old animal trail and came to a pagoda located right in the pass between the two hills. It was strewn with prayer flags and had a terrific view of the town. I ssurried up the smaller hill to the top and found a couple more prayer sites, also draped in dozens of flags and pounded by hefty winds. That was enough adventure for me, and I hustled down to warm up with a cup of tea and some yak meat in one of the local establishments.

On the following morning, I scrapped myself out of bed, piled on all the clothes I could find, and boarded a bus back to Qiaotou. Hopefully, this time I would make it.