David's Big Adventure in China

On August 7, I took the overnight train to Kunming, then went to the airport and met a friend. We took a flight to Shangri-la in western Yunnan Province (not far from Tibet and Myanmar). We stayed there for 3 nights and visited the old town, Pu Dacuo National Park and the local grasslands. This area was primarily inhabited by Tibetans and Naxi minority people before it became a popular tourist area. The weather was nice and cool in the 50’s and 60’s as the elevation there is about 11,000 feet. It was nice and picturesque but I don’t think it deserves the name Shangri-la. (It was renamed Shangri-la to promote tourism.) We left early on the 11th and headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge where we used Tina’s Guest House as a base for a nice hike down to the river. The gorge was definitely worth the visit and would be worth spending a couple days there if you like nature and hiking. The gorge is more than 3000 feet from peak to the river. We hired a local guide to lead us on our hike for the afternoon for about $6. After our hike, we continued on by bus to Lijiang and spent one night there in the old city. From there, my friend flew back to Kunming and I took a bus for 8 hours back to Kunming. After spending a day in Kunming visiting friends there I took the overnight train back home to Nanning arriving on the 14th.

After relaxing and catching up on things at home for a couple weeks I went with a friend to Longsheng in the northern part of this province to see the Longji rice terraces. We spent one night in the small town of Longsheng (about 170,000) before going to the tourist village of Longji nestled in the mountains and surrounded by the rice terraces (also called Dragon Backbone Rice Terraces…see pic’s). The rice terraces were created 600 to 700 years ago and are quite beautiful. We spent two days there hiking through the mountains and enjoying the cooler weather. Then we went to Yangshuo for 2 days where we toured a cave that is only accessible via boat (not too exciting if you’ve seen other caves) and visiting a local park famous for a huge 1500 year old Banyon tree. One evening we went to see the Zhang Yimou production called Impression (Sanjie Liu) which was great. Zhang Yimou is the man who created and produced the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. This production uses over 600 people dressed in local traditional costumes and takes place mostly on the river using flat rafts and portable bridges. It uses the karsts (small limestone mountains) in the area as a backdrop and lights them to highlight the beautiful scenery. This was my third visit to Yangshuo which is one of the most famous tourist spots in China and where you will see more foreigners as a percentage of the total than anywhere else in China.

I’m now back in Nanning and start back to work on Monday the 7th with a week of meetings and lesson prep before starting classes the following week. It’s been so hot here the last few weeks with the temperature often reaching the mid 90’s with high humidity. Recently I took a cold shower trying to cool off after being outside but the water wasn’t cool enough to cool me down……lol. Even the rats try to stay indoors as I saw a family of them in the nicest restaurant on campus recently. Actually, they live there full time and I often see them there……such is life in China……we all have to get along to have a “harmonious society” as the leaders here like to say!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 3:42 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.