Not Approved by LP

Finally left the rain and Chinese tourist hordes of Lijiang and moved onto Zhondian. A fairly dull bus journey in heavy rain and little in the way of views. The good point however was that the Chinese guy next to me from Beijing had arranged for a 4 x 4 and driver for 3 days and offered to take me around the area, saving a lot of hassle of arranging things individually.

So we jumped out of the bus into the waiting vehicle with a Chinese girl from Fujian making up the group. Even the rain stopped and we had some good views heading into the mountains. It wasn’t until we reached high altitudes, reaching 4300m, that visibility gave way to thick mist. At least the roads were surprisingly good and we were in good spirits snapping away with the cameras.

Finally arrived at a small place just past Deqin at 9pm. I think Meili but looked no more than a few hotels perched on the side of the mountain.
An early 6.30am start to catch the sun rise over snow mountain (Kawa Karpo ). At 6740m it shouldn’t been hard to spot but …..so it was back to bed. Eventually we got up and made a move. The driver struggling in the thick fog whilst we were reduced to comparing photos of the previous day and Lugu lake and Lijiang on a lap top. Then after an hour clouds started to break up and we had some great views, admittedly normally for only seconds at a time, so the poor driver was constantly being hassled to stop but took it well. Then as we went to 3000m the sun came out and we had some good weather, however even that seemed to change at every bend.

Yesterday went to Baishutai, for its famous limestone terraces. Good and some nice scenery on the way but again let down by the weather. Then in the afternon went to Emerald Pagoda Lake, now the Pu Dagauo national park. It wasn’t a place on my agenda and the 190 yuan entrance fee convinced me it was better to stay dry and catch up with sleep in the vehicle. The others enjoyed it and there were no shortage of Chinese tour buses but from the photos it was no great miss.

So lots of photos taken and some good mountain sightseeing. The weather was a pain but in the high mountains even that has a certain desolate appeal. And being with Chinese we certainly never went hungry, I doubt we ever finished half the food ordered but had some good meals.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 12:36 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.