In a short trip to south-western China, Frances, Charlotte, Rocky and I flew to Li Jiang, in the northern part of Yunnan province, close to Tibet, arriving in the afternoon. Rocky had booked us on a tour so everything was arranged and went smoothly to plan.
We booked into the luxurious hotel/villa complex designed in a traditional architectural style. Each villa had 3 levels and a person to prepare breakfast each day for the guests.As we arrived, some of the hotel were carrying out exercises and fire drills – in full dress uniforms – see video below.
Part of the Naxi culture wall mural,
and tourists
Typical scene in the Ancient Town
After a short rest we headed out to see the Ancient Town with our guides Lala and Celine, both Naxis. The Naxi local ‘minority group’ forms the majority of the inhabitants, but there are also a number of other ethnic groups in the area – it has a very rich cultural history.
A giant modern relief sculpture mural at the entry depicts some of the aspects of Naxi culture. The Han is the most numerous ethnic group in China and display most of what we would describe as typical Chinese characteristics.
A yak products store
Genuine hand-woven pashminas
This was my first experience of real tourism in China. Still almost no foreigners, but many Chinese, and absolutely geared towards tourism.
The Ancient Town is world Heritage listed and retains a lot of the original architecture, but all of the shops have been heavily modified to sell all manner of local produce (eg. yak products, teas, woven fabric, pashminas, leather goods) as well as tourist trinkets.
One of the many food stalls
Caterpillars in chrysalis, grasshoppers,
termites? You choose
One of the most interesting events of the afternoon was dinner – what else? This time we ate in a local facility which had many different groups selling a huge variety of foods.
You could have almost anything – baked, steamed, fried or in a soup.
This was the first time that we saw caterpillars (like witchetty grubs), grasshoppers and tiny shrimp on sale – mostly roasted on sticks like kebabs. we settled for something more pedestrian – chicken skewers, fried rice and a delicious stuffed eggplant.
Alleyway and fading light
Fancy a wood-fired baked egg?
It was also the first time we tried candied strawberries and haw fruit on a stick – sold almost everywhere in China when the fruit is in season.
Also it was cold. Night temperatures were below zero and in the daytime reaching about 15C in the sun and less than 10 in the shade. So with the temperature heading downwards quickly, we headed back to the villa complex for warm showers and a good night’s sleep.
Video of hotel staff carrying out exercises and fire drills.
