I think there is a rule of thumb to be followed when purchasing wine. When forced by economic times to buy cheap Chinese wine, remember that if there is no mention of the type of grape on the bottle, then it is most likely ribena laced with antifreeze.
Yesterday we finally left Shaxi. After a quick scramble over the roof to retrieve items of clothing, we headed to catch one of the minibuses that go to Jianchuan, the main town near Shaxi. These don't leave at set times but wait until a minibus is full before leaving so we waited for around 10 minutes as our bus slowly filled. The thing about Yunnan is that the four seasons do not occur throughout the year. October and July and December and March are fairly similar. Instead the seasons come during the day so we left while the field were covered in winter frost to arrive in Jianchuan just as spring started to warm the place. I had been a little worried that we wouldn't get a bus to Lijiang as Spring Festival is approaching. Last week, there were 36 million more passengers than usual using the transport system. However we got seats on the 11:30 and after a breakfast of dumplings and a wait on the bus, which I used to peruse the AIDS poster I could see out the window ("Our enemy is the AIDS virus, AIDS sufferers are still our friends!") we were off. The bus journey was rather memorable as we ended up climbing endlessly up and up through the mountains. In the distance we could see proper jagged, snow covered, behemoths towering in arrogant might. I felt rather small.
On the way up our mountain the driver kept inexplicably stopping for a couple of minutes before restarting. I couldn't work out why. Do buses need a breather when going uphill?
At the top was a wide plateau that would have been nothing spectacular unless you noticed the Edge to one side...
Eventually we arrived in Lijiang. We found the hostel by peering at our map until a random woman walked up to us and said "are you looking for the Garden Inn?" before marching off. Her demeanour did not suggest we should follow at all so it was rather surreal to be asked accurately what we were looking for and then receive no help. We did follow, however, after a glimpse of her back and hey ho arrived at the Inn.
The receptionist filled in my name as "Louise Elizabeth British Citizen"
We headed to the train station to get tickets for Saturday to Kunming which, despite my foreboding, we got. Although not without a bit of hassle as the woman kept asking me what literally means "which number" so after telling her the train number, which annoyed her, I realised she wanted the day we planned to travel. I said Saturday. She had a mini tantrum over how annoying dealing with Laowais is until we realised that the trouble was because she couldn't be arsed herself to work out what date Saturday was, despite having a computer in front of her, so was not satisfied with our answer of what day as she wanted what date. Customer service for you.
We had a wander through Lijiang. Lijiang is 2,400m above sea level and is famous for its old town. The old town is composed of pretty buildings, narrow alleys and little rivers running through. And thousands of Chinese tourists with souvenir shops and pricey restaurants to keep them happy. So my first impressions are that this place is a little annoying. Everything is expensive. Loud music is blaring out. This was added to when we stopped at one of the less expensive places for some tea. I inquired as to how many slices were included in the toast before ordering mango cheesecake. Becka order yak butter with wine or something. The cheesecake was foul and not cheesecake. Becka drank an inch of what turned out to be butter mixed with egg mixed with rather a lot of alcohol. We tried to leave after paying but one of the waitresses got very agitated and jabbered at us about "to se" which we didn't understand. We tried to leave and then one of them rushed up with a plate of toast... which annoyed us even further as we explained, very carefully, that inquiring as to how many slices of toast there were was very different to ordering. The waitress opened her mouth to contradict. Thought about it. And then hurriedly removed the toast. We left.
We retired to an empty cafe and licked our wounds. Then a cat jumped on my lap. We had a rose petal cake thing. Free refills of tea. We felt better.
Then our friends from Shaxi walked by, Stacy and Caroline, and we happily set off on an odyssey to find wine and dinner which resulted in the foul wine but ok food. The guobaorou was WRONG though :(
Today we headed off to Baisha, where Stacy lives. It was an improvement on Lijiang purely because it was a laid back village. We had breakfast, banana pancake yum, and then perused the many shops selling this and that. I bought some hairpins which were probably still far too expensive even after some rather exhaustive haggling! Then we had the nicest dumplings I've ever eaten. I think the cook used different flour to normal as these were lovely and crispy instead of flabby. We had a good natter sat in the sun in a courtyard surrounded by lovingly dilapidated buildings. There is one feature of Baisha I'd better mention which is the Famous Dr. Ho. Dr. Ho appeared in one of Michael Palin's travel programmes apparently and he has lots of newspaper clippings mentioning him posted outside his house. Becka was stuck listening to how great friends he is with Michael Palin while I loyally escaped...
We also went to a Naxi cultural centre. the Naxi are the local minority here and are famed for having a pictographic writing system. In this particular centre, however, was an embroidery school. But not just any embroidery school. I have never seen such skilled sewing in all my life. Apparently there are 52 different types of stitching they use. The pictures were of everthing from a superbly lifelike portrait of a hauntingly sad Tibetan girl (apparently the sister of one of the exiled Lamas) to vibrantly coloured pots and more traditional scenes of birds and blossom. There was an amazing picture of the edge of a horse head caught in the light, with the rest completely black in the shadow. Another of swans dancing, with a blue hue in a dusky twilight. Another of cranes fishing with the effect of water so realistically captured it was hard to believe it was sewn and not painted. The most impressive one was of a bowl of green glasses. This was the last work of the centre's master, her eyesight is now too poor to sew, and it is breathtaking at how the green glass is captured. This is because while students use a whole thread to sew, the master used only one fibre from a thread. By using such impossibly thin thread she could sew glass. It was valued at around £2000.
When I am rich I shall return and buy it.
Then onto Shuhe. Via a minibus with this conversation: "how much to Shuhe?""20""pffft"*walk away**minibus drives after*"10!""That's more like it"
Shuhe is inbetween Lijiang and Baisha and is really a mix of the two. It is dusty and wonky but there are still cafes selling western food. Here and there were men with little, sociopathic horses they were offering rides on. I bought some silver tipped chopsticks for far more than they were worth but still after a good 10 minutes arguing. And it should be noted that it was far less than the asking price and I am programmed to always suspect I have paid too much... I think Shuhe is one of my favourite places so far as it is a good mix of activity and peacefullness. There were lovely clear streams through the town and here and there were green vegetable patches. They have a three well system where the first, and highest, well is used to drink from. The water from this flows into the second which, being less clean, is used to clean vegetables. And then all this flows into the third which is used to wash pots and clothes. Yes, I liked Shuhe.
As we waited for a bus to Lijiang, a dusty car pulled up with some familiar faces. It was the Shaxi hostel owners and their dog! We had thought they were in Dali so it was rather a shock to see them-particularly so randomly. If either of us had been seconds earlier we would have missed each other. Even China is a small place...
I walked to get a potato and corn-on-the-cob on sticks and as I walked back munching on them, through cobbled streets under quintessentially Chinese pointy roofs I thought I had come a long way from Kirby Muxloe.
While in Shuhe, I was stroking one of the horses when an old man suddenly started stroking my hair instead. This led to the rather bizarre sight of a man stroking me stroking the horse... Becka and Stacy had a good cackle at this...
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