Lijiang/Shangri-la (Part III)

The first thing we did upon leaving the inn was go to a small restaurant for breakfast. We all ate mi-xian. (I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but mi-xian is a popular dish in Yunnan where the noodles are made out of rice and placed in soup, sometimes with other stuff like herbs, mint, pepper, garlic, and different kinds of meat. It’s not bad- it’s actually quite good if it’s not too spicy- but it’s not something I’d eat every day. I need to vary up my meals or else I get bored. But lately, mi-xian has become a rather sentimental dish and whenever I find it I eat it…it reminds me of Kunming and Yunnan.)

This is mi-xian (it’s a bit blurry):

Then after we finished eating, we hopped in the van and the driver took us further into the country to a place where we could ride horses. Now, I absolutely LOVE horses. I told Min Dan so. So I was SOOOOO excited for this opportunity. Riding horses + in China = Awesome

So we get to the place and Min Dan and Wuyi quickly hop on some horses and go to the field where they can free ride...because they know how to ride horses. Mei Nv and I do not know how to ride horses, so we hop on some horses that have ropes attached to them and a guy pulls us along around the entire area. Guy pulling us along = SO Anticlimactic = Not cool

Unfortunately because I myself was on a horse and everyone else was also on a horse, I could not get a good picture of myself riding a horse. So you’ll have to settle for a picture of Mei Nv on a horse.

I took this one while riding the horse…the horse’s head on the right is the horse I’m riding.

Well, as anticlimactic as the dude pulling us along was, I still can say I got to ride a horse in China! And I’m still happy I did it. Win.

Next we go back in the van and we continue driving. I’m not sure where we’re going, but we’re winding down this road that like zig-zags down the side of the mountain we’re on…so it goes one way and then you have to make a sharp turn to go the other way, and so on. It’s alright if you’re the only car driving on it, but we weren’t so you got to be careful. But it was interesting seeing the mountains that I’d only seen on TV and movies and on Google.

But before we headed down the mountain we stopped at this interesting structure. I can’t describe it better than “it looks like a huge pile of rocks that you can walk through,” so I’ll just show you a picture.

When we walked through that doorway, we could look down and see a rather large river that basically was cutting its way through the mountains. I’m looking at it and before I can even consider what it might be, Min Dan tells me that it is the Yangtze River.

I was like, WHOA! THE YANGTZE RIVER! The longest river in Asia! That’s the one I’m always reading about in Chinese history and stuff.

It’s actually the third longest river in the world, the Amazon is the first…which I’ve actually been to, haha! The Yangtze (in Chinese called Chang Jiang…meaning “long river”) as well as the Yellow River have played IMMENSELY HUGE roles in Chinese history, mainly because bodies of water, particularly rivers, have basically been the life force of the biggest ancient civilizations of the world. The Yangtze and Yellow River allowed the Chinese civilization to thrive, the Tigris and the Euphrates allowed the Mesopotamian (now Iraq) civilization to thrive, the Nile allowed the Egyptian civilization to thrive, and many more. Rivers. They’re pretty cool.

Anyway, as I was gawking at the Yangtze (I mean, I didn’t expect to see it during my time in China and the next thing I know there it was sitting right in front of me…it was like boom! here it is!), Min Dan also informs me that the source of the Yangtze River is in fact here in Yunnan Province. Wowwww.

So after a couple minutes of looking at the pretty epic view, we get back in to the van and continue on down the winding road. As I write this I am reminded of J.R.R. Tolkien’s immortal phrase, “The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began…” Those who know my love for epic things will understand this. J

During our drive we get to the bottom of the mountain, where we come to a bridge that leads across the river. As we approached the bridge, Min Dan explains to me that the Yangtze River is the dividing line between Lijiang and Shangri-la. We were currently on the Lijiang side, and across the river we were looking at Shangri-la.

Here’s a picture of us making the cross over the Yangtze:

And here’s another picture I took on the Shangri-la side of the Yangtze (it’s prettier when the picture’s bigger...and actually I just found out if you click on the pictures in one post, they get bigger and turn into a photo album):

And here’s one that gets more of the mountain…observe how the top of the mountain is just chilling out in the middle of the clouds. It’s not every day I see mountains as high as the clouds.

Anyway, so after stopping for lunch and then driving along the Yangtze for a little bit, we reach our next destination, a place called Tiger Leaping Gorge. It is a gorge with some ridiculously huge rapids. I mean, they’re so huge and fast they could take out a neighborhood of houses. The scene was absolutely indescribable, but it’s a good thing they had platforms and railings set up to keep you from getting to close because I’m pretty sure if you so much as touched the rapids with your finger, it would suck you into it, pull you under, and crush you. (Haha, I’m joking of course…but not really. They were intense.)

Here’s a sign that has some of the gorge’s measurements:

And this is me before I head down the millions of stairs into the gorge:

And here are a bunch of the gorge:

On our way back from the gorge, we stopped on the side of the road to buy some honey…well, Min Dan bought some, I was saving my money souvenirs, hehe. It was this really cute area with the boxes of beehives all in a row. I’d never actually seen that in person before, so that was really cool. And the people had a cute little puppy just sitting there watching us, haha. Here are some pics:

Okay well that’s enough for this post. More about the return to Lijiang Old City and what we did there in the next post.