Journey to Western Yunnan: Lijiang

D6: The Old Town

I had never been to Lijiang before, and had no desire to go—besides the overly commercialized old town, what else was there to remember about Lijiang? But in the end, I went there against my wishes because I needed to catch a train there to Guangtong Town, then transfer back.

I woke up very early and wandered around Shangri-La Old Town with a brother from Dali College, looking for a place to solve breakfast along the way. I’ve been to several old towns—besides slightly different architectural styles, the rest are basically the same: the same bars, the same guesthouses, the same specialty snacks, even the bosses’ accents are the same. After wandering around the old town, we went to the bus station. This brother originally wanted to go straight to Dali because a girl was waiting to meet him. When I bought the last two morning tickets to Lijiang and asked if he wanted to go to Lijiang first then transfer to Dali, he said he’d check for direct tickets first. It turned out there were no tickets to Dali all day, and then no tickets to Lijiang either, so we had to take the afternoon bus to Lijiang first. Along the way I met many people, many times of never seeing them again, never thinking of them again—this brother parted ways forever here.

We departed from Shangri-La at 10 AM. By the time we reached Xiaozhongdian, I somewhat regretted leaving so hastily. On both sides of the road were vast grasslands dotted with unknown red flowers, and yaks grazing leisurely. I also noticed a phenomenon: the most beautiful buildings in Tibetan areas aren’t the Potala Palace or Songzanlin Temple, but the beautiful and magnificent modern Tibetan-style schools.

I arrived in Lijiang at 2:30 PM. After getting off, I followed GPS to the old town to explore. It’s said there’s an old town protection fee, but the old town has many exits and you can enter and exit freely—completely incomprehensible how this rip-off fee is collected through any channel. Anyway, no one stopped me, and as I wandered the streets, I entered the old town.

My first impression of Shangri-La Old Town was Tibetan carved flying beams; Lijiang Old Town’s first impression was white walls, similar to the iconic Lijiang archway style circulating online. Actually, it didn’t feel much different from Dali’s architectural style. Here I found the several girls from Guizhou I had traveled with in Yubeng, and we planned to have dinner together. Unexpectedly, I also ran into the big sister from Shenzhen whose trekking poles I had borrowed when leaving Yubeng. If I hadn’t returned her poles when leaving Yubeng, she would have had to return them to me in Lijiang—haha, the former would be a friendship forged in adversity, the latter a fateful encounter that had to happen.

CCTV’s TV drama channel has recently been airing The Mystery of the Mu Mansion. As I wandered the old town, I arrived at the entrance of Mu Mansion. A crowd of tourists was jostling to take photos—it seemed very popular. I didn’t know much about it, so I followed the tourists and bought a ticket to go inside. Damn! Mu Mansion is so small—basically just faux-antique architecture. Is this thing worth 40 yuan?! The guide said touring Mu Mansion is 30% seeing and 70% listening. Since I mainly came to listen, why not find an internet café and slowly look up Mu Mansion’s history? I came to see the scenery. After a quick walk-through, it was no different from faux-antique buildings in other Chinese cities—I came out in twenty minutes. Anyway, Mu Mansion is a rip-off, just like Deqin’s so-called Shangri-La eco-tourism package ticket—total rip-off!

Lijiang calls itself the capital of romance. I admit it’s indeed a good place for romance, but the premise is you have to go bar-hopping. After sending off the Guiyang and Shenzhen travelers, in Lijiang I only knew myself. I wandered the old town at night—nothing interesting. Finally, I returned to the guesthouse and chatted nonsense with a Kunming couple in the courtyard until 12 o’clock before going to sleep.

D7: Guangtong

Guangtong is at the junction of the Chengdu-Kunming and Kunming-Lijiang railway lines. It’s a small town in Chuxiong Prefecture with a developed logistics and transshipment industry and relatively large urban area, so I always thought it was a county seat. This was my second time transferring here. I also killed time online. The Yunnan Province internet account I registered here two years ago when transferring still worked.

Guangtong isn’t a tourist town. Vegetables and meat are generally self-sufficient, and prices are much cheaper—can’t compare to Deqin at all. At the bus station diagonally opposite, there’s a restaurant where steamed pig’s trotters are only 15 yuan a bowl—tender meat with rich flavor, really impressive.