Yunnan, China

From a trip that took place early November, 2009:

My last major trip within mainland China was to Yunnan, with a group of ten other students. We organized it on our own with the “help” (but really pain in the rear)of sort of travel agency. For the most part everything went as planned, and the local guides threw in neat side trips that weren’t initially in our itinerary, which turned out for the best.

Our first stop was the town of Dali. It was refreshing to see an area of China that wasn’t dominated by skyscrapers, and instead agrarian and natural. Most of the Dali seemed to be untouched by industrialization and retained a quaint, old school air.

We visited the requisite local market (live roosters, mules, and pottery galore), before taking a boat ride in Erhai lake. Its supposed to be shaped like an ear (thus er hai) and the water was sky blue and calm. We were paddled into the middle of the lake to watch trained osprey plunge into the water and quickly surface with fish in their mouths. Its customary to sing traditional tunes when being rowed, but we thought it would be more fitting to share America’s crème of the crop music with Dali instead… in the form of miley’s Party in the USA via the flimsy speakers of an iPhone.

Our next stop was just west of Erhai Lake, at the foot of the Himalayan mountains. There stood the towering Three Pagodas, constructed in the 800s AD. The structured were built of white mud and brick, and have survived major earthquakes when all other buildings were felled.

We rode horses up into the mountains, not knowing the temperature dropped some 20 degrees and left us freezing, drinking hot coffee and tea and purchasing neon colored raincoats for warmth.

Next stop: Tiger Leaping Gorge, in Lijiang. The canyon is part of the Yangtze river, and at the end of our trek, a huge boulder sat in the middle of the river. Legend has it that a tiger had once leaped from one side of the river to the other. We dared each other to make the jump but thought it wise to not take the risk.

Stopped at a farmer’s co-op, just in time to engage in a little archery, and catch the sunset over a lake.

Spent the night in LiJiang old town, lit up to highlight the beautiful Naxi influenced architecture. Ice-fed streams vein through the city providing some natural background music.

Took a trip to yak meadow park overlooking jade dragon snow mountain. On sunny days, we would have a perfect view of the snow capped peaks… but we were less fortunate and instead were greeted with an empty field cloaked in fog.

the walk to and fro was still rewarding, passing many walkways saturated with wooden prayer cards and the like.

Snapped a few photos by the semi-famous bai shui tai, which normally offers startling clear blue water on a sunny day. We wash our hands three times in the water for luck, health and fortune, though none of the three has really followed me back to the states in black-swan amounts.

Final stop: stone forest in Kunming! Monumental stone formations, reflected in manmade pools and the like. We took the go-cart around the park for photo ops. Good stuff!

enormous pillars. look at how small we are!